If you have been shopping with us regularly you would no doubt have seen the Full Circle Farm eggs on our shelves, or as we fondly call them, the Bruno Eggs (after the beautiful Maremma pictured on their cartons) . Though they are not 'Certified Organic' like the other eggs we stock on our shelves, Full Circle adheres to the highest standards of natural farming, with complete transparency. The result is some of the most delicious eggs we have ever tasted, that continue to be a customer favourite.
Full Circle Farm is a pasture based, regenerative farm located in the beautiful Dooralong Valley, Central Coast NSW.
"Everything we do is based on capturing as much solar energy as possible, growing as much grass as possible, using animals to eat the grass and cycle back nutrients to the soil. Nature has no waste basket, it has cycles. We strive to close the loop, mimicking a healthy ecosystem where animals are a vital part of creating a bio-diverse and healthy landscape. We farm in a way that is ecologically enhancive and respects both the animal and its environment."
We don’t use chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides or any other ‘cide’. Our animals don’t do drugs. Our animals eat what they’re designed to, not what we as humans think we can feed them and trick nature. We do not erode the soil, or pollute the water ways.
An explanation on their Facebook page summed up beautifully what differentiates Full Circle Farm from just any free range chicken farm:
"The free range egg classification can fit 10,000 birds per hectare. That’s terrible right?- well….not necessarily. Chooks are a flocking animal. They love to be together. 10,000 birds in that one hectare is not the problem. It’s HOW LONG they stay in that one hectare. If you’re moving those 10,000 birds everyday onto fresh ground, the birds would be happy and so would the land.
The problem is, most large free-range systems are stationary. The chooks hit the same patch over and over and the land quickly turns to something that resembles the surface of mars with nothing to forage except dust. You can see the blue arrow in the picture showing our girl’s old plot where they were for 7 days after some rain. The land comes back amazing with all the fertilizer and disturbance but not if we left them there much longer. And we only have 300 birds per hectare! The whole principle of a pasture-raised production system is that they are moved regularly onto fresh ground.
Don’t get me wrong, the hens per hectare is a good gauge for people, I just think the more important question is how often are they moved. And herein lies the problem with labels. They don’t tell the whole story and consumers are left confused."
