Strong demand for poultry
Life inside Bromelton
THIS week in Rural Weekly we talk to Susan Shay about running a free range poultry farm with her family.
Susan Shay and her family established their poultry farm, Bromelton Free Range Poultry, in 2014.
The property has been in her family for more than 100 years and was originally a dairy farm – which ran until 2003.
The 120-hectare property is now home to 240,000 chickens, as well beef cattle, about 100 breeders.
Bromelton Free Range Poultry consists of six sheds that house 40,000 chickens each.
The farm processes about
1.44 million chickens every year.
“We knew at the time there was an increased demand for poultry farms and decided to give it a go with free-range chickens,” Mrs Shay said.
“Across the next week we will be putting chickens back into the shed. We’ve been empty for about two weeks doing cleaning and preparation for new chickens.
“Every day for the next week we’ll get a new shed’s worth of chickens. They come from a hatchery over at Mount Alford.”
The chickens arrive on a refrigerated truck where they are unloaded in crates. They are placed in a section of the shed that has been prepared with paper on the floor and food and water ready for the chickens’ arrival.
“They live in that area called the brood area for about a week before we expand out and they get more and more space as they grow,” Mrs Shay said.
“We operated under the RSPCA animal welfare guidelines for meat chickens. So our chickens actually have a little bit more space than standard.
“They have access to the outside areas at 18 to 21 days.”
For this and more the Rural Weekly in tomorrow’s The Chronicle.