New flock 95% lay rate

Our latest flock of Isa Browns is performing well with a 95% lay rate. It's allowing us to keep up with orders from regular customers. So far the pasture is holding up and providing good feed.

New law in WA will trash Australia's slack national standard for freerange eggs.

The long awaited Free Range Eggs Labelling Bill in Western Australia may become law on Tuesday (Oct 15) when it hits the WA Legislative Council. If it is passed into law, it will effectively trash the national “free range’ standard adopted by politicians under pressure from corporate producers and supermarket giants. The purpose of the Bill is:" to define and regulate the labelling and sale of free range eggs to ensure that only eggs produced in free range conditions can be labelled free range eggs in Western Australia." Key elements include regular access to an outdoor range area and a maximum stocking density of 1500 hens per ha. The Government of the Australian Capital Territory has already mandated that free range stocking density must be no more than 1500 hens per hectare instead of the 10,000 allowed under the national standard.

disappointing to cancel webinars on free range farming

It was disappointing that we were unable to run our webinar on setting up free range farms yesterday (World Egg Day). The funds needed to prepare graphics and other elements of the presentation simply were not available as our crowdfunding appeal didn't work. It would cost $10,000 to prepare a series of webinars to professional standards and on our own, we didn't have the resources to finance the program.

No lights in our sheds

As the weather warms up, our hens are heading into maximum production. We do not use lights in our sheds to force the hens to continue laying during the shorter daylight hours of winter. Unlike virtually all other egg producers, we prefer to allow the normal rythms of life and allow the hens to rest and recover from the stress of laying the maximum number of eggs they achieve during the year. Rather than force maximum production, we let egg laying naturally follow the seasons and deal with an egg shortage for a few weeks. It means we can’t supply all our regular customers during the time of shortage, but we have healthy, productive hens for the rest of the year.