FARMING

Egg shortages

I think I’ve cracked (sorry, how can you resist) why it has become increasingly difficult to source my breakfast eggs at local supermarkets, let alone pay for them with prices soaring.

Our old mate Covid brought a steep decline in the requirement for eggs at cafes and restaurants and therefore producers reduced their flocks. There was also some suspicion that the hens themselves may have been associated with the spread of Covid – à la avian flu – along with many other notions.

Of course there is the expensive process of converting flocks from battery hen egg production to free-range or barn-laid due to consumer demand and legislation. Changes in the rules by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission that define what constitutes either free-range or barn-laid eggs have also had an impact.

Our long-suffering growers point out that producing free-range eggs is more expensive and less efficient than the erstwhile battery hen production. All of a sudden you need more land to produce what you once did in a compact format.

Hens in batteries are more reliable egg producers due to the constancy of temperature and light exposure, making them a better financial proposition. Autumn and Winter naturally bring less favourable conditions with less light and lower outside temperatures for free-range egg production.

Fuel prices have gone up and up over the past couple of years and the long-term impact has affected prices. The price of one of the staple food of hens, grain, has also steadily risen. Sadly, the conditions that have made eggs more expensive and less available look likely to continue and in some cases worsen with rising electricity prices.

Gerard Duckworth

Creative Writing

Cannibal Chooks

Cannibal chooks live at our house.

They steal the dog’s bone and eat the cat’s mouse.

They climb up the stairs as bold as you please. They wake before dawn and sleep in the trees.

We didn’t want them dumped at our door. They came from the mother of our ex son-in-law!

She donated the hens who laid lots of eggs. Which grew into chickens with bantam-sized legs.

Neighbours’ dogs killed all but these five. Little orphaned chooks who fought to survive.

They crow all day and screech for food. No plain bread or corn for this greedy brood.

It’s meat that they relish – bacon, steak or ham. Anything goes – like a half leg of lamb.

But most of all would you ever suppose?

What they most cherish

Is a fat Parson’s Nose!

Eileen Walder