August 2020

AUGUST 2020

Another month passes! Another action-packed month at that!

As usual, in winter we do as many of the building projects as we can while the weather is relatively stable and dry. Generally winter is a bit quieter with fewer animals, but not this winter! With the lock down pressure on the farm, we had to just keep going and make necessary adjustments as quickly as possible.

August is usually a gusty, dry month with some freezing cold days but also the sweet signs of spring approaching. There is always one morning where you wake up and feel like spring is around the corner.

These photos show an icy cold night where the goat’s water froze, and our neighbour left a sprinkler on to prevent freezing pipes. The water landing on one of our trees created these exquisite icicles! Such a reflection of winter - piercing but beautiful!

And then the sweet signs of spring…

The Orchard in blossom! Just so unbelievably beautiful! After hard pruning last year, we left the fruit trees this year and they have rewarded us with these beautiful blossoms and the hope of abundant fruit this year. (I will need to have a talk with the baboons and birds though about sharing!)

Pastured Raised Chicken

One of our developments this month involved finishing off the new Salatin-style broiler pens. Broilers went out in these pens at the beginning of the month and have done remarkably well. On cold days they were warm, and moving the pens was much faster than having to move pens and an electro-net every day. The birds were also far better protected at night meaning they could sleep peacefully and forage in a more relaxed manner during the day. The chickens still have very spacious living conditions and their area keeps changing with daily moves providing new forage and clean grass.

More chicks went into the brooder and they are nearly ready to be moved outside into pens too.

The only hassle we have had is the goats keep using the pens as a jungle gym and causing damage!

Here are photos of the pens and construction: Chikondi showing off his carpentry skills; the dolly Andre built for moving the pens; loading the chickens on the tractor to head down to the grassy area; off loading chickens, filling water, repairing and strengthening weak points in situ and happy chooks enjoying their outdoor days.

Another major development was to finally create access to our one area of flat land on the farm. The dam overflow meets the stream and creates a barrier consisting of a muddy crossing that is usually under water, and a swampy, flooded area before opening out onto a long finger of flat land that would be ideal for pasture poultry. When the dam stopped overflowing and the stream reduced to a trickle, we hit it hard by clearing a path through the trees between the rocky edge of the mountain and the swamp that we can get a bakkie or tractor through, and therefore be able to move animals down onto the flat, dry areas of pasture. While there is no overflow and the stream is but a trickle, we will make a bridge of some kind and divert the water to a more useful location so that we can have year round access.

We removed old fencing to use the standards for building pig and goat rotating paddocks. It was incredible how visually disruptive a fence can be! Walking along the new road, we were both struck by the openness created just from removing a 3 stranded barbed wire fence!

PASTURE RAISED EGGS

Our pasture raised eggs had two exciting developments this month. The first being the arrival a “new-to-us” egg mobile. A friend of ours arranged for us to get this egg mobile from his retiring neighbours. We could have it for the price of a cooler box of frozen chicken, but the catch was that we had to move it. At over 4m wide, this was no easy move! Weeks of trying to find a trucking company willing to try finally paid off. We were those guys blocking the road a few weeks away from Curry’s Post as we slowly wound our way home with the new egg mobile and a feed storage/animal shelter structure too!

We had ordered 200 layers before lock down, and at 18 weeks old, they were now at point of lay. With just enough time for some modifications and repairs to the egg mobile after its journey, we collected the layers just 2 days after grounding the new egg mobile at Bramleigh. The next challenge is to get the egg mobile over the stream onto our pastures.

Our other laying hens in the original egg mobile have had a rough winter but on the weekend we bundled them up into their egg mobile and hauled them cross country down to the new pasture/flat land area. They went crazy for the grass and bugs instantly. They seem to be very happy in their new home!

I think this meme was written for my hens!!!

While our big flock of hens has been going through a moult, our backyard flock has helped keep up the supply. Unfortunately, some creature of the night has decided to systematically pick off my beautiful Buff Orpington hens! Despite setting up the game camera, we haven’t figured out what it is yet but money is on serval or caracal. We have kept our Buff Orpington hens separate with the intention of breeding them every year as a genetic investment and building up our own flock in time to come. It is so difficult to play alongside Nature - the end of winter is always tough for hungry animals and food is scarce. Beautiful, plump hens are just too tempting. Unfortunately today saw my favourite hen killed, one that we raised as an abandoned chick two years ago after her mom was also the victim of a hungry end of winter creature.

PIGS

Here are the female pigs, all squashed into one shelter having a snooze - gratefully inside! These pigs have been giving us a run for our money this winter. Some of the pigs we bought in as weaned piglets last year were very, very small. Being so small, they figured out quickly how to get through an electric fence. And since then they have had no respect for an electric fence or a permanent fence! The theory is that pigs will always burrow, not jump, so a knee-height fence is all one needs to keep them in (more by mental enclosure than reality!) but our pigs have proven otherwise. They have seriously been rotters on trotters escaping at every chance! And now as our piglets born in July are becoming braver and more curious, they are all over the show! Pigs are bored easily and the lack of forage in winter only makes it worse.

We can finally start seeding our Spring/Summer cover crop to boost soil development. We seed this behind where the pigs have been to stimulate growth of certain microbes in the soil, and provide fodder for animal rotations. The pigs will easily churn and trample these seeds into the soil (and eat some!) as natural tractors. In winter, we usually have a few “sacrificial” areas of land that are heavily impacted by animals staying for too long and then we rest these areas over summer rather than having many areas quite badly impacted across a larger scale that we can’t rest for as long.

VEGGIE GARDEN

Thanks to the help of the Chanthunya boys, our veggie garden is up and running! After clearing the shrubs and trees, which were then chipped and composted with manure from the goats and the brooder, we terraced the area using branches and thinner logs. We then laid a thick layer of the composted trees and shrubs, and seeded directly into these for a no-dig garden.

One of our chickens roasted in a Bramleigh Herb Garden salt rub made by Kate Chanthunya.

It is such a peaceful place to be, close to the house and on our daily walking route so we are constantly checking on the veggies. The trees allow full morning sun and dappled afternoon sun for protection in summer. All the trees and shrubs that were here, are now composted and returned back to the soil in the same spot for a luscious forest floor buffet of microbes!

Hopefully this provides some protection from baboons and other critters too. Our original market garden was right on the fence line of the forest so it was just way too easy!

And now we sigh a small sigh of relief that these major projects are done. The month ahead hopefully holds a bridge to get the new egg mobile onto our flat land pasture and from there, in time, we will lay water pipes to ensure easy water access instead of carting buckets of water every day. Then we go into the whirlwind of spring and summer where animals move daily, sometimes twice a day, rain makes grass and cover crops grow like mad and the pace ramps up.

But for today, we soak in the cosy flames of a wattle fire and appreciate the sound of the first soft drizzle of spring gently quenching the land.

Check back next month to see what we’ve been up to or place your order for our pasture raised chicken, eggs, and pork in the Midlands.