Product: Eggs
What: Full-flavoured, cruelty-free, organic, free-range eggs with beautifully firm whites, perfect for baking and breakfast, grown by a farmer who had her first flock of chooks at eight years old.
Where: Clarkefield, Macedon Ranges Shire, Wurundjeri Country
Who: Farmer Madelaine Scott
What does cruelty-free mean to you?
The chicks are raised on the farm from day one. We don’t debeak them, and we don’t defeather them. In the first three weeks, they are sheltered in a large, heated barn with a sawdust floor. At three weeks, we open the doors, and the chickens are then free-range on the pastures. (The non-organic free-range standard for access to outdoors can be as late as 16 weeks.)
What does pasture-fed mean?
Chickens are foragers. They love to scratch and peck and eat grass and insects. My chickens eat rye and fescue pasture as well as some native grasses and their seeds. They are also fed a non-GM organic feed mix. We rotate the chickens twice a week onto fresh pasture. The floors of the mobile laying trailers have a mesh floor, so the droppings fall to the ground as fertiliser and our hens remain clean. The whole 15 hectares the birds are on is enclosed in a two-metre-high pest-exclusion fence so foxes can’t get them.
You started young?
This business started as a school project when I was eight. I am now 30. I was home-schooled for the primary years, and to help me understand maths and profit and loss ledgers, I started to raise hens to sell eggs. I simply love it. Truly.
Where do we get your eggs?
Come to Hollyburton Farm at 1677 Melbourne-Lancefield Road, Clarkefield. I also supply many small retailers including Paddock to Table in Laverton, Garden Organics at Queen Vic Market, and Hagen’s Organics at Prahran Market. For other outlets, check my website. madelaineseggs.com.au