MOUNT MORGAN ARGUS End of an era for Small’s Trading Company

Many Mount Morgan residents have been raised on Country Living or Country Fresh eggs.

While this may seem inconsequential, the amazing fact is that these eggs were produced in Mount Morgan by Kevin and Doreen Small and their family.

For over 60 years the Small family has provided eggs for, not only

Mount Morgan, but many areas throughout Central and Western Queensland, either through delivering themselves or through the auspices of wholesalers.

Unfortunately, after this lengthy involvement in the “egg business” siblings Nadine Goody and Gary Small (the last remaining shareholders in Smalls Trading Company) have sold the family- owned Smalls Road egg and poultry farm to Peacefield Egg Farms ending an era that first started with a plan to purchase chickens to rid the family’s James Street home of nut grass.

This purchase soon became a money earner for Kevin and Doreen Small and the demand and supply of eggs soon outgrew the

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James Street residence, resulting in the purchase of 5 acres (approximately 12.5 hectares) at the current location on Small’s Road. The purchase price of this land was 14 pounds, 7 shillings and sixpence and Kevin and Doreen quickly set up free-range sheds and set up a free-range egg farm in October 1959.

Kevin Small and brother Ron originally came to the Mount Morgan area as part of a team working on building the Railway deviation line on the Razorback in 1949. He met Doreen at an old-time dance in Mount Morgan in 1951. They were camped at the bottom of Razorback.

“Dad used to ride his push bike up the Razorback each weekend just to go dancing with Mum,” Nadine said.

After the deviation was built, Kevin started working with Mount Morgan Limited as a machinery operator working on some of the community’s infrastructure such as roads, the High School Oval, the Dee Bowls Club, Newman Oval courts and fields and tennis courts at the Welfare Bowls club.

In 1963, Kevin and Doreen moved from free-range to battery cages. This first section of the cage plant held about 2000 birds.

“A couple of years later we doubled the plant in size and went to 4000 birds,” Gary said.

From 1972, all Queensland Egg Farmers were locked into an egg quota system, which was determined by the government of the day.

“If there was a shortage of eggs, the government would increase the quota, if there were plenty of eggs, the quota was reduced,” Gary said.

In 1976, KD and DA Small became Smalls Trading Company with Kevin and Doreen’s grown children –Robert, Nadine, Gary and Leanne becoming partners in the family business. This was the same year that Gary, who had completed a four-year apprenticeship in fitting and turning and two years as a tradesman, decided to work for the family business.

Nadine had worked in the Mount Morgan Court house, travelled around Australia working in pubs as well as Community Health and running Bouldercombe Hotel for almost eight years. This year was also one of innovation at Smalls Trading Company as they amalgamated two to three existing sheds into the first modern layer shed containing 10500 birds.

“In 1984 we built another big shed, added another quota until by 1988 we had 20000 layers.

“When deregulation of the egg market came in 1995, our quota had increased to 45000 layers due to there being a massive egg shortage,” he said.

After deregulation the market was still struggling so Small’s Trading Company again expanded their operations, moved away from battery cages to conventional cages and expanded their bird numbers to 50000.

Small’s continued to develop, expand and innovate – decommissioning the 10000-capacity shed and built a new one which housed 27000, increasing the capacity to 65000 layers. Any costs for alterations to facilities outlined in the 2008 Model Code of Practice (introduced in 2008) was borne by the farmers.

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“During this time, we kept abreast of egg sales and marketing and adhered to the Australian Standards for Domestic Fowls Guidelines,” Gary said.

“We have sold 28,000 dozen saleable eggs, week inweek out to most of the regional areas,” he said.

“Over the years there has been an increase in quality assurance that wasn’t there at the start – that’s why we have made sure our product has always been of the highest quality and standard,” Nadine said.

“We have passed all of the quality standards available in the industry,” she said.

“There is currently an egg shortage in the world because of Avian Influenza,” Gary said.

The argument against battery or caged hens is not all, it’s cracked up to be according to Gary and Nadine with free range farming increasing the risk of exotic disease within the industry.

Gary said there had been a lot of controversy in the media as to whether cages would be banned and the industry be forced into free range or cage free as options by 2032, depending on the age of the cages.

“It hasn’t been ratified in parliamentary circles yet, but it’s looking that way,” Gary said.

“That’s a whole new era in egg production and we’re too old to start again and there’s no next generation,” Nadine said.

“Our next generation is not interested in poultry farming – it’s a 24-hour, seven-day a week job. If we were 20 years younger, we would probably give it a go” she said.

As well as poultry and eggs, the Smalls also owned a piggery with 250 sows which they ran for over 25 years but closed it due to pressure from Danish and Canadian Pork imports. This was located near Nine Mile Road where they also kept cattle.

“The sale of this helped to build the layer shed as we put all of our focus in producing eggs – especially as Dad was getting old,” Nadine said.

From a labour-intensive farm where the collecting, washing, sorting, and grading the eggs was all done by hand – the operation was fully automated by 1998. Some innovations included installation of the feed mill so they could mix their own feed for the hens and the pigs as well. Nadine and Gary have had the farm up for sale for three years and were resigned to the fact that they may have to close, but were fortunate for a buyer to come in at the eleventh hour. When in full operation, Smalls Trading Company had 16 plus employees for the egg farm, piggery and abattoirs and over the years would have provided employment for over 200 people.

While there have been good times for the family there were some bad times with the tragic loss of Leanne (1985), Doreen (2000), Robert (2005) and Kevin (2019).

“We went from having plenty of family members

supporting us to just us,” Gary said.

At ages 68 (Gary) and 70 (Nadine), the siblings are finally taking some time to spend with their families.

“There’s always grandchildren to spoil,” Nadine while Gary has plans to spend time fixing up his house.

“My wife has a few jobs lined up. When you spend so much time with a business, jobs around the home tend to slide,” Gary said.

While they both are excited about spending time with family, visiting friends and travelling, there is always a second-guessing with selling the farm.

“I am excited, but also worried that we may not have done the right thing by closing. We were very fortunate that we had a buyer,” Nadine said.

From helping their mother deliver eggs around Mount Morgan after school, pushing a “doll” (chook) around in a pram, spending days over summer including Christmas Day watering the birds to keep them cool Nadine and Gary will spend the next few weeks tidying up around the farm and attached house before beginning the next chapter of their lives. While the community supported Smalls, the Smalls were quick to support the Mount Morgan community through donations to many organizations.

After over 60 years, the Small family have certainly left big shoes to fill in the egg industry.