At Home On The (Free) Range

As a small but significant addition to an intensive operation, Thorntree Farm’s free-range eggs are quietly making a name in this niche market. Ryan Stegmann spoke to Chris Nel.

Thorntree Farm is a family owned and managed poultry farm off the beaten track near Rhenosterfontein, east of Pretoria. It produces high- quality chicken eggs, mainly in a conventional intensive cage operation, but also freerange for a small, but important and growing, niche market.

The balance of production is currently around 95:5 in favour of the intensive system.

Operating two systems with hens of the same strain and age on the same ration enables production for divergent markets, as well as the opportunity to continually compare the quality, performance and economic criteria of the two systems.

The intensive operation, with 15 houses and an average of 40 000 hens, has been in production since the 1990s. The free-range operation, averaging around 2 000 hens in three units, was started around 1997.

Today the team of Sean Store (marketing), Ryan ‘Steg’ Stegmann (egg farm manager), Kirsten Stegmann, Surgeon Mmotong and Raymond Talisa run the operations in parallel.

The hens in both receive the same Nova ration, free of steroids, hormones and other additives. “As it is difficult to get GM-free maize in South Africa these days, the GM content of the ration is uncertain,” says Steg.

HOUSING THE HENS 

Throughout the year, the freerange hens are housed in three groups in rotation in three of four housing units, explains Steg.

A housing unit consists of a steel shed, opening into a large outdoor camp where the hens freely roam and forage by day. Densely foliaged indigenous and non-indigenous trees in the camps provide shade and additional roosting.

Although the hens have a choice of nesting both indoors and outdoors, some prefer to lay in their own secret, outdoor nests hidden away in the undergrowth.