PRECEDE: Eating fresh food is a natural choice for Ellie Mitterer. The Nar Nar Goon farmer told Casey Neill about farming for healthy people, healthy animals and a healthy environment.
QUOTE: “I’d like to be able to feed my own family healthy food and I’d love to offer healthy food to other families…”
Ellie Mitterer added chickens to her farm about a year ago to boost cash flow and produce fertiliser.
“You can move them about the place so it’s a portable fertiliser system,” she said.
The first chooks she bought ate more than they produced.
She’s building up her new flock on her Nar Nar Goon farm Elle Park and plans to start selling at markets once her carton labels are ready.
Ellie is selling direct to consumers on trays at the moment.
“I deliver them so I know they’re going out fresh,” she said.
“I would ultimately like to see everyone with back yard chooks.
“It’s easy. It’s healthier.
“Kids can learn where their food is coming from.
“It’s a perfect breakfast for kids, two eggs scrambled – how easy is that?
“I grew up with free range eggs and I didn’t eat eggs for 20 years.
“I just couldn’t change.”
She hopes to add duck eggs into the mix.
“I tend to eat duck eggs,” she said.
“They’re larger. They’re a stronger flavour.
“Some people can’t stomach them.
“They’re orange in colour.”
Home for Ellie during her childhood was on five acres in Hampton Park.
Her family had chooks, ducks, geese, a vegie patch and fruit trees.
“It’s just second nature,” she said.
She suffered chronic fatigue when she was younger and still feels its after-effects, including brain-fog.
“Clean, healthy food helps alleviate that,” she said.
Ellie saved money “my whole life” so she could be the 95 acres in Nar Nar Goon she calls home.
“I’m dyslexic. I’m not suited to an office job,” she said.
“I did want to work really hard.
“I liked physical work.
“I wanted to work.
“I just had to spend money and learn as I went.
“I’d like to be able to feed my own family healthy food and I’d love to offer healthy food to other families who don’t have the ability to farm themselves.”
Her main income is from beef cattle.
“Mostly to date I’ve put a wagyu bill over them,” she said.
She grows them for two and a half years.
“I do paddock to plate,” she said.
“I only do grass-fed.
“I’ll probably look later on at doing it with the sheep.
“I haven’t been able to part with a lamb yet.”
She keeps them around her home to keep the grass down, along with alpacas.
A new alpaca was born the day before the Gazette paid a visit.
“They keep the foxes away around the home,” she said.
“They’re pet-like at the moment.
“They’re a good back-up for the chooks as well.”
An electric fence and maremma dog are her main guard against foxes.
“I leave a few roosters in the flock,” she said.
“That helps with the eagles.
“The roosters will send a warning signal out to the chooks.
“They still take a few.”
She said spared chickens ate alongside eagles once they claimed one of the flock.
The chooks live in a row of converted caravans, which provide shade and safety.
“Chooks love interaction,” she said as they swarmed towards the approaching car.
“They love to know what’s going on.
“They don’t like being wet so you have to have cover for them.
“You have to keep them on a good diet.”
Chickens can’t digest the cellulose in grass like cows can through rumination.
“They can digest the chlorophyll in young, green grass,” Ellie said.
“This time of year there’s nothing green but there are insects.
“They’re omnivorous.
“On fresh grass they’re generally healthier.”
She puts apple cider vinegar and garlic in their water when needed.
Her flock includes recycled ISA browns, hyline brown, and a mix of australorps and New Hampshires.
“They get to dust bathe,” she said of the free range model.
“They get to interact and they’ve got social hierarchy.”
Ellie will soon be “downsizing” to a larger farm – 106 acres – in Korrumburra to free up money to start a family.
The block has no house so she’ll rent in town.
“I’m half-looking for someone local to buy the chook business,” she said.
She’ll take some with her, plus alpacas, cows and sheep.
