Free Range Eggs

Majura Valley Free Range Eggs is located close to the middle of Canberra on the oldest working farm in the district. We sell biodynamic pastured free range eggs into the local market through selected food businesses, shops and direct to the public from our popular farm gate honesty outlet.

The key to our business is our unique layer shed design, which we designed and built ourselves. The sheds not only shelter the chooks from predators at night time, but also hold all their food and water inside so that they can stay indoors in the event of adverse weather. Having the food and water inside maintains the health of the chooks as they move in and out of the shed as they please, whereas many other free range systems allow wild birds who carry disease to share the chooks’ food and water. In addition to advancing the welfare of the chooks, the distinctive design also improves the quality of our soil. Bird droppings fall through the floor onto the paddocks and the birds are out and about during the day cultivating the paddocks and scouring weeds. Portable electric netting surrounds each shed and the whole population is moved around the farm to ensure that all paddocks get an even nutrient load. Effluent, which is a major problem for most egg farms, is a benefit for us. Our design has enabled us to better manage our land and it has had a follow on effect to the viability of our crops and drought proofing.

While we only a small scale egg producer, we are an industry leader for livestock welfare and innovative practices. We recently engaged Scolexia, the leading avian health consultancy, to audit our flock and they found that we had an unusually healthy population compared to others in our industry.  We were instrumental in getting the term “Pastured Free Range” adopted in the wake of the recent Senate Inquiry into the egg industry as a means of differentiating our style of operation from industrial free range farming. We were also the first to introduce a ‘Laid On’ in addition to the mandatory ‘Best Before’ label to increase our company transparency.

In 2013 we won the ACT Landcare Innovation in Sustainable Farm Practices Award for our philosophy of 'integrated farming' advocated by Joel Salatin (of Polyface Farm). We constantly move the chooks around the paddocks in mobile accommodation regenerating the pastures, which we then rotate with sheep and other stock or plant crops. This practice along with planting thousands of trees to encourage native bird life was the basis of the award.