At This Australian Farm, Chickens Dance on Trampolines
Tasmanian farm lets ‘happy’ industrial chickens frolic in the sun and eat insects, giving them a taste like French heritage birds
SASSAFRAS, TASMANIA — Call it a country club for chickens.
At Nichol’s Poultry farm, located in a lush Tasmanian valley surrounded by rolling green hills, fluffy white birds with tanned red wattles roam into and out of sheds about the size of a New York studio apartment. Some seek respite from the hot Australian sun in shady patches of grass next to their coops. Others hop playfully onto raised canvas walkways designed to encourage their movement between sheds.
“We designed a system that allows our chickens to go outside whenever they want,” said Jane Bennett, CEO of TasFoods, the company that owns the farm. “It’s unusual because most chicken houses are huge and many birds marketed as free-range never actually go outside.”
Bennett’s birds come and go as they wish. Most wander outside in the early morning hours or at dusk, though an adventurous few hop on the canvas walkways, which double as chicken trampolines. None is known to have ever meandered more than a few hundred meters away from the coops. The fact that British colonialists never brought foxes here means…
