
Pasture Free Range Eggs
With only 400 hens per hectare, we’re proud to say that our eggs are truly free range.
Our Eggs
When we started our egg journey, we knew we wanted to produce the best tasting eggs while still treating our hens with respect and care.
That’s why our stocking density is so low, at only 400 hens per hectare.
We take great pride in making sure that our girls have access to green pastures every day and are truly Free Range. That is, we don’t house our girls in big barns, but in portable chook trailers that can be moved around the pasture to give them access to new grass.
The health and welfare of our flock is really important to us and we try to treat the hens as they would be in the wild. Chickens are a foraging animal – they’re not supposed to live in cages and in a barn. They need space to roam, trees and grass and that’s what we try to do.
The chook trailers provide a safe space for them to roost at night and lay their eggs during the day. Our paddocks have lots of shade, multiple feeders for their grain, big water tanks for them to drink, and places where they can scratch and dig for their dust baths.
We operate under a ‘Regenerative Farming’ philosophy, one that has us farming in a way that doesn’t harm fragile water and soil ecosystems and also looks after the livestock that help make us money. We believe farming this way is healthier for people, the land and the environment.
We hope that you can taste the difference in our eggs!
Our Chook Trailers
Each batch of our girls has a chicken trailer where they sleep at night and lay their eggs. These trailers can house up to XXX hens and have laying boxes in the center of the trailer, where the hens go during the day to lay their eggs.
Currently, we have four trailers – the Henrietta, the Henterprise, the Hendora, and the XXXXX.
Every morning, at around 9:30am, our farmhand Josh takes our golf cart around to each of the trailers and collects the eggs. At the same time, he’ll load up our specially grown fodder and put it in the paddocks for the girls to eat.
What We Feed Our Hens
Every day our hens get fed a special mix of grain from our local farm supplier, barley fodder we grow for them, and at least 10 hours of foraging time in their paddocks.
What’s barley fodder?
Barley fodder is something we grow for our girls in our hydroponic system and feed them every day.
It’s important for hens to forage in the pasture so they can get fresh green pick (green grass/pasture). If they don’t get this green pick, the yolk of the eggs will be very pale and it can affect the taste as well.
We discovered this one year when we had a very dry winter and much of the green grass in our paddocks was gone. We really didn’t like not having this green grass for our girls and we knew we didn’t want to go down the route many commercial egg producers do and add a colourant to the grain to give our eggs that nice, orangey yellow colour.
So instead, we invested in our fodder machine, the Agritom!
With the Agritom, we can grow lush, green fodder year round, even when it’s dry during the winter. It’s a hydroponic system with 7 levels of growing space and 8 trays of seed per level. One level is equivalent to one day’s worth of fodder for our girls and in total, we produce around 500kg of fodder every single week.
And what’s more, in our fodder, the protein count is around 18-19%. This matters because for a chicken to lay and egg, the hen needs at least 17-19% protein.
The Agritom only uses 3000L of water per week, which makes it great for us during the winter months when it’s drier.
How much foraging do your hens do?
Our hens are let out of their chicken trailers when the sun comes up and will often put themselves away as soon as the sun sets. This means during winter our girls get at least 10 hours of foraging time, while in the summer they can be foraging for up to 13 hours!
In each of our pastures, we have shady trees and lots of green grass for them to scratch and dig through.
What grain do you feed them?
The grain we feed them is a special mixture from Norco. It contains no added yolk colourants.
We prioritise protein in our grain, to give our girls as many sources of it as possible.
Cleaning, Sorting & Packing the Eggs
Once the eggs have been collected, they’re brought back to the main processing building where our egg washing machine and cold rooms are located.
From there, the eggs are washed in our special egg washing machine. The eggs are generally pretty clean to begin with because they are laid in the chook trailers, but the machine helps ensure that any leftover dirt is cleaned off for health and safety reasons.
After the eggs are clean, we do a process called ‘Candling’. This is where we set the egg over a little light, or a candle, and check for any cracks in the shell. If an egg is cracked, we set it aside to eat ourselves or feed it to our dogs.
We take great pride in making sure that our eggs reach our customers in one piece!
At the same time, we weigh each of the eggs and depending on how big it is, we sort it into different categories.
Any eggs between 50-60g are our smallest and these eggs go into our 600g cartons, eggs between 61 and 71g are our medium sized eggs and go into our 700g cartons, and the largest eggs, those over 72g go in our 800g cartons.
Maureen acts as quality control and under her, all of our cartons are actually heavier than the stated weight!
Once the eggs have been washed, candled, and sorted, the only thing left is to pack them. And once they’re packed, they’re stamped with a best before date and the day that they were laid. We do this so that our customers know they’re getting the freshest farm eggs possible.
If you buy our eggs from us at the West End Markets or at any of our suppliers, chances are you’re eating eggs that were laid that same week! Doesn’t get much fresher than that!