(RUSTIC THEME MUSIC) - (WHISTLES) - Always a favourite on every rural road. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2024 - Their love of the sea and birds lead to a business. - Lovely, deep brown mahogany. - Gently does it. Hello, darlings. - I like all birds, but the big birds are just stunning. - It's going to help us live our dream of getting off the land and going sailing. (SEAGULLS CAW) (GENTLE MUSIC) - It's the coast, it's the sea. Our love of sailing and being on the water drew us here. - It's the access to the water and the beach. - You can be here on a gorgeous day, and you'd think you're in one of the best places in New Zealand. - It's remote, it's a little bit isolated, and yet it's not. And you can fall into this wind on this cliff, and it just holds you up. When it comes out of the south, it just roars straight out. It's like being in a wind tunnel when it's fierce. It's pretty amazing. - Gotta go back to coop two. - As a couple who love sailing, Rob and Anna Penn have the ocean at their doorstep, farming at the bottom of the South Island, about 70km west of Invercargill at Te Waewae Bay. - We grazed cattle to start with. Over the years, we changed towards chicken farming. We decided we would start a free range egg farm about four and a half years ago. We already had house chickens, and we were selling eggs at the gate, and it was kind of a no-brainer. You know, it was the only viable farm on such a small block of land... - Yes. - ...where you could make a reasonable income and lifestyle. We thought we'd only do it small, have 500 chickens, we'd be happy, and here we are today with 3000 chickens and four staff. (CHICKENS SQUAWK) Come on, darlings. There you go. - Originally from Canterbury, they shifted south in 2013 in the aftermath of the earthquakes. Rob's previously worked as an engineer, and Anna as a nurse. - The eggs are collected daily. We start at 2.30. We're clearing the nest boxes because otherwise the hens will go to sleep cos it's nice and dark. And then we unlock them at night, ready for the lay in the morning. This is one of the coops that Rob built. So it's about 400 birds. These girls, they're absolutely at the peak of their lay at the moment. And this is why we're getting these gorgeous big chestnut mahogany eggs. Fantastic quality. Look at that. That's glorious. That's shining. - This is one of our sheds that we built during COVID. It was a fairly challenging time with materials and things. We built them in our workshop, and we towed them over with the digger and planted them in the paddocks. - I spent a lot of time on a farm as a child in Rangitata, and there were swans and ducks and geese, all sorts of fancy chickens, so I've always had a delight of the bird. (CHICKEN GRUMBLES) I don't think there's anything not to like about birds. I just think they're very interesting. - To do this the way that we've done it would be extremely hard without the skills that both of us have. And it's a great combination. Without Anna's skills with birds and knowledge, it would be impossible to do it with just my engineering. - It's all about this, and we think we've got a good product. By all accounts, so do our clients. So that's what it's all about. - All right. We're on? - Yes. - Ready to go. - Everyone handles eggs like they're fragile, but actually they're one of the most robust structures. You know, they don't like a direct hit in the belly. Outside of that, they're pretty hardy. And when you've got everything up and running, it does pay to get them through fairly quickly because these are yesterday's eggs. We've still got today's eggs to pick yet. That's another two and a half, three hours at least. So it's a all-day job. The candler is actually a very old terminology. It was probably originated from when they used a candle to see whether the eggs were fertilised, and if they were, you would get` there's what they call a capillary strike right throughout the whole egg, about 10 veins around the whole inside of the egg. These eggs aren't fertilised, so really, we're looking for fractures in the integrity of the shell and any other abnormality that may be visible. And if there's any problem in that, we just pull them out as seconds or into the bucket. - We grade our eggs for the cafes predominantly, so that when they get their eggs, they know that if they've got a yellow tray, it's size eight, so they know if they've got a dark green, it's size sevens, if they've got a light green, they're size sixes, and they can use them accordingly for their baking. They know they get consistency for the plate eggs, and every egg that cracks and goes out to the customers is identical. - Anywhere between... 24 weeks to maybe 44 weeks, it's probably the prime of the bird itself, the peak of the commercial bird, at least. We have lights on them for 16 hours a day, which creates the lay cycle. We do put a little bit of pressure on them that way, which domestically the birds don't get. If the bird's healthy and happy, if you've got good food, you've got a safe environment, you've got a healthy environment, they're fit, and they're physical, they'll lay good eggs right up until 60 weeks. - These are the new girls out in the house paddock, and they are just coming through now and coming into the lay. So we get quite a few little pullet eggs, and we sell these to one of our vege stores, and they sell them on as cheaper eggs. Everything we try to sell, including our seconds ` That gets sold at the gate as gate sales. - Rob and I were doing this part of the job for a year. Now we have people who come in and do this as the operation's got bigger. How do I like my eggs? Scrambled. I love scrambled eggs. - I love them poached. I get laughed at at the cafes when I go in and