Meet Hamish Sturgeon, the quail kid cracking the Coromandel egg market
'I have to feed them, water them, do all the food for them.
'So that's what I do.'
The youngest of five siblings, Hamish has a three-tiered coop and a movable pen in his family's yard for his 29 birds.
They are Japanese quails and come in several different earthy shades without the signature quirky head feathers of the Californian variety.
'If you're lucky enough, you could just hear the male crow.
'Hear that? It's quite cool.'
Hamish exudes confidence with a wide smile and a firm handshake when he greets RNZ's Country Life at the gate to his Coromandel home overlooking the bay.
His infectious enthusiasm and marketing skills no doubt win over a few shoppers.
He sometimes takes the quails to the market to show them off and encourage people to buy the diminutive eggs, which he packages up in trays of a dozen.
'They have three times the protein of chicken eggs - delicious!
'They taste like chicken eggs, but a little bit more flavour - beautiful!'
The packaged eggs ready for market. Photo / RNZ, Sally Round
Hamish's 'store buddy', the much older Giovanni Vico, sells gluten-free bread alongside Hamish at the market, and they work in tandem to sell the bread and the eggs.
'Last week, we just scrambled some up and put them on the focaccia toast.'
'We are a mega team,' Giovanni said.
'It's fantastic, a young kid ... looking after animals, and at the same time making a little bit of money out of it.
'He's a little genius, my friend over there.'
Hamish takes the eggs to market each Saturday, packaged up and displayed alongside his brightly illustrated sign. Photo / RNZ, Sally Round
Hamish was introduced to keeping quails by his aunt nearly two years ago, and he has since soaked up the information needed on how to care for them, describing them as 'amazing creatures'.
'It just slowly came to me. I've got to learn about what I have.
'My auntie said ... they really like sand.
'So, I got some sand, and they really do like sand. They really do.
'They just go in the sand, and they just turn into little fluff balls, flicking sand everywhere.'
The packaged eggs ready for market. Photo / RNZ, Sally Round
He has learnt their laying rate coincides with the amount of sun they get.
'But then, slowly in the winter, they stop because there's not enough sunlight.'
Only a couple of the birds have names, including 'Motherclucker' and 'Dobby'.
Dobby nearly came to an unfortunate end with the family dog, but has since been nursed back to health by Hamish.
Hamish takes Country Life on a tour of the little farm and puts a tray of sand in one of the cages as a dust bath.
The quails enjoying a dust bath in their pen on the front lawn. Photo / RNZ, Sally Round
Spotting a clutch of eggs, he quickly scoops them up.
'They just lay anywhere ... the females are bred to not care about their eggs or not be broody. Cool fact!'
When the quails are laying, Hamish manages to take 10 to 11 dozen eggs to market each Saturday, packaged up and displayed alongside his brightly illustrated sign bearing the name 'Daily Quails Eggs est. 2024' and the tagline 'One small step for Hamish, one giant step for quails'.
The eggs are delicious and protein-packed, Hamish says. Photo / RNZ, Sally Round
He is saving the profits he makes after paying for the stall and other outgoings like feed.
While Vico jokes about expanding into the hundreds of quails, Hamish is keen to keep the venture small and manageable, although he might add another three-tiered coop.
'Actually, having quails is quite fun. You've got to have responsibility to take care of them. And if you don't, they'll die. But if you do, you have a little bit of a reward.'
Postscript: Hamish recently turned 13 and has been surprised to see the quails laying through the winter.
