When Anna Penn's flock of 3,000 hardy hens stop pecking and look up, they can watch waves crashing into the shore.

They're residents at New Zealand's southernmost commercial egg farm, overlooking Te Waewae Bay in Southland.

"We're about 1,800 nautical miles from the ice and 35 miles from Stewart Island," Penn tells Country Life.

The gang of Brown Shavers seem to thrive on her clifftop property, which has plenty of pasture for them to fossick around in.

The fresh sea air and stormy weather give Te Waewae Eggs a tasty edge, Anna reckons.

"It's just minerally enriched, everything about [the environment]. And overall it's a confluence of factors that just make this [egg farm] work."

Photo: Cosmo Kentish-Barnes

On a wet and windy day, Penn's hens flock into some laying coops that her husband Rob is currently building on their 20-hectare property.

Coop number six is his latest construction, Anna says.

"This coop isn't finished completely, we're getting there, but they're warm, they're fed, they're sheltered, they're happy."

"Who are the ones that get wet and uncomfortable? It's the humans. The birds are fine, right, Yvonne?!"

Yvonne is the second-in-charge at the farm, which sits between Tuatapere and Riverton.

She collects and sorts over 2,000 eggs a day, rain or shine.

Photo: Cosmo Kentish-Barnes

Photo: Cosmo Kentish-Barnes

Anna and Rob Penn established their egg farm back in 2019 and they say demand for the eggs has been growing steadily ever since.

When battery cages for layer hens become illegal on 1 January this year, orders for Te Waewae eggs rose significantly, Anna says.

"As we sit now, we've got a third in colony cages, a third in barn and a third [living] free range."

Although colony cages provide more space for hens than battery cages - and are currently approved by the Ministry of Primary Industries - some supermarkets have decided to stop selling eggs farmed this way, she says.

This trend has further increased demand for Te Waewae's free-range eggs.

Photo: Cosmo Kentish-Barnes

Before becoming an egg farmer, Anna was a bird fancier and she still breeds dozens of rare birds.

"I never realised it would quite reach this peak, but I find them fascinating endlessly."

While her peacocks are the most elegant breed on the property, Anna's personal favourites are the Araucana chickens.

"I like the eggs and it's taken me a long time but I've got teal eggs now.

"[Araucana chickens] are a South American bird. Vasco da Gama used them on the big exploring ships because they could withstand being submerged in the baskets on the bow of the ship and still lay eggs."

Cosmo Kentish-Barnes - Producer

Republished by arrangement