WHEN husband and wife team Nick and Amanda Kuhn decided to make the move from Alice Springs back to the Fraser Coast and launch headlong into a free-range organic chicken egg business, it was a leap of faith.
With no prior experience, they started on some land on Nick’s parent’s farm, and away they went.
“I was excited to come back and work on the family farm. I had some pet chickens here on the farm when I was young, but obviously nothing like the scale we have now,” Nick said.
“We started in March 2019 with one caravan and 800 chickens. We were told we were bloody crazy.”
Most start with 50 or 100 birds, but one thing was for sure, Nick and Amanda were all in.
You can’t just go down to Bunnings and pick up 800 chickens; it’s an upfront commitment made well in advance.
“We had to order the chickens six months in advance from a company just outside of Brisbane, which is the only place in Queensland that you can get our breed of chickens.”
“Once the chickens arrive, they have a two-week adjustment period before they will start to lay. That’s when the fun starts.”
“We have to train them to head into the caravan to lay, which is a learned behaviour, but it must be pretty cool to watch us herd chickens for that first three-days.”
Fast forward to today, and Brother Brother Organics has four caravans and just over 4,500 birds, moving up to 6,000 in September.
“There is no doubt that our growth has been on the back of consumer demand for free range produce. People want to buy directly off the grower and understand where their food comes from, that the transparency is there.”
“Consumers need to be very careful around clever marketing. You can have eggs from a cage, where chickens have been fed certified organic grain and that can be called an organic egg.”
“Even with free-range, you can have up to 10,000 chickens per hectare. We have less than 50.”
From humble beginnings, Brother Brother Organics has forged itself as a true local family success story, producing over 25,000 eggs a week for local markets, specialised stores in Hervey Bay, along with cafes and restaurants.