Typical Harvest

Our Pasture Raised Chickens have just been harvested for the month and I thought it would be a great time to share some general information on what goes into it. With a 4am start, its a quick breakfast and then out to the chicken shelters where the transport crates are already set from the previous evening.  Chickens are then collected and put into the crates.  Bending and picking up 3 to 4 kilogram birds is quite a workout after repeating the process  more than a hundred times, so when they are loaded into the ute and strapped down, the trip to the abattoir is a nice break.

We are pretty lucky being an hour away from the Melbourne CBD.  Many other farmers I know have to drive for two plus hours - this isn't good for the animal or farmer.  Once the animals are dropped off and everything sorted with the officials, its time to wait for pickup.  This can take a few hours as the animals need to chill in ice baths after processing before they can be transported.

The chickens are then loaded into a mobile cool room and brought back home where they are sorted into orders.  The delivery schedule is put together and our customers are contacted with approximate times that we will be delivering.  The time we get to bed is around 11:30pm.

Around a 19 hour working day.

While every day isn't like this, it sure makes you appreciate the slower ones :)

A person needs to be passionate about what they choose to do in life and spend their finite bank of time doing something worthwhile.

Healing land and people together with my family is time well spent for me.