Free Range?

Free Range Eggs

An article in the Sydney Morning Herald a few days ago got me thinking. I don't actually read the newspaper or watch the news on TV. I call it the bad news. I'll never forget an interview I heard once with a psychologist who was not surprised at the the number of people who struggle through their day having been woken by their clock radio telling them all the bad things that are happening in the world.

Wow I can see how people can digress in this blog thing.

What are Free Range Eggs?

I should have the answers. Some of the facts are relatively simple:

Certified Organic eggs are always free range. Something that I find people still don't understand. There are 7 different certifiers and logos in Australia.

Free Range Farmers Association , FREPA , Humane Choice, and others have strict regulations limiting numbers between 750 to 1500 hens per hectare. Check the Sustainable Table's site for a good comparison table.

Stocking rate is important but doesn't actually take into account grazing management.

Certified Organic producers are independently audited and inspected every year. As for the others, it's not so clear.

Eggs that say Free Range but don't have any Accreditation Logo could be anything.

But even these facts aren't that simple to find, or to understand, and I'll admit I might not even have the facts all right, and I am an egg farmer.

No wonder the consumers are bewildered and choice has made a super complaint (great name) about the situation.

Understandably producers are scrambling to identify themselves, with new labels such as Pasture Ranged Organic, and Beyond Organic. But I'm not sure if this helps or just adds to the confusion. I mean what exactly is beyond organic anyway?

If you're waiting for my wise conclusion you might have to wait till I'm older and more cynical because as I heard Tim Minchin say recently to his old Uni;

"A famous bon mot asserts that opinions are like arse-holes, in that everyone has one. There is great wisdom in this… but I would add that opinions differ significantly from arse-holes, in that yours should be constantly and thoroughly examined.

We must think critically, and not just about the ideas of others.
Be hard on your beliefs. Take them out onto the verandah and beat them with a cricket bat.
Be intellectually rigorous. Identify your biases, your prejudices, your privilege."

I think these may be some of the wisest words I've heard in a while, and what this means to me is that I don't have the answers, I'm still trying to figure it all out.

I could tell you that the best thing to do would be to get to know you're local farmer, shop at farmers markets, do you're research, even visit the farms you buy from, and these things probably will help you make an informed choice.

Or I could say that you should raise your own chickens and that is the ultimate way to know where you're eggs come from.

BUT I don't believe I should tell you to do anything. Do what you want. If it's important to you you will try, like me, to figure it out for yourself and not be told what is best for you.

Well what a rant. When you sit down and start writing like this it can certainly open up a can of worms, but as the earth would not exist without worms, maybe that's a good thing.

Cheers,

Farmer Bren

moving the chooks along

This Friday the Blackwood flock of chickens, above, will leave our farm and make their home on another organic farm a couple of hours away.

I'm guessing that apart from the drive, the Blackwoods wont notice much of a difference between their old and their new homes at all. They'll travel along as usual dust bathing, eating, drinking, scratching for bugs, laying eggs, hanging out with their hen buddies and when dark comes, they'll even go to roost in the same houses they have since they came to live with us a year ago when they were one day old.

Our lives on the other hand will be very different indeed. 

The Blackwoods are the last flock to leave our farm and for the first time in years we will be down from 2,000 chooks to just 200. From 10 Maremma dogs to two. From two wonderful farmer boys to none.

This Friday marks the next stage in our organic farming adventure.

We're excited (and a little bit scared), we're happy (and a little bit sad), but we're really ready.

Hopefully our extra time will be spent trying to find a bit more of a self sufficient balance. Making, growing and doing more, and buying less. Hopefully scaling down the business will mean we'll have more time for other plans. And hopefully someday soon, the places we deliver to will stop calling us the egg man and lady.

So it is with much happiness for them and for ourselves that we farewell the Blackwoods.

Stay tuned for the next adventures.

xx

PS We have a pallet load of poultry netting, as seen above, arriving from England any day now. Available for sale mid October. Please watch this space for details if you are interested.

Chook love art.

Produced, directed, photographed, fed and tended to by Farmer Pierre.

Roosters?

I've been thinking a bit about keeping roosters lately. To keep or not to keep, that is the question.

We have two flocks of chooks at the moment; the flock of chooks that came to us at one day old and had a couple of roosters in amongst all the hens, and a flock that we bought at point of lay with no roosters at all.

The reason I've been thinking about them is because after a few rooster attacks on me and the girls while gathering eggs, we are all a bit afraid of visiting that flock. I'm sure they are only protecting their girls but gosh it hurts and I have some scars to prove it.

But one of the most important things to us at Daylesford Organics is biodiversity and we don't believe you can be bio diverse if you have 1000 female of a species and no males.

Also, we feel that it is our responsibility to provide a good life for our hens. A life that is as close to their natural life as we can facilitate whilst protecting them from predators and the elements. This means keeping roosters.

The flock with the roosters appear calmer than the one without and if you watch them carefully, you'll see the roosters calling to the hens to alert them to something to eat or to a threat.

