Overberg Pastures

Rachel farms her chickens like her children!

What do you feed your chickens?

We feed our chickens an unmedicated, non-GMO feed ration from Profile Feeds, which is complimented by a variety of fresh pasture grasses, seeds and bugs that they scratch for while out in the field in their mobile coops.

How do you farm them? Our chickens are truly pasture-raised, from day 1 to day 20 they are housed in a 'free-range' brooder coop with access to living pasture and sunlight. From day 21 to day 49 they are on a pastured model where they are kept in floorless, open-air coops, they are moved every single day, and as they get closer to being harvested we might even move them twice a day. All of our chickens are moved at least once a day, every single day, no exceptions. Every patch of land where the chickens were gets ample time to rest and make use of the nutrients that has been put down in the form of manure.

What type of chickens and how many? We rear Arbour Acre broiler chickens, from the Caledon Hatchery, in Caledon. our piece of land is 2 hectares, and we use a neighbours field which is 18 hectares. We run 600 broiler chickens every month and raise 1600 hens for Eggcellent eggs every 4 months.

What age and how are the slaughtered? Our chickens are processed between 7 and 8 weeks. We used to process on the farm, but we recently started taking our chickens to the Farm House Abattoir, near Jongensklip. We are happy with the way they handle and harvest our chickens.

How do you manage predators? We haven't trapped or shot any predators, we manage to keep them at bay with an electrified net that we enclose their coops with at night.

Are you certified organic? We are not certified anything. We feed gmo/glyphosate- free food, we have pastures that recieve no herbicides, pesticides, or synthetic fertilisers ever, we are without a doubt “organic”, just not certified.

Do you farm other animals? We are just starting with pigs! We have 18 pigs on the two patches