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NZ Herald
5 days ago
- NZ Herald
Meet Hamish Sturgeon, the quail kid cracking the Coromandel egg market
'I have to feed them, water them, do all the food for them. 'So that's what I do.' The youngest of five siblings, Hamish has a three-tiered coop and a movable pen in his family's yard for his 29 birds. They are Japanese quails and come in several different earthy shades without the signature quirky head feathers of the Californian variety. 'If you're lucky enough, you could just hear the male crow. 'Hear that? It's quite cool.' Hamish exudes confidence with a wide smile and a firm handshake when he greets RNZ's Country Life at the gate to his Coromandel home overlooking the bay. His infectious enthusiasm and marketing skills no doubt win over a few shoppers. He sometimes takes the quails to the market to show them off and encourage people to buy the diminutive eggs, which he packages up in trays of a dozen. 'They have three times the protein of chicken eggs - delicious! 'They taste like chicken eggs, but a little bit more flavour - beautiful!' The packaged eggs ready for market. Photo / RNZ, Sally Round Hamish's 'store buddy', the much older Giovanni Vico, sells gluten-free bread alongside Hamish at the market, and they work in tandem to sell the bread and the eggs. 'Last week, we just scrambled some up and put them on the focaccia toast.' 'We are a mega team,' Giovanni said. 'It's fantastic, a young kid ... looking after animals, and at the same time making a little bit of money out of it. 'He's a little genius, my friend over there.' Hamish takes the eggs to market each Saturday, packaged up and displayed alongside his brightly illustrated sign. Photo / RNZ, Sally Round Hamish was introduced to keeping quails by his aunt nearly two years ago, and he has since soaked up the information needed on how to care for them, describing them as 'amazing creatures'. 'It just slowly came to me. I've got to learn about what I have. 'My auntie said ... they really like sand. 'So, I got some sand, and they really do like sand. They really do. 'They just go in the sand, and they just turn into little fluff balls, flicking sand everywhere.' The packaged eggs ready for market. Photo / RNZ, Sally Round He has learnt their laying rate coincides with the amount of sun they get. 'But then, slowly in the winter, they stop because there's not enough sunlight.' Only a couple of the birds have names, including 'Motherclucker' and 'Dobby'. Dobby nearly came to an unfortunate end with the family dog, but has since been nursed back to health by Hamish. Hamish takes Country Life on a tour of the little farm and puts a tray of sand in one of the cages as a dust bath. The quails enjoying a dust bath in their pen on the front lawn. Photo / RNZ, Sally Round Spotting a clutch of eggs, he quickly scoops them up. 'They just lay anywhere ... the females are bred to not care about their eggs or not be broody. Cool fact!' When the quails are laying, Hamish manages to take 10 to 11 dozen eggs to market each Saturday, packaged up and displayed alongside his brightly illustrated sign bearing the name 'Daily Quails Eggs est. 2024' and the tagline 'One small step for Hamish, one giant step for quails'. The eggs are delicious and protein-packed, Hamish says. Photo / RNZ, Sally Round He is saving the profits he makes after paying for the stall and other outgoings like feed. While Vico jokes about expanding into the hundreds of quails, Hamish is keen to keep the venture small and manageable, although he might add another three-tiered coop. 'Actually, having quails is quite fun. You've got to have responsibility to take care of them. And if you don't, they'll die. But if you do, you have a little bit of a reward.' Postscript: Hamish recently turned 13 and has been surprised to see the quails laying through the winter.
RNZ News
06-06-2025
- RNZ News
What's protein, why do we need it, and how do you get more?
Photo: 123RF Distinguished professor Paul Moughan from The Riddet Institute is an expert in all things protein related. The Riddet Institute is a Centre of Research Excellence (CoRE) focusing on fundamental and advanced food research. It's hosted by Massey University on the Palmerston North campus. Dr Moughan answers some questions from the Country Life team. Protein is a very important component for the human body. It's central to body function and therefore to nutrition. We get proteins from the foods we eat - we don't need protein itself but rather the amino acids that are the building blocks of protein. When we eat protein, it gets broken down to amino acids and it is those that are absorbed. There are nine essential amino acids. Some foods can supply all nine of those amino acids readily, while others might be deficient in one of those essential amino acids. Follow Country Life on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , iHeart or wherever you get your podcasts. The amount of protein we need depends on a persons age and weight. The average adult needs about 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight - so a person who weighs 80kg needs about 65g of protein per day. Again though it comes back to the quality of the protein and the amino acids you can get from it. From a lesser quality protein you might need more to get the same benefit. We also need more protein as we age - about 1.5g compared to 0.8g. Generally there's no such thing as too much protein for most people. Distinguished professor Paul Moughan from the Riddet Institute. Photo: Supplied There are major differences between proteins. Consumer information is pretty poor. Looking at the protein content on a product's label is a good starting point but it doesn't speak to the quality of the protein. As a general rule, animal-based proteins - so milk, dairy- based proteins, egg, meat, fish - are all very high quality. They have all the amino acids you need and they're highly digestible and highly available. Soyabean-based foods like tofu and tempeh are also high quality. Peas and beans tend to be high in protein but the quality is not always high. A lot of the vegetable-based proteins are less good quality so you would need to consume more of them. Pea and potato-based proteins can be good for vegan or vegetarian diets though. In the past it didn't matter too much because we generally consumed mixtures of proteins. Now there's a movement worldwide to go away from animal-based proteins more towards vegetable-based proteins and as we do that we need to be more careful. There have been studies of vegan and vegetarian diest which have found people were not meeting their total protein requirements in terms of quality. Protein quality is going to become more of an issue. When we look at future world food needs, because the world population is growing, it's also ageing, protein is going to become a major consideration. I personally think it shouldn't be vegetable or animal. It needs to be vegetable and animal. It may be very appropriate to move towards more vegetable-based foods but I think people who completely exclude animal-based foods may well be entering into the territory of nutritional inadequacy and problems with their diet. It's all about balance.
