Ours are organic and free range. Its hard work.

Free range is quite well known, so many hours out, room to scratch, flap about etc etc., organic is the hard bit.

They have to be fed only on authorised/approved organic feed, the wormer they are given and any other supplements also have to be organic, as is, and I'm not 100% on this bit, the pasture they have access to.

You are not allowed to use herbicide or chemicals on the grass they have access to. Basically they should have no contact with anything chemical which can get into the egg.

And then after all that you are not allowed to advertise, market or sell them as organic unless you are members of the Soil Association. You are inspected and approved by their staff and then their fee is something like £1,000 per year for their approval, providing you meet all their criteria, which is really strict.

We follow all their organic standards but are not approved as we refuse to pay the extortionate fee in order to sell a few excess eggs to our neighbour.

Like I said its hard work.