Spring 2022
We’ve gone from dry and brown, to green and lush in the blink of an eye! For a moment, there were flashbacks of the trauma of last summer’s rain and flooding, with a few weeks of steady rain, but after some sun, everything is warming up and growing with gusto! The ground water still seems high so plants responded to sunshine quickly.
Our Spring began exactly on 1 September with what we refer to as “The Great Flurry” of baby goats! That particular week began with our first set of triplets, followed by a new birth almost every day. The 1st of September brought “The Great Flurry” of 13 babies born in one day!
While all the births required no intervention, by the end of the day we were exhausted! By the end of the week, we had 30 new babies! Keeping track of so many babies, ensuring everyone knew who their baby was, who their mother was and that each baby was suckling and satisfied - it was quite a task! Some goats even began swapping babies!
(I may have added too many pics but it is impossible to choose with so many gorgeous babies!)
This year, our goats were in great condition and breezed through kidding season. This, compared to last year where we had an exceptional mortality rate, losing does, suffering miscarriages, premature births, lost kids etc as a result of the goats being new to our farm and not yet adapted. This year, we only had two moms struggle with nutrient deficiencies but they recovered well, and considering they both produced the biggest babies of the herd, we were very proud of them! We had two stillborn births. The two mothers each had twins but it appeared they were separate conceptions as one baby was fully formed and ready to land earthside, while the other needed more time. This was new to us! Both moms were now producing milk for twins, but only feeding singletons. One of the moms became our milk goat, ensuring those babies needing a top-up were fully fed, while the other mom happily adopted a baby who was rejected by her mom!
All of this excitement came off the back of a few weeks of stress prior when the goats had been escaping to BOTH of our neighbour’s properties (probably trying to self-select the best grazing or different plants in his planted pastures and cover crops in their late-stage pregnancy!). This is not acceptable and caused many issues. We had to sit and make a tough decision about whether we could continue with the goats as they took up so much time and energy when they escaped and we had to stop-drop-and roll to go and find them and bring them back. Last season had been really tough on them and we lost many goats in their first season with us due to poor adaption to our veld. This was very costly and we had spent the year wondering if it was all worth it. With so many animals and so few hands, we have been feeling overwhelmed and wondering if we’ve taken on too much. This situation with the goats seemed a natural, but painful, direction to take. We were not feeling very positive and were 95% settled on selling the herd to minimise stress. However, out popped these beautiful, strong babies! It seems last season was a natural picking off of the weakest and while it is hard to go through, in the long run it is better.
We have lost 2 kids since - to parasites and cold weather, but the herd as a whole is much stronger and we have become better at identifying the weaker animals to hopefully help strengthen our herd. As such, we have decided to give the goats another try. We invested in new fencing and energisers (spoiler alert - to date these attempts are still unsuccessful! But we keep trying!). Most excitingly, we have finally started milking! Just two goats, for home consumption. It has been a whole new lesson and exploration but SO rewarding and interesting! As well as the processing of the milk into cheese, yoghurt, cajeta (a delicious goat milk caramel/condensed milk dessert) and the latest - chevre cheesecake!
Enjoying a beautiful sunset on a crisp spring evening after putting the goats to bed
Until our new fence is in place, we have had to supervise the goats when they went out to graze. Goats are very quick learners - of good and bad habits. So they soon got the hang of staying around with someone. Although long term this is unsustainable, it met a need for this time. Kidding in early spring when there is very little grass means they need to do a lot of grazing. We would take turns supervising the goats for the afternoon. Although most often Thomas and I went with as it freed up the stronger, more able bodied men, to do other jobs. We could sit and play while we kept an eye on the goats. Thomas could easily be lured out to the veld with a popsicle! On one afternoon, he even did his own mud make up in an attempt to be smart for the goats! He has just loved playing with the baby goats, jumping and climbing, feeding them, hugging them. It has been so special to watch and enjoy.
forest/pasture pigs
Our piggies have just plodded along, as they do. They generally don’t cause any hassles, unless they give us a run around when their camp moves! There is no way of convincing a pig to do anything he doesn’t want to do! You have to make him think it was all his idea!