RNZ News
04-06-2025
- RNZ News
Paihia ship fire: 'We've lost a significant bit of history'
Firefighters dampen down the remains of the Tui. Photo: RNZ / Peter de Graaf The cause of a fire that destroyed a historic ship at the Paihia waterfront may never be known, a fire investigator says. The Tui - originally built to transport sugar from the Chelsea refinery on Auckland's North Shore more than a century ago - was severely damaged in a blaze that started just after 4am on Wednesday . What remained of the vessel was then demolished with a digger to prevent the debris being swept into the Bay of Islands. Northland fire investigator Craig Bain said police were treating the blaze as suspicious and were following up on a number of vehicles seen in the area on CCTV footage around the time the fire started. However, Bain said power was connected to the ship's main switchboard, so he could not immediately rule out an electrical fault as the cause. His job was hampered by the need to demolish the ship quickly. A digger demolishes what's left of the Tui before high tide can sweep the debris into the Bay of Islands. Photo: RNZ / Peter de Graaf Bain said the Tui was effectively a "boat within a boat", because the late Kelly Tarlton had built a replica three-masted barque around the original sugar lighter - a type of flat-bottomed vessel. He said the flames had spread between the two hulls towards the bow. "So the only way we can really put this out is unfortunately to demolish the boat." It was also a race against time because the remains of the ship had to be removed from the beach before high tide at 2.30pm on Wednesday, to prevent the debris being washed into the Bay of Islands. Bain said it was too risky to get on the ship because the fire-damaged masts were "precarious". "We can't get in there to get a good look, it's just too dangerous." A digger demolishes what's left of the Tui as firefighters continue dampening down the wreckage. Photo: RNZ / Peter de Graaf The last of the three masts collapsed about 10am. Instead, he was examining the debris being pulled off the ship in the hope that would give him some idea of how the fire started. If he was unable to establish the cause of the fire it would be classed as undetermined. Bain was, however, confident it had started at the rear of the ship. "It's quite devastating for Paihia and the Northland community in that we've lost a significant bit of history," he said. Bain said he felt for the people who had been striving to turn the ship into a marine education centre. Restoration work had been due to start in earnest om the day of the fire, he said. Northland fire investigator Craig Bain inspects debris pulled off the ship in the hope of identifying the cause of the fire. Photo: RNZ / Peter de Graaf Paihia deputy fire chief Sandro Schuetze said the first fire call came in at 4.07am. In total 13 fire trucks responded with more than 50 firefighters from as far away as Whangārei. "Everyone gave their best to try to save the boat, but the condition of the boat and the high wind meant we couldn't save it at all." Schuetze said it was a sad day for the local community. Many people had fond memories of the ship as Kelly Tarlton's Museum of Shipwrecks, and later as a series of restaurants. The last of those, Shippey's, closed in 2014. "It was undergoing work to bring it back to its glory… but it will not see that glory anymore, unfortunately." A warning was issued for people in the area to keep their doors and windows closed due to the high winds and thick smoke. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
