Greenmeadow Poultry - Free Range Eggs

My free-range flock is made up from large fowl Barnevelders, Cream Legbars, Leghorns, Salmon Faverolles and bantam Marans, Araucanas, Anconas and Pekins. I also have some hybrid Goldlines and Black Rocks. These produce a mixture of different coloured eggs - brown, tinted, white and green/blue.

I have a small number of duck eggs from Saxonys and Khaki Cambells and am currently expanding my numbers of quail.

My hens live in 'garden shed' sized houses on our seven acre smallholding, with between twenty and fifty birds to a house, depending on it's size. Each house has a large partially roofed pen with their food and water where they dust-bath and scratch. The size of each pen conforms to DEFRA regulations for 'free-range', which I consider an absolute minimum for good practice.

We currently have about a hundred hens.

They are let out of the pen as much as possible. During autumn, winter and early spring this is from about 8am to dusk. In late spring and summer we sometimes have to keep them penned to protect them from foxes. If this is the case, then they are let out when we are working close by. Their free-range area includes three acres of sheep pasture, a stable yard, a small cider apple orchard and a large area of PYO raspberries and blackcurrants (out of the fruit season!). They also sometimes clean up the greenhouses between crops.

They get grass cuttings and all the leaves and plants that are pulled out of our commercial greenhouses thrown in to their pens to scratch through.

My flock is not organic, as I believe in quick intervention if they DO need treatment. I keep medication to a minimum, I do not vaccinate my home-bred stock and I do not feed food with antibiotic additives. I believe in keeping food-miles low and I therefore I source my feed from within the UK if I can, rather than feeding pellets with imported soya meal.