have a breakfast and buy my own eggs. (LAUGHS) It never gets old for them when we turn up and have a breakfast with them. (CALM MUSIC) (COWS LOW) Hup, hup! Come on, girls. Hup! - Rob and Anna have enough land to continue to graze cattle for their neighbours. They enjoy the variety of work and the extra income. - It's a 65-acre property. It was only fenced on its perimeter. And what Rob did is he's fenced it into nine grazing blocks so we can rotate it. And it's formally now a summer grazing block for cattle. - We graze their heifers from around about September, October through till April, May, and we also winter-graze about 26 yearling bulls. So the R1s, and we just graze them wild on the front and across the top. We manage the stock, we look after them, and it's certainly a good sideline to the chickens. It sort of fills in the fat in the income between taking coops on and off and problems with chooks that we have from time to time. When I was fencing here, when we first came here, I got hit by a bull. I was around a post, and he gave me a gentle nudge in the back, and he was an angry bugger, but he was big, so I'm pretty wary. Just treat them with kitten gloves and be ready to leave. I believe passive is best. The cows come to me and follow me and treat them with kindness, really, and gently. They move well as usual. They're good girls. Got them well-trained. - And when it comes to sourcing feed for their chickens, they keep it local. (EASY`GOING MUSIC) - We're off to pick up grain ready for feed tomorrow. William, our grain grower, he has our bags all ready to go. We pick them up on a fortnightly basis, making our feed twice a week. - Southland egg farmer Rob Penn's taking a short drive inland to where he gets a regular supply of grain to feed his chickens. - It's a good relationship to have with a local. We wouldn't be doing what we're doing with our chickens without William's input. - William Diack has managed his parent's sheep and grain farm for the last eight years. - We've got 2000 sheep here, run about 60 cattle, and got 60 acres of grain ` mix of barley and wheat and peas. Supply it to local people around the district. - How you getting on? - Bloody good. Yourself? - Yeah, pretty good. - Good to see you. It's really good to supply something that's grown locally and feeding local people and helping their businesses. We should get a few ton off today, yeah. - No worries. - We've got Rob from Te Waewae Eggs, and he comes down a couple times a month and collects his grain. Get some peas off us as well, and he makes up his own chicken feed. It works really well, actually. - It's important for us that we know what our chooks are eating, that we can tell our customers our product comes from local, and that we feed our chooks whole foods. William's an integral part of our business. It's ideal for us being able to pick our grain up on a monthly basis, which for a small business is extremely important. (RELAXED GUITAR MUSIC) This is where we mill our feed. They go through the mill, up the auger and into our mixer, where we add in all our nutrients and proteins and oils and stuff. Energy for the birds. We feed twice a week. Jim kind of works around our delivery days. He comes in and also help with maintenance around the farm. From there we carry them on out to the paddocks and feed them out in half-ton lots into the paddocks for the feeders. (CHICKENS SQUAWK) (RELAXED MUSIC CONTINUES) We kind of went after our customers quite assertively. We wanted to find our place in the market, and we needed it to pay its way. And so I spent a lot of time approaching customers and canvassing. We spent a bit of time on branding. We have a sign-written vehicle that we use. I wear branded shirts when I'm delivering. We very much are quite proud about the brand we've made. We brought this van to measure for the crates so that when we're travelling with our eggs, that they're kept secure and tight. And this van suits the width perfectly to hold these stable. We deliver between 26 and 32 locations on any given day. 60% of our clients are wholesale kitchens in the cafe and hospitality. The rest is to retail and general use. We don't deliver direct to the public. We deliver commercially only. Not every place has been an easy take, and some places I've been persistent and it's taken me months to get in, and I just say, 'Well, you know, take us on, put us on the shelf beside someone else. 'Let us compete.' (WARM ACOUSTIC MUSIC) We now supply 90% of the cafes in Invercargill, the local market, and we've consciously gone out and sought that market. We're being approached, and we now have waiting lists for people wanting our eggs. I hit the retail shops first and then I head into the cafes, usually trying to get the cafes fairly early, especially the busy bigger cafes. They're usually getting low on eggs by the time I'm delivering. It's the best part of the job ` the canvassing them to get the customer in the first place, and then giving them the service. You get to know these people quite well. We're off to the Batch Cafe. That's considered Invercargill's premier cafe. They are my biggest cafe customer. Morning, team. - Morning, Rob. How are you? - Chef Joe Wilks was impressed with the eggs and with what he saw when he visited the farm. - Those chickens are living their best life. Views of the sea. Just in the fresh air. It was just really nice, yeah. Good quality area for them and makes the product the better. What I like about them is they're top quality and just how generally awesome they are. Bright yolks. We know where they come from. Morning, Rob. - Morning, Joe. Oh, looking good as usual. - Awesome. Thank you. Enjoy. - Thanks, mate. This is the colour we aim for. We don't like the orange yolks that you