Our hens live a long and happy life in small flocks, moving onto fresh range regularly through the year.
We feed the hens on a 100% organic ration mixed with our home grown corn and they live in small flocks in spacious high quality mobile houses.
The houses are moved onto fresh ground after every flock to ensure the hens have loads of really good quality outside space.
We rear our own hens on the farm from 1 day old chicks, so our hens spend their whole life with us and are hopefully, better hens, with less stress, hardier and healthier.
Our hens are 100% organic receiving minimal veterinary input and vaccination.
They are not de-beaked or wing clipped and do not receive any routine medical input, normally no input at all in their life with us.
The hens are routinely checked for salmonella as part of DEFRAs strict requirements and we regularly ‘score’ them to monitor their welfare and condition.
The Soil Association organic standards are the highest quality standards for egg production, differing from and exceeding the EU baseline organic standards in many ways.
We use their standards as our minimum and we try to tailor our systems to exceed were possible, as follows:
- Maximum of 600 hens in a flock. The majority of alternative organic eggs come from 2000+ bird flocks (EU organic max is 3000 hens) and free range eggs from 6000+ bird houses.
- 100% organic corn based feed rations. The feed does not contain any additives or artificial colouring agents, so the colour of the egg yolks is natural and can vary at times.
- Longer or two laying years (very unusual commercially) by allowing the hens to have a natural moult.
- Flocks moved onto fresh pasture range regularly and range management. 500 hens will have a minimum of half an acre of range.
- High quality housing at a maximum stocking density of 6 hens per sq meter compared to 9 hens in a free range shed.
- Half of the house space must be straw and wood-chip bedded scratching areas.
- Minimum of 10 hours sleeping time with free range hens generally only having 4 to 6 hours sleep.
- External ranging area including trees, shelters, toys, sand baths etc..
The health, welfare and quality of life of our hens is our number one priority. Happy hens produce good quality eggs.