Profitable free-range chicken production in the Swartland

By Glenneis Kriel | 12 August 2024 | 1:00 pm

Suzanne Smit, owner of The Country Chic, spoke to Glenneis Kriel about her journey into commercial broiler and layer production in the Swartland.

Suzanne Smit and her son Alexander feeding layers. Photo: Glenneis Kriel

Suzanne Smit grew up on a dairy farm near Eendekuil in the Western Cape, where there had always been some chickens scampering around the yard.

A few months after getting married in 2015, she started longing to have chicken at her new home, a wheat and cattle farm called Dela Gift, near Riebeek-Kasteel in the Swartland.

Her husband, Jacobus Truter, responded to this need by buying a hen with six chicks when he came across the chickens of some farmworkers on another farm.

“Jacobus came home with this big smile and the birds in a shoebox. It was a lovely surprise,” Smit recalls.

That first batch of birds was raised in an unused building near their house, and over time this hobby changed into a flourishing business called The Country Chic.

“I never really envisioned having a poultry business. Initially, I just wanted chickens for their aesthetic value and did not think of their laying or meat production potential,” Smit admits.

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A few years later, she drove along the Sonkwasdrift road, and near Gouda spotted a woman who had hundreds of chickens running wild around her smallholding. Smit asked if she could buy 20 hens and a rooster, to which the woman replied she could if she would be able to catch them.

Smit fetched seven workers from Dela Gift to help her catch the chickens. “It was chaos catching those birds. You would aim for one, and then another would dart straight at you or shoot between your legs. It almost took an hour to catch them.”

The chickens multiplied quickly, and soon Smit had too many eggs to use for her household. She started supplying one of her neighbours, and later another. Word of her free-range eggs spread, and in a little while she also had a restaurant as a client.

Specialisation

In 2018, to ensure a constant supply of eggs, Smit bought her first 50 Lohmann point-of-lay hens.

“Up until then the chickens were a muddle of inbreds. They were resilient but did not produce eggs as frequently and of the same quality as layers, or as much meat as broilers. I also learnt that keeping roosters between hens negatively affected egg production.”

The farm did not have a budget or labour available to assist her, so Smit had to make do with whatever she could scavenge on the farm. An old pig house was cleared and turned into housing, empty farm cannisters were cleaned, cut in half and turned into laying boxes, and chaff was collected from the farm and used as bedding.

“At that point, I still saw the venture as a side-hustle – something that kept me busy and helped to generate a little extra income. Demand, however, grew steadily, and over time I increased the number of layers. Today, I have 600 layers, and I have been able to buy second-hand layer boxes, which greatly eased management,” she says.

Over time, she also built shaded structures, using second-hand parts and things she could find on the farm, under which the laying boxes are kept. “Most of the chickens prefer laying their eggs in the darker spaces under these structures,” she says.

Introducing broilers

After a while, her clients started asking what she did with her spent hens, and whether she could supply them with free-range meat.

“I explained that spent hens are not ideal meat producers, as their meat is tough. Also, a spent hen on my farm weighs no more than 1,5 kg, whereas broilers weigh between 2,4kg and 3,2kg at the point of slaughter.”

To cash in on this new opportunity, she decided to diversify into broiler production. Truter rejected the idea when she first mentioned it as he did not have any manpower available to assist her. Smit, however, vouched that she would “work it out” and ensure the broilers do not impact any of the formal farming activities.

Being new to broiler production, she did a lot of homework in preparation for this venture, and identified Hopefield Abattoir as the most suited place for slaughtering. She cleared out one of the storerooms on the farm to serve as housing, bought feeders, drinkers, lights and gas heaters from the local co-operative, and then started out with 50 day-old Ross chicks.

The broilers, as is the case with most commercial broiler operations, are raised for six weeks, after which they are slaughtered. Smit explains that high feeding costs start to eat away at profits if you keep the birds longer. After a while, the birds also gain so much weight that their legs are unable to support their weight.

Her first broilers sold out within 12 days after being slaughtered. Thereafter, she got a request from somebody to raise 700 broilers, which she raised along with 300 chicks for her existing clients.

Her clients scooped up the broilers in less than two weeks, whereas the big client struggled to sell 80 over this time. It then dawned on Smit that people bought her eggs and meat because they had a connection with her and associated her with the produce.

