Chickens run:

Six thousand chickens are free to wander around Willow Creek Farm, near Nelson, in a lifestyle that helps create quality fresh eggs, as featured on Country Calendar this week. Melenie Parkes reports.

The benefits of a free-range hen lifestyle.

For Sharon Macquet (above), nothing beats a fresh egg from a free-range chook. Along with husband Buzz, Macquet runs Willow Creek Farm, which is home to 6000 chickens on the loose in Upper Moutere, near Nelson.

“Basically our eggs are fresh. That’s what we market ourselves as to all our cafes and restaurants,” says Macquet.

The Macquets, who started Willow Creek Farm six years ago, run a brisk system in which their eggs are shipped out regularly through the week to local hospitality businesses and selected supermarkets and shops in the Nelson Tasman region.

They keep their deliveries local to ensure freshness and anything unsold is donated to charities Kai With Love and the Nelson City Food Bank.

The day begins for the Macquets’ hens when their laying boxes automatically open at 6am.

The chickens settle in to make a nest and begin laying. Most hens will produce one egg a day but this can vary.

By 10.30am, most of the hens have finished their day’s work and the Macquets and their staff can get to the business of inspecting, washing and packaging the eggs.

Macquet says that like all free-range eggs, only eggs that have been laid in the nesting boxes are suitable for sale.

“Any free-range business is basically the same. People always say, ‘Why are free-range eggs more expensive?’ There is a huge amount of wastage because an egg is porous.

“You don’t know how long an egg’s been sitting on the ground for and it could have absorbed any contaminants.

“That’s part of the regime of trying to teach them to lay in the nesting boxes so that you minimise the number of eggs that are laid on the floor. There’s always going to be eggs laid on the floor. You can’t really get away from it but those ones, you can’t sell.”

The chickens are free to roam where they please and they have sheds to shelter in but their nesting boxes are locked at night – and for good reason.

“Chickens do most of their pooing at nighttime, so you don’t want them sleeping in the nesting boxes and making a mess. So we always go down at around about five o’clock so that we can shoo the birds out because there are always a few clucky girls who like to just sit in the nesting boxes.”

The Macquets buy day-old chicks, from a commercial hatchery in Palmerston North, which are then flown to Nelson. After careful tending they are ready to join the flock at 16 weeks and will begin laying somewhere between 16 and 20 weeks.

A chicken’s productivity starts to slow down after about 12 months and the birds are rotated out annually. Macquet says replacing the birds each year ensures high-quality eggs.

She says a freshly laid egg from a young bird is the key to poaching perfection. Once a chicken goes through its first moult, its egg shells become thinner and the albumen, or egg white, is not as thick.

“And, of course, when you poach an egg you want that white to be nice and thick and held together.”

Macquet, a keen baker, says there are tips to maintain freshness, one which may surprise some people.

“A lot of people store their eggs pointy side up. You need to store your eggs pointy side down.”

An egg’s air sac is at the wider end and the shell’s permeable nature means that your eggs could expire more quickly as air escapes.

A quick way to check the age of an egg is to pop it in a glass of water.

“If you put a fresh egg in water it will sink.”

The Macquets rehome as many birds as possible as they are still able to produce eggs and make good pets for families.

“We’ve got some regulars now who all know that they’re coming. So we just get phone calls asking if we’ve got birds available.

“It becomes word of mouth and we’ll occasionally put it on to Neighbourly and let people know. Because they’ll still lay, they just won’t lay at a commercial rate.”

As they are handled from just a day old, the chickens are used to being around people and Macquet says they can turn out to be real characters.

“There’s quite a lot of human interaction and the birds just follow you. They are very social animals.”

“A lot of people store their eggs pointy side up. You need to store your eggs pointy side down.”

– Sharon Macquet