Hatched in Holbrook

What began with 50 hens in an old caravan has grown into one of regional Australia’s most admired free-range egg operations.

Story and photo by Georgie Mann

Tiny yellow chicks scatter through the heated brooder shed in a blur of movement, darting between feeders and heat lamps amid a constant chorus of cheeping. “Like a fluffy mouse plague,” Prue Pincott laughs as she and her husband Sam watch their step as they inspect water lines and attend to the latest arrivals.

The new batch of day-old chicks has arrived at Holbrook Paddock Eggs in aerated cardboard boxes and, within weeks, once properly feathered, the birds will head out to open paddocks in the foothills of Holbrook in southern NSW. Sixteen years in, the flock has grown to 36,000 free-range hens. “It’s a hell of a milestone,” Sam says. “But the thing we’re probably most proud of is the way we’ve done it.”