Hi I am 13 and I started showing an interest in birds when I was 8.

So my parents decided that it would be a good idea if we all had businesses so when I was eight and showing an interested in birds we went to see a chook breeder. We chose ten chooks at $15 each they were Minorca’s which is an old breed.

They started laying the next day. I started selling eggs to friends and family at $2.50 a dozen. It took me four months to pay back my parents.

Then I was given chickens from a friend who had an egg hatching business in schools. She provided schools and kindergartens a dozen eggs, they would watch them hatch and have them for ten days. After that she would get them back and give them to me.

I raised them and built up my flock. The excess I took to the Lancefield farmers market and started selling them there.

During that time my parents went organic and so with them I did too. I had to change my feed and keep record of my eggs. I bought grain from a organic farmer in Donald and also a poultry mix from Queensland.

Price of grain when I started was $300 a ton now the last shipment from Queensland cost me $1043 a ton. My egg prices have increased over the last five years. 

I have roughly a flock of hundred birds. You caqn get my eggs from Viv’s organics, Fernleigh Farms, Slow Living Organics in Kyneton or go for a meal at the Clock and Beaver or Braeside cafe in Macedon. The other way is to come to me at the Lancefield and Riddells Creek farmers market. I’m not always there, life is busy at thirteen.

NEWSFLASH: Madelaine's eggs was featured in

Love's Harvest -  On SBS

A quartet of stories about love, the seasons and living on the land

www.rebelfilms.com.au/films/lovesharvest/index.html