Why we do what we do at Freeranger Eggs

Sustainable land management When we bought our property on the Bass River at Grantville, we soon realised its importance as part of the only remaining riparian forest on the river. Our vegetation also provided the only link between the Grantville Flora  and Fauna Reserve and the Bass.  Once that was firmly established in our minds  we set about ensuring that production here became not only sustainable but renewable. Self-renewing topsoil that is biologically active is essential for productive agriculture as well as a healthy  environment. It is the over-riding requirement for the health of plants, animals and people. But unfortunately it's not something that's high on the radar of most farmers. Appropriate management of soil biology in agriculture, horticulture, forestry and conservation areas is hard to find and is one of the most neglected  natural resource issues in Australia. Most of our grasslands and croplands are nowhere near as healthy as they should be. They often feature areas of bare ground, sheet and gully erosion, weeds and an almost complete lack of desirable plant species. It's an easy but gullible assumption that removing the weeds and replanting some 'better' species will solve the problems. Decades of experience have demonstrated that this simplistic approach rarely works. The interactions between animals, plants and soil biota remain out of balance because the essential requirement of soil management has not been addressed. The consequent shortfall in ecosystem services, such as nutrient availability, results in costly (and damaging) supplements being added to the  soils.  Landscapes are not degraded because they lack desirable species. The reality is that desirable species will not flourish when landscapes are degraded. The traditional approach to land management has been to replace native vegetation with something that is 'more productive' (using exotic species and unbalanced chemical fertilisers) rather than adopting a multi-level, multispecies approach. There have been cosmetic attempts to make oversimplified ecosystems 'sustainable'. But it is a battle which cannot be won. Until a preventative rather than a curative approach to land management is adopted, agricultural ‘problems’ such as soil compaction, low fertility, weeds, pests and diseases, salinity etc, will continue indefinitely. Why spend buckets of money every year trying to change the soil balance or structure to meet the needs of exotic plant species (such as rye grass and clover) when there are perfectly adequate native species (such as miocrolaena stipoides) which thrive in low ph soils and out-perform the exotics in dry years. Sustainable poultry management Our free range hens spend as much time as they like outdoors grazing on pasture and doing what they do naturally – scratch around for bugs and worms. There is no need for them to be locked up as birds in each flock are protected from predators 24 hours a day by their Maremma guard dogs. · Our feed (which supplements what our hens find in their paddocks) is from a certified feed mill which uses precise nutritional information to formulate a diet especially for us which ensures a superior, tasty, natural egg. ·The diet containing a balanced selection of grains with no colouring additives. Most egg producers add manufactured colouring agents to the hen's feed to enhance yolk colour. In natural conditions, there is no need for these additives, it's simply cheaper for these farms to buy a standard feed which includes colouring. Yolk colour should vary throughout the year depending on the amount of green feed which is available- if it doesn't, it's almost certain that colouring additives are being used. · The supplementary vegetarian diet we use is high in specific nutrients: OMEGA 3, Vitamin E, Folate. The paddocks used by our hens contain a range of fodder plants, including native grasses such as Microlaena Stipoides, shrubs such as Kangaroo Apple and we encourage plant species like Purslane. Some strange people regard Purslane as a weed. But Purslane contains more Omega 3 fatty acids than any other leafy plant. It has 0.01 mg/g of eicosapentaenoicacid (EPA).We have no lighting in sheds so the hens can maintain their natural life rhythms. On farms where lights are installed in sheds, the hens are tricked into thinking its still daylight so they keep eating on laying eggs. Egg production on real free range farms drops in winter when daylight hours are reduced. For more details, go to our website: http://www.freeranger.com.au/