“The realisation made me aware of the importance of protecting my brand. So, I bought the birds back, and sold them all in another three weeks,” she said.

These days, her production cycle enables her to sell 300 broilers every two weeks. The birds were initially raised in two buildings on the farm that had not been used to their full potential, and Smit two years ago built another two buildings at a cost of about R40 000 each.

For biosecurity and hygienic purposes, the buildings are cleaned and disinfected when the broilers leave. A disinfected house is only filled with a new batch of chicks two weeks later.

Smit says her broiler sales had gone down in the past year due to inflation and high interest rates, which negatively affected tourism in Riebeek-Kasteel and resulted in people having less dispensable income to buy produce.

“I reduce the number of broilers I raise to accommodate market cycles like this, and raise it again when demand picks up.”

Broiler chicks are kept inside for the first two weeks of their lives to protect them from predators and the cold.

Sales

Smit initially took orders from clients and then delivered the orders to the parking area of the local church on Monday afternoons.

“I packed and labelled each order, and people then paid cash when they collected the produce. To keep things simple, I only sold whole frozen chickens at first, but later expanded the range in response to the demand for specific cuts. A friend also offered to add value to the chickens by making chicken pies, which further expanded the brand.”

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The delivery system has had various permutations since then. A helpful client offered to keep the eggs in their shop for collection to accommodate people who could not make the Monday collection, and someone later sold Smit’s produce in her shop.

In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, around 2020, Smit decided that she wanted full control of her produce from farm to market.

“I wanted to guarantee my eggs and meat were of a superior quality, but could not do this if I delivered it to someone else’s shop. Nobody else will look after your produce as well as you do, as you have a vested interest in the success of your produce.”

She explains that “looking after” means things like not packing new eggs on top of those that have not sold yet, ensuring the produce looks attractive, maintaining the supply chain, and ensuring packaging is not damaged.

There was a specific space in Riebeek-Kasteel where she wanted to set up her own shop, but it was already occupied as a waffle shop. So, she gathered the courage to ask the owners of the shop to inform her whenever they wanted to let go of the space.

“They thought I was crazy and said they had no intention of leaving. About six months later, however, I received a phone call from them, and they said they were packing up and I was welcome to take over the lease. This was a double blessing. Not only was it the space I really wanted, but it also fell within my very limited price range,” she said.

She only heard she could move into the shop in December 2021, so planning was the only thing on her mind during that holiday.

“I had eggs and chickens, and that was it. There were so many things that had to be done in such a short time. I needed a logo, shop furniture and signs, and the shop had to be painted, to mention only a few things.”

Again, she kept everything on a shoestring budget. Her eldest daughter, Annabella (17), designed a logo, which represents Smit carrying a basket of eggs. Since then, Annabella has been helping Smit out with the designs and logos used for her products, as well as with the social media marketing of her produce.

Her other children are also very involved in the business. Her charming seven-year-old, Karlé, can sell almost anything, while four-year-old Hendré feels most at home helping to collect eggs and working with the birds. Her youngest, Alexander, is only two years old.

Smit was seven months pregnant with him when she opened the shop, and started taking him to the shop with her from the time he was three months old.

Smit painted the shop red, adding big grey circles. She called the shop The Country Chic.

“My father, André Smit, said he had no idea what I was selling when he first looked at the shop and the name, and that was my idea. I wanted to spark people’s curiosity and lure them to enter my shop.”

The Country Chic is situated in Riebeek-Kasteel in the Swartland.

In terms of furniture, she made use of things she had and bought a second-hand upright freezer to keep the meat in. Truter wasn’t impressed and as a surprise bought her a new sliding-door freezer that allowed the meat to be displayed.

“He brought the freezer on his bakkie on the day the shop opened and wished me well.”

Sales, as well as the product range, grew rapidly – from pomegranates, almonds and baked products to flowers, tea and beauty products – as more and more people asked Smit if they could supply her with products.

“I accept new products on condition that it should be produced locally and cannot be sold anywhere else.”

She has also started making ice cream to sell.The shop was doing so well that she asked a neighbouring shop owner, whose space was about four times bigger than hers, if they could swop.

“The woman was happy with the proposal as COVID-19 had knocked her sales,” says Smit.

It had not always been smooth sailing – load-shedding, for instance, forced Smit to buy an inverter, while the struggling economy has also lowered her margins. But she loves what she is doing, and that is making everything worthwhile.