see in a lot of commercial eggs. We specifically feed our feed with natural colourings, lutein-based. And, uh, that gives us this bright, bright egg, like the sun. - And tomorrow morning will see some new arrivals at Te Waewae Bay. (CHICKEN CLUCKS) Oh, Henry, my show's about to start. Henry. (GRUNTS) VOICE-OVER: Imagine if instead of the dog dragging you out the door... (SCREAMS) ..you dragged it. Get AIA Vitality and start thriving. (GENTLE MUSIC) (CHICKENS SQUAWK) - 500 new girls coming in. These girls, I think, are about 17 weeks of age. - These young birds are being delivered to Anna and Rob Penn's egg farm in Southland. - We leg-band the birds for identification so that if we have any escapees, we know where they've come from, and we also know the age of the birds for our salmonella testing programme. We've gotta test again at 44 weeks after they arrive. - The birds are also inoculated against a disease which nearly devastated their farm a few years ago. - We're injecting them for adenovirus, which is egg drop syndrome, and it comes in on wild birds. It affects the lay, and what they do is that it aggravates the egg gland, and it don't put a shell on the egg, and they drop out the yolk and the white and no shell. We're inoculating them in the hope that we can stop it coming in. We went through a phase here where we had a lot of egg drop. We think it was originally on the farm from where we had water troughs when we developed the chickens, and it sort of slowed us right down. We lost production. We probably dropped 300 to 400 eggs a day during the period. It was not flash for the business. They'll sit and idle along for probably another 6 to 8 weeks before they really start to come into significant numbers of laying. We probably expect them to hit peak lay between... (CHICKEN SQUAWKS) ...24 and 28 weeks. And you know, we want to see them come up to around that 80% during that period. And from there they will come on strengthened, and they sort of will probably peak properly around 32 to 34 weeks. (FAINT SQUAWKING) - When young chickens are settling into a new home, it can be a vulnerable time for them, so Rob checks on them regularly. - Hello, girls. Hello. Come on, darlings. Good girls. They're very calm. We worry about the fact that being young birds and just coming here, they all push into one corner and smother. So we treat them very calm, very gently. We do things slowly. Hello, darlings. Come on. For their first night here, we leave the lights on 24 hours, and we come out and check them intermittently during the night to make sure we don't get a smother. We want them to feel comfortable here. They've got different drinking systems, and they have to be accustomed to them. So we've got to watch that they're drinking and that they're consuming food, and we'll just go slowly and gently, and hopefully we won't spook them too much. (LAID`BACK MUSIC) - It was Anna Penn's love and knowledge of birds that led her and Rob in to raising chickens for their eggs. - Come on, ladies. (BIRD CALLS) Barry! Barry's the peacock. He's 16 years old, and I brought him down from Christchurch. He's very much like a guard dog. In fact, the maharajas used to use them as, uh, alert birds cos they made such a sound. I like the big birds. I like all birds, but the big birds are just stunning, you know? Just everything about them. I like their grace. (ROOSTER CROWS) Chook, chook, chook, chook, chook. These are one of our... more... mature flocks. Well-used to us coming in. They're not afraid. They use the entire paddock. They're very happy. (CHICKENS CLUCK) And they will ask you sometimes for help if they're stressed. But you need to be with them a lot, and you need to be perceptive. They're very hierarchical, so I do tend to watch closely the behaviours in the flock so it doesn't get too aggressive. We do have a little hospital, a little area, and if I can turn them around, I will. At least they're not in amongst, you know, 400 other birds and competing for feed and water when they're unwell. (SOFT MUSIC) - They're now working on plans to sell their farm and swap life on land for a life at sea. - We set our goals for the size we wanted to make it. We're there, and now we get to reap the benefits of the investment. And it has been a total plan. It's been absolutely a step-by-step, sorted-out plan. - If you've got 65 acres of this type of property, it's long and skinny, and it's not viable for sheep or dairy. So we had to think a little bit creatively. And we're now at a point, I think, where we can jump off. It's a good point to be at. - We've finally got this developed enough that we can actually now get the benefits out of the work we've done and adding our value where we need it. - Just the constant travel. That's what I like about the sailing, is the constant movement and the constant exploration. You're just going from one place to another and one set of dynamics to another set. And, you know, it's kind of a rootless existence, but if you like that, then it's perfect, and it suits my personality, and I think it suits Rob. - If you don't like your location, you just pull the anchor, and you've got a new one tomorrow. - Boom! - It's going to help us to live our dream of going sailing and getting off the land for a while and going and enjoying the water and going adventuring. (SOFT MUSIC FADES) - Next time ` - Since I was tiny, my whole thing's been wanting to be a farmer. - He's the sixth generation to battle the Canterbury elements. - If you've had a lovely season, great. If it went dry, you got nothing. - But his father changed everything with irrigation. - We went from mostly sheep with a little bit of crop to mostly crop with a little bit of sheep. - That's next time on Hyundai Country Calendar.