Business Rural Winter 2021

6 | RURAL PEOPLE » Up The Road: John & Tarsha Clemens Family egg business Richard Loader T he search for farm diversification and the want of extra pocket money conspired to lay a golden egg for the Clemens’ family, who five years ago sowed the seeds of Charlie’s Chook Eggs on their small 50-hectare farm under Mid-Canter- bury’s foothills. Taking its name from John and Tarsha Clemens’ 17-year-old son Charlie, the business has evolved from twenty laying chooks to six hundred, produc- ing farm-fresh, free-range eggs. Charlie and his sister Nikita were looking for a bit of extra pocket money and started selling eggs to their grandparents, then neighbours, then the whole block until the little venture took flight with a life of its own as Charlie’s Chook Eggs’ farm-fresh reputa- tion grew throughout the region. Today eggs are supplied to locals along with pubs and cafés around Ashburton, Geraldine, Methven and Mt Somers. A regular egg run delivers around the region but customers are also welcome to call into the farm, called ‘Up the Road’, and buy directly. John says the biggest selling point is that the eggs are free range and farm fresh. “We get new chickens in batches of 100 – 150 chickens every three months at ‘point of lay’ which is typically between 16 – 22 weeks old. When we get the new chooks we keep them in the hen house for 3 – 5 days so that they become familiar with their home and then the doors are opened up. We don’t lock them up again until they get to the end of their laying life which is at about eighteen months old.” Initially starting with one of Heslip’s Hatcher- ies hen houses, Charlie’s Chook Eggs now has six houses with the largest able to accommodate three hundred hens. All hen houses are on skids and can be towed anywhere around the farm where there is access to water, so the hens always have grass underneath them. “The key to clean eggs is to keep the hen houses clean,” explains John. “The houses have rollaway nesting boxes with wee conveyors that the eggs roll onto. You just stand at the end of the chook house and wind the eggs through the house.” While Nikita has now left home and is learning to fly with the ambition of becoming an Air New Zealand pilot, Charlie is in his last year of high school and still very involved in the little business that bears his name. Located in Mayfield, about 35 kilometers south- west of Ashburton, the farm has been owned by the Clemens family for the last fourteen years but it is only in recent times that John has been able to work full time on the farm. While working for a local contractor for a number of years, John and his family lived ‘down the road’ and john would say he was going ‘up the road’ to visit their farm, which at the time was just a bare block. And that is how the farm got its name — ‘Up The Road’. Eventually John decided he wanted to spend more time with his family and gave up contracting to concentrate on ‘Up the Road’, which was home to a white Dorper sheep stud and a calf rearing operation. True to John’s spontaneous nature, in 2009 he attended a sale in Templeton and registered without any real intention of buying anything, but the white dorper stud caught his eye. “They were only $150 each so me being me and without knowing much about them I came home with four ewes and a ram to see how they went. That ‘s how I got started into white dorpers. Now I have 200 ewes and 75 hoggets that go to the ram. Dorpers lamb all year round — if they‘re cycling they will take the ram.” Very good yielding sheep, John says if entered into the Mint Lamb competition a white dorper does very well. The Clemens’ driver for diversification came when their successful calf rearing business was impacted by M-Bovis. “We had been sending quite a few of our calves up to the North Island but that dried up instantly. So we had to diversify and the result was our egg business.” “We had been sending quite a few of our calves up to the North Island but that dried up instantly. So we had to diversify and the result was our egg business.” Charlie Clemens packs his Charlie’s Chook Eggs into cartons at the back of one of the chook houses. The houses have rollaway nesting boxes with conveyors the eggs roll onto. The eggs are simply wound through to the packing area. - STOCK - BULK - GENERAL FREIGHT - BLOWER TRUCK - FERTILISER SPREADING - SHINGLE SUPPLIES - PUBLIC WEIGHBRIDGE - RAVENSDOWN STORE MAYFIELD - RAVENSDOWN CONSIGNMENT STORE ORARI Ph: (03) 303 6102 - 0800 687 267 (0800 mtrans) | Email: office@mtrans.nz Post: 74 MAYFIELD KLONDYKE ROAD, MAYFIELD, ASHBURTON 7778 | WWW.MAYFIELDTRANSPORT.NZ Proud to support Up the Road > Engineering > Hydraulics > 24/7 > Onsite Proud to support Up The Road Call Kelvin Dolton Manager 03 303 6482 or 027 368 4177 kelvin@foothillsengineeringltd.com A family owned & run business specializing in working with family farms 027 279 8704 or 03 303 6300 o ce@donaldlovecontracting.nz Proudly supporting Up the Road • Stock water race cleaning • Irrigation race cleaning • Disposable pits • Soak Pit • Trenches • Gorse fence & shelter belt removal • Irrigation mainline trenching • Shingle screening bucket • Tip truck hire • Tree stump removal & root raking • Operating three diggers Contracting Ltd Experienced operators with extensive local knowledge For all your digging requirements Proudly supporting Up the Road • On-farm shingling - laneways, stockyards, water troughs • Pipeline installation & repairs • Cow lane cleaning Phone Ron - 021 347 958 or 303 6067 Cross