Our new logo!

What do you think?

Soon to be on 2 products - Ruby Hills Organic Eggs & Ruby Hills Biodynamic Bath Milk!

Stay tuned...

June Farming...

Hello there!

We've had some chilly nights and days, and plenty of mud about. 

Yesterday we spent the day pruning fruit trees, draining mud away from the house and farm jobs.  

The kids helped out with egg collecting and did their favourite jobs - getting grubby!

this is our Maremma bitch, "Queenie" - hoping she'll fall pregos so that we can have little white chook watchin' fluff balls!  .... with potential dad to be below... "Sailor"

Here's Nic with Monty and Gretta on our afternoon collection. We collect eggs once a day from our A frame hen houses out in the paddock. 

The man that brings all of this lovely Organic produce to life - Nic...

interesting attire for our littlest one... but he's happy - so there's no harm, right!?

Here's one of the Hen Head Quarters. We have 4 of these around in the paddocks. Nic shifts these every 2nd day or so. It really helps when the ground is not really muddy and wet - sometimes the tractor has a hard time getting grip and moving them along.

This is the big boy helper, Baxter. He's a chook catcher extraordinaire! 

... the paddock's grass and herbage that the cows went into lastnight. 

We are getting closer and closer to having bath milk in a bottle! 

Terribly exciting to be putting our milky goodness sucked up strait from these pristine Organic paddocks and into a bottle for others to enjoy. Stay tuned....

nutritional difference!

Pastured Eggs

Eggs are an exceptionally nutritious food as we all know!  It's not surprising, considering they contain everything necessary to grow new life!  But all eggs are not created equal. Anyone that produces true pastured egg knows they're profoundly different. So has anyone who's tasted one. This has been vigorously denied by peak industry bodies the world over, primarily representing conventional egg farmers, which assert that eggs from giant smelly barns are nutritionally equal to their pastured counterparts. 

Mother Earth News decided to test that claim. They sent for pastured eggs from 14 farms around the U.S., tested them for a number of nutrients, and compared them to the figures listed in the USDA Nutrient Database for conventional eggs. Here are the results per 100 grams for conventional eggs and the average of all the pastured eggs:

 Vitamin A:

• Conventional: 487 IU
• Pastured avg: 792 IU

Vitamin D:

• Conventional: 34 IU
• Pastured avg: 136 - 204 IU

Vitamin E:

• Conventional: 0.97 mg
• Pastured avg: 3.73 mg

Beta-carotene:

• Conventional: 10 mcg
• Pastured avg: 79 mcg

Omega-3 fatty acids:

• Conventional: 0.22 g
• Pastured avg: 0.66 g

Eggs also contain vitamin K2, with the amount varying substantially according to the hen's diet. Guess where the A, D, K2, beta-carotene and omega-3 fatty acids are? In the yolk of course. Throwing the yolk away turns this powerhouse into a bland, nutritionally unimpressive food.

It's important to note that "free range" supermarket eggs are nutritionally similar to conventional eggs. The reason pastured eggs are so nutritious is that the chickens get to supplement their diets with abundant fresh plants and insects. Having little doors on the side of a giant smelly barn just doesn't replicate that. 

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In the Press...

Hello there. We've made the front page of our local paper for the 2 week run over Christmas!

We're terribly proud, and are enjoying our celebrity status with the locals. 

Here's what the article says...

Amy and Nic Paul and their children, Baxter (4 ½) Gretta (3 ½) and Monty (18 months), have built a happy and healthy lifestyle around the Organic Biodynamic dairy and poultry farm they have been leasing at Fish Creek for nearly a year. Amy is from America and Nic from New Zealand, but they find that South Gippsland suits them down to the ground.

Living the good life down on the farm

“HAPPY hens make delicious eggs!” says Amy Paul, who with husband Nic is behind Ruby Hills Organic Eggs, one of the newer stalls at the farmers’ market.

The eggs are produced by the 1,000 hens on Amy and Nic’s Fish Creek property (see photo on front page). They have been leasing the certified Biodynamic dairy and poultry farm of long-time Fish Creek organic farmers Ron and Bev Smith for almost a year. The farm is certified with the National Association for Sustainable Agriculture, Australia (NASAA).

“We believe in producing a product that we relish eating ourselves and feed to our family. Biodynamic farming is a step beyond organic in that we enhance the microorganisms in the soil by using specific biodynamic preparations, use the moon as a guide for timing of practices such as parasite control and we use homeopathic remedies - for our chooks, cows and ourselves,” says Amy.

The family also harvest some of their own veggies and have a thriving orchard and a worm farm.

