Traditional farming methods
At Freeranger Eggs, we operate as a traditional mixed farm with sheep and cattle as well as our free range hens.
Our chickens are kept in small flocks of 200 – 300 birds with separate paddocks, mobile roosting sheds and laying boxes filled with wood shavings. None of our processes is automated.
Eggs are collected by hand several times each day and taken to the grading room where they are candled (passed over a light to check for imperfections) graded for size and then packed in cartons or on trays ready for delivery.
They are usually in the cool room within an hour or so of being laid to guarantee top quality. Our production, grading, packing and storage process are detailed in our HACCP-based Food Safety and Quality Assurance Program.
Each flock has several feeding bins and watering points which are checked at least twice a day to ensure that feed and water are constantly available for our hens.
The feed we use is a mash of grains containing no meat meal and no colouring additives, mixed to our specifications by a Feedsafe certified feed mill. On most egg farms the protein content of processed feeds is often derived from dead chickens – and we don't think that's a good idea!
And colouring additives in feed are also an industry standard, to maintain yolk colour. Variations in yolk colour is one way for customers to be sure that the eggs they are buying really are free range. The yolks will always vary in colour depending on what the hens have been eating and the time year. So if the colour is always a bright, orange colour, it's almost certain that the hens have been fed additives. Some additives are claimed to be 'natural' but what that means is they are manufactured and processed in a laboratory from 'natural' ingredients like capsicum or marigold which generate allergic reactions in some people. Most of the additives are synthetic.
Our mobile sheds are moved around their paddocks on a weekly cycle to ensure that grass cover is maintained and that the sheds are not surrounded by a sea of mud.
If the areas around sheds are dirty, it's likely that mud on the feet of the hens will transfer to the nesting area and will
contaminate the eggs. With proper management and clean nest boxes, eggs should not be dirty. At Freeranger Eggs there is no need for eggs to be washed – any slight marks on the shells are removed by a light buffing with an abrasive pad.
Washing eggs removes a natural bloom on the surface of the egg and can increase the entry of bacteria into the eggs unless
correct washing temperatures and sanitising solutions are maintained.
Our hens have 24 hour access to pasture if they wish, and at night, some do sleep outside in the grass or in trees or bushes – protected from predators by their guardian dogs.
We deliver our eggs to retail outlets, restaurants and direct to home delivery customers as well as attending Farmers'
Markets in our region.
Currently our markets are at Coal Creek in Korumburra, Inverloch and Churchill Island. Our eggs never hang around very long. They are usually delivered within a day or two of being laid. But, in any case, we have a strict policy that no eggs will be sold by us if they are more than a week old even though eggs which are stored correctly have a shelf life of at least four weeks.
CARBON FOOTPRINT
At Freeranger Eggs, we limit the farm's carbon footprint by imposing a food miles policy for deliveries, using recycled materials and equipment whenever we can, using solar power and mechanical processes - such as collecting eggs by
hand and hand cultivation of the farm vegetable garden - as well as an effective waste reduction programme.
As a result, the farm generates only about 60 tonnes of CO2 each year.
But we are better than carbon neutral, we are carbon positive. Our average organic matter in soil tests was 4.1 per cent in 2004, in 2006 it was 6.0 per cent, and in 2009 it was 7.9 per cent. Calculations based on 2-inch deep samples, show that over five years we have sequestered about 14 tons of CO2 per acre or four tonnes of carbon per acre on the grasslands on our property.
We apply no chemical fertilisers, herbicides, or pesticides on our land and we believe this policy increases the biological life in the soil and increases the rate of carbon sequestration. All manure is spread on the pastures and in our vegetable garden, minimising methane emissions. We practice rotational grazing on our pastures which has a variable effect with each rotation – taking advantage of photosynthesis to pull CO2 into the plants and then into the roots from where it transfers to the soil.
In addition, over that five year period at least another 5 tonnes of CO2 per acre has been sequestered by the regular growth and replacement of Kangaroo Apples in our main paddocks.
As we have protected native vegetation on approximately 100 acres of the property, regeneration over the five year period has sequestered a further 5 tonnes of CO2 per acre.
This brings a grand total of 1500 tonnes of CO2 sequestered on our property over the five years from 2004 to 2009 – an average rate of 300 tonnes per year compared with the farm's carbon output of around 60 tonnes.
How's that for being carbon positive! A net carbon benefit of 240 tonnes of CO2 per year and no-one has paid us a dollar for doing it.
Our chickens are kept in small flocks of 200 – 300 birds with separate paddocks, mobile roosting sheds and laying boxes filled with wood shavings. None of our processes is automated.
Eggs are collected by hand several times each day and taken to the grading room where they are candled (passed over a light to check for imperfections) graded for size and then packed in cartons or on trays ready for delivery.
