The Lilydale Promise is that when you buy Lilydale, you’re buying free range chicken that have been raised with care on Lilydale farms by Lilydale farmers.
All Lilydale chickens are raised without the use of antibiotics, with no added hormones and no added growth promotants.
Our story started in 2001 in Lilydale, a picturesque town at the entrance of the Yarra Valley in Victoria.
The region itself is known for its award winning wineries and bountiful produce, making it the perfect starting point for our free range brand.
Today, our Lilydale farms are located across regions in South Australia, New South Wales and Western Australia.
Lilydale farms are accredited by Free Range Egg and Poultry Australia (FREPA) and are regularly audited to ensure we are meeting this standard. The FREPA accreditation logo features on all Lilydale Free Range Chicken packaging, alongside our commitment to raising Lilydale chickens without the use of antibiotics with no added hormones or growth promotants.
We believe that FREPA is the leading accreditation body for free range meat chicken farms in Australia. FREPA is committed to free range standards and ensuring that all farms meet the standards through routine auditing. Importantly the standards mean:
For more information on the FREPA standard, visit the website.
More about frepa
Lilydale free range chickens, once adequately feathered (normally around 21 days), have the ability to leave their barns and access fenced outdoor range areas during daylight hours.
The outdoor range areas are equipped with shade huts, hay bales and wooden ramps. Whilst many chickens are content with the comforts of a barn, during an average day, a proportion of the chickens will venture outside and return at their leisure.
Various conditions can affect if, or how many, chickens choose to access the range areas and how long they stay outside. At night time and during extreme weather (hot or cold), they are housed in barns to keep them warm, comfortable and safe from predators.
Lilydale’s free range chickens are fed specially formulated diets by our nutritionists. Our feed ensures our chickens receive a vitamin-enriched, nutritious and balanced diet comprising of quality cereal grains (such as wheat and sorghum) and protein meals. They are supplemented by vitamins, minerals and amino acids to achieve optimum health and wellbeing. In addition to our feeds, the chickens are free to forage for fresh vegetation in our outdoor range areas when ranging.
On Lilydale farms, there is no use of antibiotic growth promotants or other medications that may be classified as antibiotics, including the 'animal-only use' antibiotics that may be used for prevention of coccidiosis.
We care about the health and welfare of our chickens. If Lilydale chickens become sick and our veterinarians recommend treatment with antibiotics to maintain their welfare, in accordance with the FREPA Standards, these treated chickens will not be sold as Lilydale free range.
Lilydale Free Range Chickens are raised with care on Lilydale farms located in South Australia, New South Wales and Western Australia.
Our farmers are committed to raising healthy free range chickens and are passionate about farming and growing good quality produce.
We care about the health and welfare of our chickens. To encourage our chickens to make use of the outdoors area, we place hay bales in every range area. Some hay bales have wooden ramps leading up to the bales, providing both fun and exercise for the chickens.
We work with our farmers to plant trees within our farms’ outdoor range areas where there are not already established trees. We carefully choose the variety of trees based on local soil and weather conditions.
When mature, these trees provide shade for our chickens. Our farmers are dedicated to safeguarding the wellbeing of these trees and will replant them if necessary.
Just like some of us choose to avoid direct sunlight, chickens like to enjoy the shade on a sunny day. Our farms are equipped not only with trees, but also shade huts providing added protection from the sun.