As our most popular item in sales terms, it would seem likely lots of our customers would be interested to know more about where the eggs come from. Our Assistant Manager, Justine investigates.

Rookery Farm is owned by Rupert Langmead and based in West Sussex. The land has been in the same family for 130 years. It has always been used for farming, but previously it was part of a larger mixed arable and grass farm. Rupert’s dad started farming chickens from the mid 60’s and when Rupert joined him 20 years ago he led the move over to organic.

This was driven by two primary factors:

it was something that Rupert strongly believed in himself from an ethical standpoint.
it was a way for a small business like Rookery Farm to differentiate itself in the market (at the time there was no organic market in terms of eggs, the organic ’sector’ accounted for less than 1%).

They believe that higher welfare chickens will create better eggs. To do this all their hen houses are mobile. They can be moved around to give the chickens fresh pasture and allow the land to recover. The land is not treated with any chemicals and the chickens are fed a natural, organic and GM free diet. Other than what they find in the fields this includes; wheat, sunflower, peas, soya, full fat soya, maize, maize gluten, alfalfa and limestone.

The chickens that lay your tasty eggs are either Columbian Blacktails, Lohman Browns or Goldlines. They come from specialist chicken rearers and arrive at the farm at 16 weeks old.

Chicken eggs from juvenile birds that are too small for commercial sale are called “pullet eggs” often these are wasted. At Rookery Farm the pullet eggs are used to support a number of local food banks and homeless shelters.

The chickens are let out daily at 8am to forage and naturally return around dusk to roost. The doors are then shut to protect them from predators.

The hens lay on average 5-6 eggs per week. Eggs are collected daily, graded, sorted, checked for tiny cracks and date stamped to ensure freshness.

After around a year and a half the chicken’s egg production drops off. Critically the shells become less robust making the grading and sorting process nonviable. i.e. they are likely to break. Rookery Farm work with Fresh Start for Hens to ensure all their hens are found a new non-commercial home somewhere in the UK. For example, a private house, school or community group.

Justine’s Dad has had rescue hens for a few years, they are very entertaining and curious.

The remaining hen house has a lot of high quality chicken manure in it, much of which is used by the farm. What they can’t use is collected by other local organic businesses.

The hen house is moved to a new spot to allow the previous land to recover. It is washed with collected rainwater. Finally is it sprayed with diatomaceous earth (a natural silicate) ensures that red mites (chickens most likely predator) cannot get a hold in the new flock.

The humans are not forgotten either, all staff at Rookery Farm are paid above the Living Wage.

We would love to hear what dishes you love to make with your Rookery Farm eggs. Please tell us in the comments below, or share your pictures on social media.