They are usually in the cool room within an hour or so of being laid to guarantee top quality. Our production, grading, packing and storage process are detailed in our HACCP-based Food Safety and Quality Assurance Program.
Each flock has several feeding bins and watering points which are checked at least twice a day to ensure that feed and water are constantly available for our hens.
The feed we use is a mash of grains containing no meat meal and no colouring additives, mixed to our specifications by a Feedsafe certified feed mill. On most egg farms the protein content of processed feeds is often derived from dead chickens – and we don't think that's a good idea!
And colouring additives in feed are also an industry standard, to maintain yolk colour. Variations in yolk colour is one way for customers to be sure that the eggs they are buying really are free range. The yolks will always vary in colour depending on what the hens have been eating and the time year. So if the colour is always a bright, orange colour, it's almost certain that the hens have been fed additives. Some additives are claimed to be 'natural' but what that means is they are manufactured and processed in a laboratory from 'natural' ingredients like capsicum or marigold which generate allergic reactions in some people. Most of the additives are synthetic.
Our mobile sheds are moved around their paddocks on a weekly cycle to ensure that grass cover is maintained and that the sheds are not surrounded by a sea of mud.
If the areas around sheds are dirty, it's likely that mud on the feet of the hens will transfer to the nesting area and will
contaminate the eggs. With proper management and clean nest boxes, eggs should not be dirty. At Freeranger Eggs there is no need for eggs to be washed – any slight marks on the shells are removed by a light buffing with an abrasive pad.
Washing eggs removes a natural bloom on the surface of the egg and can increase the entry of bacteria into the eggs unless
correct washing temperatures and sanitising solutions are maintained.
Our hens have 24 hour access to pasture if they wish, and at night, some do sleep outside in the grass or in trees or bushes – protected from predators by their guardian dogs.
We deliver our eggs to retail outlets, restaurants and direct to home delivery customers as well as attending Farmers'
Markets in our region.
Currently our markets are at Coal Creek in Korumburra, Inverloch and Churchill Island. Our eggs never hang around very long. They are usually delivered within a day or two of being laid. But, in any case, we have a strict policy that no eggs will be sold by us if they are more than a week old even though eggs which are stored correctly have a shelf life of at least four weeks.
CARBON FOOTPRINT
At Freeranger Eggs, we limit the farm's carbon footprint by imposing a food miles policy for deliveries, using recycled materials and equipment whenever we can, using solar power and mechanical processes - such as collecting eggs by
hand and hand cultivation of the farm vegetable garden - as well as an effective waste reduction programme.
As a result, the farm generates only about 60 tonnes of CO2 each year.
But we are better than carbon neutral, we are carbon positive. Our average organic matter in soil tests was 4.1 per cent in 2004, in 2006 it was 6.0 per cent, and in 2009 it was 7.9 per cent. Calculations based on 2-inch deep samples, show that over five years we have sequestered about 14 tons of CO2 per acre or four tonnes of carbon per acre on the grasslands on our property.
We apply no chemical fertilisers, herbicides, or pesticides on our land and we believe this policy increases the biological life in the soil and increases the rate of carbon sequestration. All manure is spread on the pastures and in our vegetable garden, minimising methane emissions. We practice rotational grazing on our pastures which has a variable effect with each rotation – taking advantage of photosynthesis to pull CO2 into the plants and then into the roots from where it transfers to the soil.
In addition, over that five year period at least another 5 tonnes of CO2 per acre has been sequestered by the regular growth and replacement of Kangaroo Apples in our main paddocks.
As we have protected native vegetation on approximately 100 acres of the property, regeneration over the five year period has sequestered a further 5 tonnes of CO2 per acre.
This brings a grand total of 1500 tonnes of CO2 sequestered on our property over the five years from 2004 to 2009 – an average rate of 300 tonnes per year compared with the farm's carbon output of around 60 tonnes.
How's that for being carbon positive! A net carbon benefit of 240 tonnes of CO2 per year and no-one has paid us a dollar for doing it.
Checking on yolk colour is a simple process
Using a DSM Yolk Colour Fan to check egg yolk colour.
It's easy to keep a check on yolk colour to see if the hens are getting enough green feed to maintain yolk colour. The easy way, which is used by most egg farmers in Australia (and around the world for that matter) is to include colouring additives in the chook food.
We don't do that, so the colour of yolks in the eggs laid on our farm does vary depending on the time of year and the availability of green feed.
With mobile sheds we are able to maintain pasture cover virtually all year, but in the middle of a drought, when conditions are very dry or there are different reasons for a lack of grass or other vegetation, we make sure that lucerne and green leafy matter is available for the hens.
Checking the yolk colour is simply a matter of breaking samples of eggs in each batch and using a DSM Yolk Colour Fan to see which number is closest to the egg colour. The industry suggests that a colour of around 10 is ideal - lower numbers are paler and higher numbers are more orange.