‘Free range’ and ‘grass fed’ are understatements for the chickens that produce Ruby Hills Organic eggs. These fortunate chooks have acres of grassy slopes (the farm covers a total of 250 acres) on which to wander each day. There’s little to stress them, either. The Pauls’ five Maremma sheepdogs keep the eagles and foxes at bay, and each night the hens bed down in a spacious hen house.

Nic also milks 70 cows once a day. They supply their milk to True Organics Co-operative at Warragul, with a fortnightly order  to Red Hills Cheese.

“One day we’d like to make our own cheese, but we haven’t the time for that at this stage,” says Amy.

Life is certainly busy on the Paul farm, with three young children as well as all the chooks and cows, seven dogs, and 750 baby chickens.

“There’s always lots of help to collect the eggs, but no-one has yet put their hand up to help me milk the cows at five in the morning!” laughs Nic.

Amy takes eggs to Melbourne each week, where she finds it hard to keep up with the demand.

“We get lots of positive comments,” she says.

The Queen Victoria Market is the main Melbourne outlet, but eggs are also sold to several specialty organic shops. Locally, as well as the farmers’ market, they can be bought at Green Heart Organics at Inverloch, Aherns in Foster and at the Paddlewheel in Koonwarra.

“We’re always on the lookout for more local outlets,” says Amy.

She and Nic were dairy farmers in New Zealand for four years before jumping the ditch to Queensland. It was there that they started eating organically and decided that they wanted to produce a product they believed in.

“Ethical standards are much higher in Biodynamic and Organic foods than in commercially produced food,” says Amy. “It’s good to be part of the solution rather than adding to the problems that are facing the world with the overuse of chemicals and modification to traditional foods. In the end humans lose the race with the so called “cheap food.”  We end up paying for it with our health.” 

Ron and Bev Smith, who created this organic farm, still live up the road – they are building their own house and continue being active in Organic advocacy. 

“Ron and Bev created such a magic farm. We feel very blessed to have been given the opportunity to take it over and maintain their vision of organic living,” smiles Amy.

Life is good down on the farm.

the start to 2011

"Holly" guarding the "Hooligans" - the 16 week old hens..  

These 300 girls will start production when our original 1000 hens start dropping production in March.  They will be joined with the 450 babies that are in the baby shed - keeping warm and socializing until they are ready to go out to the paddock like these little ones.  

They are so much fun to watch grow. And they grow SO quickly! Their little long necks sure were long when they first sighted the outdoors and the grass they were about to step onto for the first time. They've been out for about a month and are foraging and growing like proper little hens!

Funny thing - this is not the first blog post that Holly has been in... Check her out here... 

a little Christmas Eve Eve paddock get together...

Hello there - just a few happenings from around the place. 

We hope that your Christmas was joyful. Ours was for sure. 

We are so happy to be where we are, on this special farm, in a warm and inviting community here at Fish Creek.  We've been beaching and walking at the Prom - amidst the farm work.... 

to market to market...

We had a very sunny, cold, wet, hot, hail, windy morning yesterday at the Foster Markets.  This is the one market that we get along to as it is our local. Thanks to the customers for making the effort to get out to see us and to buy some genuine local produce!

these girls sought refuge under the coffee man's awning.

we harvested our WONDERFUL garlic on Saturday too. Cannot wait to spike all of our dishes with it!

Happy days...

don't cry over....

...spilt eggs!!

this is where we put our eggs to get processed..  

a lot of eggs, eh?  

Well, lastnight our sorting table had a leg issue, and, well... long story short - a stack of NINE trays (holding 30 eggs each) smashed onto the floor below.  I was too depressed to take a picture. Trust me - it was a MESS! 270 deliciously perfect eggs make a BIG mess when smashed into smithereens.  

We had a lot of happy dogs last-night.
No happy campers to be found in the farm house, but at least the dogs were happy.

We have a huge demand for eggs at the moment.  With our regular clients, we could only supply half of what they wanted.  We could have sold double last week!

Well, hope will be on it's way - in the shape of a teeny tiny little chicky (or 400).  We've done our first batch of babies - 300 of them - and they're out in the paddock in their custom built A frame shed.   Close to the house so that we can keep a watchful eye on the little pesky girls.  They are now called "hoodlums" and I'm picking up 400 more day old chicks on Sunday.  They will come home to their custom built 20 foot storage container fitted with gas heaters and all the clean shavings, water, and food they can ask for.  In a few weeks, we'll introduce some greens to them, and a few weeks after that, they'll be transferred out to join the hoodlums.   

Have a happy day. 

Let me know if there's anything you want to see here on the blog - from houses, to chooks, to cows, to grasses - drop me a comment & we'll see what we can show you!