Trencaclosques is a free-range chicken farm in Fonteta run by a Dutch couple, Dinette & Winolt, who have been living in the Costa Brava region of Catalunya since 2005. Winolt had already been in the business of supplying machinery to other chicken farms so, after some deliberation, they decided to take the plunge and start their own.
How to start a free-range chicken farm!
After a search, they eventually found a suitable farm in Fonteta, near La Bisbal d’Empordà, that for the previous 20 years had been an ostrich farm and, after getting the necessary paperwork in order to obtain accreditation as an ecological chicken farm, they began in December of 2017. After much discussion and debate they decided to name their farm Trencaclosques, a clever play on words from the Catalan: trencaclosques = a (jigsaw) puzzle. If you break the words into two however it gives you trenca (break) closques (shells) – something which they hardly ever do, as we’ll see below.
By the way, the word for “eggs” in Catalan is “ous”, and in Castellano/Spanish, it’s “huevos”.
There was a lot of preparation required and it wasn’t till the following April that the first chickens arrived – all 3000 of them! In fact, all 3000 chickens were born on the same day (birthday parties must really be great fun on that farm!). According to regulations, the maximum number of chickens that can be housed together in one barn is 3000, so plans were drawn up to build another barn to accommodate another 3000 – with its own separate field, of course, for the new arrivals to roam free in. When the new chicks are born they need a constant temperature of 30c, so they spend the first part of their lives in a specially built house before moving to the main barn.
“Green” chickens! (No, not literally!)
The chickens’ welfare is a priority and although a chicken that may become ill is treated with the appropriate medicine, no preventative antibiotics are fed to the whole flock, and as the farm is “Earth-friendly” no pesticides are used either. Even when inside the chickens also have a lot more space than on a conventional farm as (unlike farms where the space under their perches is allowed to fill up with chicken manure) here there is a conveyor belt to take away all the poo, leaving the clean space underneath free for them to hang out in. Apart from the extra space this provides, it is also a much healthier environment for the chooks.
The chickens spend nights indoors and in the morning they lay their eggs. Then, once feeding time is over around midday, the hatches are opened and they are free to roam outside in their own 15,000m² playground for the rest of the day until (of their own accord) they head back into the warmth of their barn when they want as evening falls. Typically each chicken lays 5 or 6 eggs per week so that adds up to around about 2500 eggs per day. That’s a lot of ous!
Of course, all those eggs need to be gathered and put into boxes. This is where Winolt’s previous experience with the machinery comes in handy! Rather than try and go into much detail explaining how it all works, here are a couple of photos of the process in operation:
Eggs are tough!!
With so much machinery you would imagine more eggs would get broken, but in fact surprisingly few do. This is because eggs are a lot tougher than they look! Try cracking an egg in your hand by squeezing as hard as you can on the two “points” of the egg and you’ll find it is almost impossible. Even if you place the egg in the palm of your hand, wrap your fingers around it, and squeeze as hard as you can, it’s a lot harder than you’d think. The scientific explanation is that the pressure is distributed evenly through the egg, thus making it extremely tough to break in such a manner, as opposed to when you crack an egg by, for example, hitting it at one point against the edge of your frying pan.
Get your tasty free-range eggs!
If you would like to purchase some of these delicious free-range eggs you can do so by visiting the farm between 10:00 and 14:00 on Saturdays. It’s worth the trip not only for the eggs as it’s also a very pleasant drive through some really lovely countryside. There are far worse ways you could spend your Saturday morning, and for lunch, you could always cook yourself a tasty Spanish tortilla!
