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While the Estate Manager Jonathan Russell and Project Manager Eric Mew undertook the necessary research, the 85 acre field allocated as the site for the hens underwent the 2 year organic conversion.

Having plumped for a contract with Stonegate, supplying Columbian Blacktail eggs for Waitrose, the next job was to get houses, equipment and birds. Oh, and get someone to manage the unit.

David Preece came on board as poultry manager in May of 2008, having spent the previous 9 years in the broiler industry. David readily admits that moving from broilers to organic, free range hens is quite a change but, with a bit of training from Patrick Bourns at Barrington Park and Rachel Rivers at Lawn Farm, Pewsey, he has had expert help to negotiate the steep learning curve.
In June, the 85 acre field was still bare, so David had a lot of work to do to get accommodation ready to receive birds by the deadline of 12th September. With the help of Haygrove who provided 6 Halo mobile, poly-tunnel type houses and Jansen who provided all the internal equipment, everything was ready and waiting for them, just! The second flock of 6,000 arrived on Christmas Eve, bringing the unit total to 12,000.

For David, the hardest job has been to get the new birds laying in the nest boxes and he was often up at 4am, picking up floor eggs as soon as possible and popping them into the boxes. He also experienced some smothering instances in 'favourite' nest boxes so introduced some baffles to solve the problem.

David has been really impressed and grateful to many in the industry who always seem ready to help or provide advice. Chief amongst these currently is Anthony Harman from Humphrey Feeds, who visits at least once a week and with his valuable experience, imparts hints and tips, often involving small details, but as David says, "it's the small details that are the most important."

The first flock are now at 41 weeks and have been at a hen day average of 94% for the past 6 weeks. The second flock are just 25 weeks old and after a slow start, due to them being somewhat underweight and the cold spell after Christmas, are now at 83%. David says that the cold weather in the New Year also caused problems for the older birds, as they started eating more and as a result, produced eggs that were much too large. Manipulating their diet for smaller egg size is helping to resolve the problem.

David acknowledges that perhaps the timing of going into organic egg production just as the credit crunch was beginning to bite was not great. However, the estate is not at this stage going to be enticed to drop the organic production for free range. In fact, the business plan includes a possible expansion into organic pullet rearing, mainly to provide replacement birds. David feels that there can only be advantages to home rearing, knowing how the pullets are looked after and, being on the same site, exposed to the localised disease challenges, vaccinated with the right vaccines and hopefully, produced to a lesser cost. However, this will be at least two years into the future as it will be a separate enterprise on a different part of the estate and the land will once again have to go through the two year organic conversion period.

The next big learning experience for David will be when the sheds are depopulated and need moving onto new pasture. Haygrove have promised to come back and help with the first move so that he can get the hang of it. He's even invited me along to watch – I just might just take him up on that invitation, but that's another story!

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