Duck Eggs from Hill Foot Farms

Peter and Katie Mitchell produce duck eggs from their base near Walkworth. They sell to Asian markets, the food service sector and individuals around Auckland. Buyers appreciate the unique properties of duck eggs that make them ideal for making noodles, pasta and pastries, particularly for Asian and French cuisines. The business consists of production of duck eggs for human consumption, either as a table egg or for the Asians into specialised eggs, salty duck eggs and century eggs. At the moment we're around 900 eggs a day, soon to be up to 1000 eggs a day, coming to our peak at around about 1100. We're not in meat production at the moment, but it has been in the past and could possibly be in the future. The business challenges with the customers are being different ethnic groups, communication and understanding, cultural differences, but at the end of the day business is business and all problems can be solved. The breed is Pekin, Pekin duck, the most common duck in the world, especially for meat breeding and egg production as well. We select some eggs from a selected breeding flock and put the drakes with those and then we'll hatch those and grow them on and once again select maybe breeding stock from some of those and the rest maybe just for laying table eggs. We take our ducks through a minimum of two laying cycles. Feed wise we're supplied by Main Feeds, a selected diet particularly for laying ducks. It's sorted out by nutritionist, vegetarian, we do feed seasonal fruit and vegetables when available. We have waffles from time to time which is good, gives overseas people experience of farming in the countryside and they can be quite helpful. The difference between duck eggs and chicken eggs are that they're much larger size, generally between 80 and 100 grams per egg and different consistency, much richer taste but slightly sweeter. First thing in the morning we feed the ducks and then we go around to harvest the eggs into the baskets, they're brought up to the processing plant where we wash and rinse them off and then candled, graded and packed off into their various sizes. We're checking the eggs for cracks and defects, make sure that they're up to standard. It's all manual, it's all everyday, dealing with the animals, the feed, it's all very personal. Feeding is very important, water is exceedingly important and bedding after that is also very important. Those are the three main factors in stock care. We're running at about a third of RSPCA recommended rates so I have plenty of room, I don't like to stock too hard if I can get away with it. It's much better for the animals and for the humans as well. They're dry and warm and well fed and well watered and they're completely happy animals. All the shavings are untreated pine shavings because we make compost afterwards and also hardwood shavings will leach tannins and stain eggs and generally not acceptable. We spread the shavings every morning, fresh shavings every day and more often if they require it. At the end of the laying cycle we'll clean the shed out and take it away to be composted. It's a very neutral product, it's much favoured by the gardeners because it's weed free and it gives a boost especially to our Northland soils which are quite clay and heavy. We try to tend to use it as a cost recovery to recover our cost of the shavings which can be quite expensive especially in the winter time when we use a lot. It's all hard work and always putting it in one end and taking it out the other and hopefully making a dollar on the way. This program was made with funding from New Zealand on Air.