Pecking and scratching their way through rolling green paddocks, the chickens on these egg producing farms have some of the most well-stretched legs in Australia.
We had to smile when we spotted a pic from Farmer Brown (aka NSW farmer Hugh Maurice) of his drinking chickens - his hens even have their own .
According to consumer group , the chooks at Farmer Brown’s Pastured Eggs - along with two other Facebooking flocks we spotted, Victoria’s , and South Australia’s - have up to 2500 times more grazing space than the national standard for free range.
These chickens live life on the road, roosting in specially fitted up caravans and regularly moving to fresh pastures. Here's what their idea of farming looks like:
Free range means no boundaries to NSW farmer Hugh Maurice. He has two flocks of hens totaling around 2300 and doesn't like to put limitations on where they can roam. He tells SBS, "Basically the chickens do whatever they want."
"We have fences but they're for sheep and cattle and the chooks walk straight through them, so they roam as they please," Hugh explains, "The other morning I drove down there and they were in five different paddocks so about a kilometre and a half spread on them."
The birds are protected during the day by three maremma sheepdogs who fend off foxes, and at night the pile into mobile caravans to roost.
These caravans are moved every two to four days depending on the weather conditions which Hugh says is "mainly just to get them off their poo and stuff, there's grass everywhere at the moment so they're not overgrazing, we're just putting them into fresh ground."
Under the new standard national definition agreed upon in March, the free range label is given to egg-producing farms where there are no more than 10,000 hens per hectare. At Natasha Harris’ central Victorian farm however, she keeps just four hens per hectare and they enjoy a different view almost every day.
Natasha and her husband Edward try to create a lifestyle for their 400 chickens that closely mimics their natural one.
"They live in a caravan that is moved at least a couple of times a week, preferably every day,” Natasha says.
“What we're all about with our pastured eggs is to try and get our animals to do what they love doing and express themselves naturally to serve the purpose for us as a farmer, and the ecology we're trying to improve and heal by the methods that we use."
Sarah and Liam Brokensha have less than 850 hens on their farm near Eight Mile Creek, south east of Mount Gambier. Originally beef and lamb producers, they only introduced chickens to their property a year ago and have already noticed a significant improvement in the quality of their pastures.
“The chickens naturally fertilise our soil, they follow our other livestock and scratch up the cow manure, eat up all the bugs and naturally sanitise and regenerate our pastures,” Sarah says.
“We’ve only been in operation since September [last year] and now we’re seeing the benefits in our pastures. There are a couple of photos of the paddocks where you can see where the chickens have been and the pastures are a good couple of inches higher, it’s quite exciting!”
Like Natasha, Sarah and Liam’s chickens live in caravans that are moved to fresh ground every three days. “Unless it’s a really windy or rainy day, the chickens spend all their time outside foraging. Once they’re out and about during the day they just go for miles, you see them dotted in the paddocks,” she says.
“The eggs are amazing - they’re creamy and the flavour’s more intense.”
