We've hit our first target of £5,000! Thank you! 

Now we're aiming for the full £70,000 to replace the SOY in our ducks' diet with locally produced INSECTS!

We are the UK's only organic certified producer of duck eggs and breeder of Campbell ducks

For the last 7 years, Abi and Josh have been on a mission to build an organic regenerative farm that is both ecologically and economically sound. The rising cost of animal feed in recent years (amongst other things) has put our farm under extreme pressure.

We have launched this campaign to raise enough funding to save our farm and to prepare for the future that we all face.

To Survive The Winter...

UPDATE 01/11/22: We've hit our basic target! Thank you so much everyone!

Our first funding target is to generate £5,000 to help us feed the ducks through this winter. Their lay rate is lower in the darker months, and feed prices have become so high that buying another load of feed is prohibitively expensive. If we get to this target, it'll buy us more time for the farm and the flock - but there are still many challenges we face.

To Thrive, We Go Carbon Negative

Our next goal is to reinvent our farm - to make it future proof and more resilient.  For this we will need around £70,000. With this money we plan to install the infrastructure required to replace the soy in our ducks' diet with insect protein - which we will produce on the farm using locally sourced food waste.

In addition, we are going to be growing thousands more trees on the farm, which will not only help us sequester carbon, but also go into producing a high quality compost that we will make using a combination of wood chip, duck manure, and worms (vermicompost).

More detail on what we will spend the money on can be found further down.

The Artwork Saves The Ducks!

Abi is an artist, and a really good one! So in exchange for your support we are offering some awesome duck inspired artwork. If you decide to help fund our project you'll get something very special as a token of our gratitude for saving our farm and the ducks.

On offer is:

• Psychedelic Duck Stickers (4 designs / 12 in a pack)
• A4 Print of 'Ducks In A Row' (Unlimited)
• A3 Print of Khaki Campbell (Limited)
• Custom Painting - 1 metre in height
• Custom Painting - 2 metre in height

Investing In A Farm For The Future

By investing in our regenerative farm project, you'll be supporting ecologically focused innovation in the agricultural sector. Farmers face enormous challenges and we need your support!

Most farm businesses are underinvested and over stretched. By supporting us, you'll be helping to build a working example of a carbon negative poultry farm. 

If we manage to raise the full amount for this project, we'll be investing in:

• An insect production unit on the farm.
• Mains electric and a barn to accommodate the insect production.
• Another duck house to provide additional space for vermicomposting and rotating the flock
• Large area of predator proof electric fencing, in which we will plant thousands of trees for the ducks to safely roam.
• Equipment for processing wood chip, composting, screening and bagging.
• Larger incubator and egg washing equipment, which will help us to be more efficient.

If we get more than £5,000, but do not achieve the full £70,000, then we will adapt our plan accordingly. We are in this for the long run, and are determined to reach our goals. Less money will simply mean slower progress, and less efficiency, but we'll do our best to focus on those activities which make the biggest impact. 

Risks & Challenges

As with all farm projects, there are no shortages of risks and challenges for this project. The main challenges will be around the insect feed:

• Getting the insect production unit running smoothly and consistently. The technology that we will be using is very new, and there will no doubt be 'bugs' to iron out - excuse the pun! The most important thing is that we have an uninterrupted supply of protein for the ducks. Any interruption in supply could put the ducks off laying. In the event that something goes wrong with the insect production unit, we will have to use the soy based (still organic) feed that we currently use as a back up. 
• The other challenge that we face is finding a good source of local food waste that is available year round, and in the same volume every week. The higher the quality of food waste material that we feed to the insects, the more nutritious they will be for the ducks.  
• In addition, finding food waste from a strictly organic certified source will be difficult. We hope that the Soil Association will make an exception for us when they interrogate our feed inputs. From what we understand, there is not yet any official decision on whether insects that are fed non-organic food waste can be used on a certified organic farm.

In regards to the composting and tree planting - we already have quite a lot of experience with this. We don't expect it to be difficult to find a market for our compost - as there is currently a very high demand for a quality organic fertiliser.

Other Ways You Can Help

We know that a lot of people are facing financial challenges right now. So there will be many who cannot afford to support our project, but want to show solidarity. Other than funding - the best way that you can help us is:

• Share this campaign with others
• Subscribe to our YouTube channel
• Follow us on our social media channels