Llandilo Farm Fresh Eggs – Michael Galea

Established in 1963, Llandilo Farm Fresh Eggs is a family-operated farm outside of Penrith that has been producing fresh eggs for 60-odd years. And while food trends have come and gone, eggs have remained a constant and a favourite.

“There was a time there when they said eggs were no good for you, that they had cholesterol. Like they do with everything, they make a drama about something and then realise they were wrong. Everybody’s always eaten eggs,” states Michael Galea, who is now at the helm of the family operation.

So what makes a good egg? “For me, the main thing is that they are fresh, because it is a fresh product. It’s like buying a lettuce — you don’t want an old lettuce, you want it to be fresh,” Michael says. What they feed the chickens is also important. “If you feed them right they’re going to produce a better product in the end. You can skimp a lot on feed and they’ll still lay but you won’t get the premium product at the end. As they say, you are what you eat.”

To that end, Michael buys the ingredients for the feed and mixes it himself, following the advice of a poultry dietician. “I’ve been doing this all my life but I’m no poultry dietician; we change a few things around a fair bit in the feed just to get everything right. Since we’re collecting the eggs we can see ‘oh, these eggs are dirty’ or ‘the shell quality’s not quite right’, so we’re always tweaking the diet.’

Temperature can also have an effect with hot and humid days impacting the chickens and, in turn, the eggs. “If it’s hot weather, they drink a lot more, eat a lot less, and the egg size drops. And too many hot or humid days in a row, the egg whites become runny, so you’re always trying to keep them as happy as possible. If I don’t look after them, they don’t look after me.”

And if you’re in the market for farm-fresh eggs, Michael and his team will happily look after you. “We have barn-laid eggs but we also have some free-range chooks as well. We collect the eggs and then they go through a machine that weighs them all,” Michael says, explaining that they sell by the dozen in 500gm, 600gm, 700gm, 800gm and 850gm weight classes. “We sell them in dozen form, in trays, by the box — a bit of everything.

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