RURAL BUSINESS
Fashion graduate Amelia Strong used to incubate hens’ eggs in her bedroom. Now, she’s running the family farm, hatching pedigree poultry for hen fanciers country wide
The first chicken that stole Kirk Robertson’s heart was a Rhode Island Red cockerel called Big Tam. “He was beautiful but vicious,” says Kirk, recalling his childhood in Ghana, where his mum kept a small flock in the garden. “Visitors would ring my parents in advance to check where he was, so they could approach the house from another direction.” Fortunately, Big Tam was an exception. The breeding flock of Rhode Island Reds surrounding him now are much calmer and unperturbed by its noble-looking but nonchalant rooster. “We don’t breed from birds that show signs of aggression because we sell chickens to families,” Kirk says.
Kirk’s youngest daughter, Amelia Strong, was just a toddler when she handled her first Rhodie. Now, she’s taking the reins from Kirk as manager of Higher Oak Farm in Lymm, Cheshire, where she hatches rare- and heritage-breed chickens and sells pasture-raised eggs, farmhouse bakes and handmade chocolates. “The first egg from a hen is so exciting,” says Amelia, who was drawn back to the farm after studying fashion. She remembers collecting eggs with her sisters Charlotte and Emma after her dad and mum, Lindsay, started keeping garden hens and encouraged the girls to incubate eggs in their bedrooms: “They wanted us to have a better understanding of animals and where food comes from.”
HATCHING A PLAN
Kirk turned his hobby into a business in 2013 after selling his school sportswear company and buying two arable fields on the edge of their village: “It was time to do the thing I really enjoyed – raising chickens.” He’d spotted an opportunity to supply smallholders and backyard hen-keepers with rare breeds such as Old English Pheasant Fowl, Cream Legbar and blue-egg-laying Araucanas. “Some of these breeds are quite vulnerable. I wanted to help protect their genetics by keeping their numbers up,” he says.
When Kirk had developed the 6.5-hectare farm to the point where he could afford to employ a manager, Amelia was the natural choice, coming on board in 2019. “I’ve always loved animals and being outside,” says Amelia, who spent her childhood playing in the compost heap and now relishes living in astatic caravan on the farm with her husband Nathan and fox-red Labrador Arizona. Her daily routine begins at 7am with a walk round the field where they keep 450 birds. Breeding hen
