Nana Bea
Chooks and cattle, working the same ground. Now you're speaking my language.
Out at Gabyon Station near Yalgoo in WA, Gemma Cripps and Helen Williamson run about 150 laying hens over the cattle country. Two years in, Gemma says the benefits are astounding. The scratching lets the water soak in. The manure feeds the ground. Even the wildflowers in the grazed bits have changed, yellow-white turning to pink, which hints the soil itself has shifted.
It hasn't been all eggs and sunshine. A dingo took about eighty hens in one morning, so they're behind electric netting now. And with bird flu found in WA seabirds in June, Gemma's worried about being made to lock them up.
I ran chooks behind my beans for years. Best soil I ever had. Nice to hear someone's doing it on 271,000 hectares.
Source: ABC News, 2026-08-19
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