Farm tour by Conservationists

Members of the South Gippsland Conservation toured the Freeranger farm on Sunday to see how we do things to achieve low environmental impact - as well as producing top eggs!
We had a discussuion about the mobile sheds, flocks of around 200 hens - each protected by a Maremma guard dog, no off-site nutrient inputs etc and then headed down to the Bass River to look at the vegetation.
This is part of the only remaining riparian forest left on the Bass.
On the way down we could see the vegetation on adjoining land, which had been identified as habitat for the endangered Giant Gippsland Earthworm. It has now been trashed by the sand extraction company which owns the land by running a herd of massive Simmental catle in the bush!
We looked as water flows in the creek which rises on the sand company land and flows through our property to the Bass. In the height of summer (particularly during drought periods) our creek is one of the only permanent contributers to the river flow. That will almost certainly end when sand extraction starts.