We have lost the will to fight, says egg company
CASTEL Farm Eggs will close by September 2024, its owners have pledged, saying they ‘no longer have the fight’ to continue running it.
Emma and Steve Brooks have owned the company, the island’s only commercial egg farm, since 2008. It produces about 15,000 eggs every day.
But the stress of an ongoing Royal Court case being pursued by Environmental Health in relation to chicken excrement leading to a plague of flies in St Andrew’s has proved too much for the owners.
Mrs Brooks said that when the business started 72 years ago, there were only two houses in close proximity to the farm.
‘Over the years more and more houses have been built around our site, which has made it difficult for us to operate as inevitably, on a working farm with manure, you are always going to get flies,’ she said.
The court papers detail how complaints about odour and flies emanating from the site had been made to Environmental Health since 2011, with 34 separate complaints between May and September last year.
The civil case has been adjourned until 21 July.
Mrs Brooks said that the farm was operating in accordance with both UK and Guernsey farming standards.
‘We have several action points around the farm for dealing with flies. We use red top fly traps and we treat the hen houses with fly repellent. We do keep things clean and tidy.
‘Similar working farms to ours in the UK don’t have any residents living nearby so don’t face the same challenges as we do.
‘Our eggs are fit for consumption, they are a beautiful product, and will be in shops for as long as we are still here.’
Mrs Brooks said that the business was essentially being forced to close as it was unable to comply with an abatement order served on it in December, which required it to achieve a moisture level of less than 40% in its buildings.
‘To deal with the problem we would need to remove the excrement, which would mean culling all of our chickens. It would put us out of business anyway.’
The company has about 12,000 chickens on its site, all of which it said will be culled and disposed of in the States incinerator over the next 15 months.
The business intends to cull 4,000 of the birds in September, a further 4,000 in March or April next year, and the final 4,000 birds will be culled in September next year.
The business employs three staff.
