Eibhlín Clerkin: hatching a bright plan

“O stony grey soil of Monaghan,

The laugh from my love you thieved;

You took the gay child of my passion

And gave me your clod-conceived”

When some people think of farming in Monaghan they immediately think of Patrick Kavanagh’s poem Stony Grey Soil. Patrick Kavanagh didn’t paint a great picture of farming in Monaghan. The poet probably looked upon farming as a hindrance rather than a positive.

When I think of Monaghan I think of poultry, mushroom and dairy farms. It’s funny how we all have different views of different places. Monaghan is home to about 4,500 farmers, 30,000 dairy cows, 33,000 suckler cows and a massive 5.3m poultry – 80,000 of which find their home on the Clerkin family farm just outside Scotstown in north Monaghan.

The land in Monaghan is similar to Cavan and the other border counties. Clay soils dominate and that, along with hills and hollows, makes intensive grassland farming difficult.

Rather than lament about it like Patrick Kavanagh, this generation of Monaghan farmers have chosen to diversify their farms, with many having built hen or chicken houses in the last 50 years.

One of those diversifying families is the Clerkin family. While there is a substantial beef enterprise on the farm, both Eibhlín and her father Gerard both admit that poultry is their day job, while the cattle takes second place in terms of both time and profit.

Bright future

Eibhlín is 18 years old and just finished her first year at Dundalk Institure of Technology where she is studying agriculture.

“I’m really enjoying the course. There is a lot of science and core subjects, but I guess that gives you a good grounding going forward,” she says.

Agriculture was always in the cards for Eibhlín, having grown up helping her father from an early age.

“I like the poultry. Everything is structured so you know what you’re doing every day.”

She takes us through what happens on the farm during their poultry cycle.

“Before we get the chickens at at one day old, we would have the shed completely washed out and dry. We bed the shed with shavings and place some feed on rolls of paper for the first few days to encourage the chickens to eat.”

For the few days the chickens are fed a starter pellet, they then move on to a grower pellet and then a finisher pellet. Heat is very important for the young chickens to stay warm and heathy, so the shed is temperature regulated. For the first few days the shed is heated to 37oC for the first day and reduces by 0.5 degrees C/day after that.

“We have 40,000 chickens in one shed and 20,000 each in two other sheds. We check the sheds in the morning, evening and last thing at night.

“You are checking for any sick birds, making sure that water drinkers aren’t leaking and that feeders and augers are all working correctly,” she explains.

Weights are also monitored on a daily basis, with an automatic scale in the shed taking chicken weights and allowing the Clerkins to chart progress on a daily basis. It’s a short turn around, so any problems need to be caught early to avoid losing weight gain. The broiler chicken is an unbelievably efficient animal at converting feed to meat, with the Clerkins able to produce 1kg of chicken meat from 1.47kg of feed.

The chickens are finished at about 2.5kg liveweight and are processed in Carton poultry Shercock in Co Cavan. A lot of their chickens are supplied to the Musgrave group – SuperValu and Centra.

Full cycle

It takes about 50 days for a full cycle when you take in cleaning and washing the sheds, so that means there are about six batches in a year going through each shed or just under 500,000 birds from the Clerkin farm.

Biosecurity is number one on the farm and on entering the shed I was made change into two sets of plastic shoe covers along with a disposable boiler suit.

“We don’t take any chances with visitors and follow the correct protocols in everything that we do. The risk is just too high, especially in recent times with the likes of bird flu circulating,” says Eibhlín.

The farm is also home to 95 store bullocks. The cattle are purchased in local marts like Clones, Ballybay, Dowra and Drumshanbo. Cattle are purchased in the spring at around 450-520kg, with the aim of getting them to 700kg liveweight by the autumn time.

“We are targeting U- or R-grade carcasses at around 420-430kg. We are trying to get most of the weight gain from grass but we do go in and feed some meal (4-5kg/head/day) at the end of the finishing period to help get fat cover.”

The Clerkins like to make good-quality silage and try to reseed five to 10 acres of the farm every year. Eibhlín has a bit of a soft spot for machinery and the cattle part of the farm is where she gets to indulge in her love of machinery. Topping, drawing bales, mowing grass and spreading slurry are all Eibhlín’s jobs on the farm. A new handling unit and crush area is currently being planned on the farm.

“When you have a bunch of 700kg bullocks coming in to be handled you need a good unit, so that’s the next job on our list,” says Eibhlín.

If she’s not topping or checking chickens, Eibhlín can be found lining out for Scotstown GAA football team.

Sometimes in this job you get to meet young people who you just know are going to come into the industry and be great ambassadors for farming and everything good about agriculture.

Unlike Patrick Kavanagh, Eibhlín is unbelievably positive about farming in Monaghan and no doubt this won’t be the last time you’ll be reading about this young woman.