And I guess what's a farm without the early morning crow of the rooster?

Even if it means always maintaining a supply of ear plugs when they are up near the house over winter.

Its a hard one, but we are lucky enough that none of the boys seem to mind visiting the rooster flock to feed them, move them along or to collect the eggs, so we don't have to make any difficult decisions at the moment.

But I do believe that keeping roosters is probably the difference between a free range organic egg farm where the chooks have a lifestyle and an egg factory.

But its interesting to think and talk about. To consider from all angles and to make our minds up and then change them again. After five years in the egg business, we are still learning every day.

Nick & Willow.

Allow me to introduce you to the two newest members of the Daylesford Organics team.

Meet Nick.

And Willow.

Nick and Willow join our other two maremmas Bingo and Banjo.

Our maremmas live with the flocks of chooks and protect them from foxes. They do a fabulous job and to date, we have never lost a chook to a fox on their guard.

Hopefully at some stage in the near future Nick and Willow might be the parents of some baby, puppy maremmas. We'll keep you posted.

We are pretty excited to have them here, doing their fantastic and important work. Its day one and they are already settling in beautifully and taking their job very seriously.

We hope you guys are having a great weekend.

Oh and if you are looking for our eggs in Melbourne this weekend you can buy them at Organic Wholefoods in Smith Street Fitzroy, at the Ceres shop or from Ceres Food Connect.

Our cover boys.

Look at those gorgeous boys on the cover of this week's The Weekly Times.

I know you might think I'm biased, but it really demonstrates their special relationship perfectly. Look at the way Bingo has his leg on Bren's leg and the way they are staring into each others' eyes. Love it!

This morning when we were driving out to take the girls to school, one of the chook fences was down and Bingo was patrolling the border making sure none of his precious chickens escaped. One of the girls joked that the chooks wanted to head into town to buy the paper that they too were on the cover of.

This is what the cover looks like and no, the 'Mutton madness' has nothing to do with us. There is another photo and article on page four but the real, full length article will be in next week's issue.

Who would have thought that Victoria's mainstream rural paper, 'The voice of the country since 1869' would put a half page photo of an organic farmer on its cover? Good for you for moving with the times Weekly Times.

I made him pose for this photo when we went to buy the paper this morning, but I wish I'd also taken one of the excited newsagent staff reading their copies and telling us what a great photo they thought it was.

Last week's The Weekly Times also had this photo of Bren and Joel Salatin accompanying an article about Joel's visit to Daylesford.

And I just found this photo on their website taken at last Saturday's Show Grounds Farmers' Market.

Phew, what a great week for Daylesford Organics in the news. The scrap book is getting fatter. And all of this without paying a publicist, yay!

I hope you are having a great week out there.

Henny Penny.

We are into the second week of winter and it is cold and wet in this part of the world. According to the weather station it is currently 4.2C outside. Brrrrrrrrrr.

This is the time of the year when all our flocks of chooks get moved to higher ground or to areas where they can get inside the hothouses.

We've been taking so many photos of the chookies lately trying to get a great one for our new egg carton labels that are being designed at the moment. If I didn't know any better I'd think they were posing.

Aren't they gorgeous!

Our chooks are laying like crazy at the moment. Every chance we get we are heading to the egg room to roll a few more through the sorting/weighing machine.

The boys are getting through quite a few of them at lunchtime every day but we still have a cool room full.

We'll be at Collingwood Childrens' Farm Farmers' Market this Saturday from 8am til 1pm with dozens and dozens of our free range, organic eggs, why don't you come by and say hi and get some for yourself?

Hope to see you then.

ps. Happy Birthday Roscoe! XX

Walking The Talk.

Are you interested to hear and see what goes on behind the scenes on an award winning organic farm?

Would you like to hear Daylesford Organics' Farmer Bren talk about his beloved chooks, heirloom vegies, organics, fruit trees, compost, soil and more?

As part of the Daylesford Macedon Produce Harvest Week, we will be holding two farm tours.

Date: Saturday 22 and Saturday 29th May.

Time: 2 - 4pm.

Place: Daylesford Organics. 19 Foxs Lane Muskvale.

Cost: $20per person, 15yrs and under free.

Booking: Email info@daylesfordorganics.com

Hopefully: See you then.

Chasing chooks.

It was a perfect Autumn evening for a stroll.

And then a chicken flew over the fence and made a run for it.

And then we made a run for that chicken.

Almost got her.

Finally she was caught.

And then she was examined,

cuddled,

and sung to.

What a lovely evening for chasing chooks.

Free Range Chooks.

My Grandfather often tells us that when he dies he wants to come back as one of our chooks. He thinks they have the best life and I have to say, I agree.

At this time of the year they are moved from paddock to paddock following after the winter crop harvests and through the green manure crops, eating the scraps, scratching up the soil and fertilizing the ground.

By the way, there is a lovely article in today's The Age newspaper's Epicure supplement about Alla Wolf - Taska and the Lake House's 25th anniversary. Bren gets a lovely mention in it too. Check it out here.