The pigs farrowed in early winter and surprised with a second farrowing (birth of piglets) again at the end of Spring! All four sows birthed their piglets within a week of each other! Unfortunately this coincided with a cold front. Animals always seem to birth on the eve of a cold front. We are’t sure why but it makes a shocking first night for the babies and in this case, resulted in a poor survival rate. It is tough to farm compassionately while also allowing animals to do their own thing. They prefer building nests than man made shelters and although we provide hay for building cozy nests, sometimes it is not quite enough.
They have continued to work hard at clearing bramble and other invasives to open up more grassland for us. They do an amazing job, especially teamed with the goats. The pigs are excellent at rooting up the entire bramble bush, stripping it bare and filling their tummies - see rows 2 and 3 for some evidence of their hard work. Where the pigs had worked last year, a few bramble shoots began popping up in spring so the goats moved in for a few days to blitz through the bramble shoots and prevent them growing into shrubs. It is a long and continuous process, but a lot shorter than we had anticipated.
grass fed and finished beef
Spring also meant the end of our first winter of cattle! We made it! Our cattle did lose some weight, as expected, for 100% grass-fed animals, but we were happy with how they did. Selective burning of the veld meant we could reset the camps where we did not get to, or not have enough animals to graze sufficiently. We were able to process the first of our cattle halfway through spring. At the end of winter, the cattle came down off the mountain to graze the “sweetie pastures” around the egg mobiles where had planted cover crop in Autumn. It was so lovely to have them close by and watch them graze around the other animals - seeing the pastures the pigs had opened up a season or two before, the same place where the chickens had fertilised last season, and now turning into beef! What a miraculous event!
pasture raised eggs
Spring brought our new pasture raised layers into production allowing us to get into the swing of things with our supply to Jo’s Pasture Raised Food. Most of our trade so far has always been direct to customers, or to small shops with personal relationships. It has been a steep learning curve to pack eggs and send them off to unknown people and places! And suddenly processing so many eggs per day, storing way more feed, caring for many more chickens. But we really do enjoy the laying hens, and they reward us with their delicious eggs and fertility on our pastures, for the goats and cattle.
Pasture raised chicken
The broilers always start out in spring on dry brown grass that quickly turns lush green. We have had a very tough season with our broilers, from a supply chain point of view. This has led us to make the very difficult decision to pause our broilers until we can figure out where to next. Short story is that with so many animals and enterprises on the go, we need to be cautious to not over extend ourselves and our land, but we have also had problems with processing , the cost of inputs, of travel and processing costs. We need to gather ourselves and reassess. You can read more here: What's going on with our chicken?
Delicious spring veg!
Our hands have been more full than we ever imagined now with a busy, determined, and curious toddler on our hands! Thomas turned 2 and with it came exponential physical and mental leaps! Less daytime sleep, more engagement, more activity has pulled us in many directions, and although our hearts and full and happy, we can certainly feel the tricky balance of home and business! My mom has moved out to the farm to be with us which has provided a much needed extra pair of hands with babysitting!
We hired a TLB mid-October to repair the damage from last summers rain, ahead of this summer. Unfortunately for us, the rain arrived just a few days later, before the new roads could compact, resulting in quick-sand type roads now as bad as before after many rescue missions of the bakkie!
At the beginning of November, Andre attended the Joel Salatin workshop at Spier - finally! We booked this in 2019 and it was postponed multiple times as a result of COVID so when it finally arrived, it was like a dream come true! He came away inspired, motivated, renewed. Networking with other like-minded producers is something precious too. Joel Salatin has been one of our greatest inspirations from a farming point of view but just general approach to life and values.
We were very fortunate to go away for nearly a week with family from overseas! On the wettest week so far, we escaped to the beach! Had it not been for our family visiting from overseas, we would likely have cancelled. Our team held the fort SO amazingly! And we enjoyed a much needed refresh before starting the end of year madness. December is always a challenging time with staff leave, seasonal shutdowns of suppliers, etc. but it is also peak summer so peak busy-ness for us with the grass growing, animals producing, guesthouse season and so much more! It is a tricky balance so we were very grateful to take a breather beforehand.
The beauty of spring is that there such a sense of hope. A new season, the start of a new farming year. Everything bursts into growth, babies are born, and there is an excitement in the air. Beautiful sunny days, exquisitely lit evenings, warmer early mornings. The hardships of winter are washed away and we start afresh.
