Matt and Casey Adams’ chickens spend their days mingling with cattle and traipsing the Wairio hills in Southland without a fence in sight.
The couple started their free-range egg operation on the family farm four years ago, initially with 250 chickens.
Their flock has increased since then, with about 500 chickens laying for Brightview Eggs.
“They are about as free-range as you can get … If they want to wander to the pub for a beer, well I will let them go to the pub for a beer,” Matt said.
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The Adams’ primarily supply hospitality venues in Te Anau but have begun to be stocked in the Four Squares in Nightcaps and Otautau, as well as the Otautau Food Centre.
When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, the business took a tumble as cafes and restaurants shut down.
“We were very fortunate that we didn’t have to pay for land or labour, or we wouldn’t have survived … we decided to keep going … we set up a stall at the end of the driveway, and had a lot of families and locals start buying eggs direct … we have had a lot of good people support us.”
Demand in hospitality is slowly starting to return and the couple have flagged doubling their flock in the next year, “if there is demand for it”.
With conventional battery cages becoming illegal at the end of the year and all major supermarkets in New Zealand pledging to stop selling the alternative – eggs from colony cages – by the end of 2027 – experts tip it will be needed.
Earlier this year, Mokotua free-range chicken farmer Wayne Barker said his orders had tripled over a “few years” as consumers shied away from store-bought eggs due to inflation and Covid-19 induced supply chain disruptions.
When he first started farming, there were several hatcheries in the South Island, but many owners had now retired, creating a shortage of chickens and eggs, he said.
He expected the shortage to get even worse once caged eggs were removed from supermarket shelves.
Wholesome New Zealand Ltd, which specialises in cage free and colony cage free eggs, national sales manager Sylvain Languette said demand for cage-free eggs had increased substantially in the lead-up to the cage eggs phase-out.
This was because many smaller farmers who used conventional cages could not afford to transition to colony cages or barn-raised eggs and had exited the market, creating an egg shortage.
The shortage was more pronounced in the South Island than the North, Languette said, which he thought could be due to a higher number of smaller farmers exiting the market than in other areas.
According to the Egg Producers Federation of New Zealand 2021 report to the Ministry for Primary Industries, as of December 2021, 780,560 chickens were still housed in conventional cages, totalling about 20% of the national flock.
A further 33% were in colony cages, which animal rights organisation Safe argues are just as constrictive to hens as conventional battery cages.
Barn-laid eggs made up 14% of the national stock, leaving 33% of New Zealand eggs as free-range.
Languette said there was a need for more cage-free farmers to enter the market but many were reluctant because of the costs associated with resource consents, compliance, land and feed.
If more farmers did not enter the market, the cost of eggs would increase further, he said.
“There is a shortage of eggs … all these birds are going out of the market … at the same time as the cost of everything is going up … it is a combination of everything driving the demand … it is just a race for everyone to put their prices up right now. ”
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