Winter 2022
The memories of summer flooding have not yet faded into the background! With our last heavy downpour and damaging flooding taking place at the end of May, we went into winter with still soggy ground and soggy spirits. However the benefit of the late rain has been an abundance of grass and quick return of green. Winter has not been as harsh as usual, and the change to spring has felt quick. Our usual quiet time has been spent repairing roads and other damage, preparing for a possibly wet summer again. As well as some exciting developments…
Winter has been dominated by chickens! As we began scaling up our eggs, we received an exciting opportunity to partner with Jo’s Pasture Raised Foods to consistently supply eggs every week. This meant essentially doubling our current operation! Andre spent many, many hours planning, sketching, analysing and finalising a design that can house the most hens, yet light and easy to move, minimal materials to buy in, while still providing the most comfort to the hens. Enter - Hoop House 1. Based on our recent tunnel build, Andre and Sandile constructed this beauty with a timber frame on wheels, lightweight hoops and plastic for a roof (we are still going to add a tin capping to the roof before summer), containing roost space and roll-away nest boxes for 500 happy hens! Two electronets surround the house giving the hens ample space to roam and forage.
And then, the hens arrived! Our Bramleigh hens went into our older Egg Mobile 1 & 2, and the new hens into the Hoop House Mobile. Every night for a week we had to go down and put them to bed as the sun went down. Bearing in mind it was June and freezing! But they soon got the hang of it. The cold weather meant that the birds took a really long time to come into lay, treating the nesting boxes as a jungle gym, leaving a great big mess every day. But now that they are in lay, everything is settling.
Most exciting development
With working with Jo’s Pasture Raised Foods and her community, came a move to a nonGMO, Soya free chicken feed! We are SUPER excited about this! It is something we have been working on for years but through connecting with community, it was accelerated. These golden yolked gems are just delicious!
Every morning, the whole team assembles at Hoop House Mobile to move it - with so many hens, it needs to move every day. Our other Egg Mobiles move every 2-3 days depending on grass growth, because there are fewer hens. We faced some challenges but it has been a great bonding experience with our team having everyone involved in every aspect. Even Thomas! Our guys have been so patient and kind to him, someone always keeping an eye on him, playing with him, caring for him. We all suffered through the stress of not enough eggs to meet our demand every week, we all experienced elation as each day the eggs increased. We all felt the frustration when we had setbacks with the new design, and the thrill of success.
Thulas and Blackson have taken remarkable care of the new hens, while Sandile has patiently helped us find our feet with packing and sorting just so.many.eggs!
At one point, we had all three egg mobiles ‘break down’ and a frantic week was spent moving from one to the next, repairing breaks. Alongside this, both of our farm quads broke down so everything was happening on foot! Our team has soldiered on. It has been quite a uniting experience!
Thomas’s highlight of the day remains visiting the hens and seeing the egg mobiles move.
We have had an incredible response to our eggs in the last few months, some retailers patiently waiting while we kept promising eggs that just didn’t come, and many new retailers! We have been blessed to be able to put up egg displays in 5 shops in the last month! Besides for Nottingham Road Spar, you can now find our eggs at Miche Bakehouse in Nottingham Road, Village Feeds & NectarCo in Hilton, Loafers Low Carb Deli in Hillcrest and Loafers Low Carb Deli in Durban North!
(photos above: 1. Sandile and I packing eggs ; 2. beautiful fresh eggs in the roll away nest box; 3. Thomas sampling a freshly laid egg; 4. Thomas checking in with the guys 5. Andre managing operations with Thomas in tow; 6. Blackson taking a turn to watch him; 7. The typical attitude of hens ;) 8. Thomas cuddling hens; 9. A comical egg mobile move with hens jumping all over the bakkie; 10. Our new tractor driver; 11. Full moon setting as we went to open the nest boxes at dawn 12. Thomas feeding his hens)
pasture raised chicken
After the worst of the cold had passed, we could start our first chickens on pasture for the new season. While the grass appears brown, underneath our winter pasture is peeping through the mulch, exposed by scratching chickens. The long wet summer provided a high water table for these seeds to germinate. Thomas has had great fun playing with the chicks! The chickens have done very well so far, fortunately we have had such warm days. Rex (our livestock guardian dog) has taken to leaving his precious goats at night to go and patrol for a few hours which has kept the nasty digging predators at bay that were bothering the chickens in summer and autumn.
Outdoor pigs
We’ve had a very lucky season with babies! In the middle of winter, we went to feed the pigs one morning, only to find Peppa Pig had given birth to a large litter of squiggly piggly pigs! The next morning, we had planned to separate her from the other pigs, now that she and her babies had recovered. When we arrived, Black Betty was giving birth to her litter of piglets! And the next day Freda gave birth! Suddenly there were little piglets everywhere! Their births snuck up on us while we were distracted with the chickens! A grand total of 17 piglets have survived the coldest part of winter. One of Peppa Pig’s babies was born with a strawberry birthmark on its face. Apparently this is a sign of luck. The pigs had a rough time in Autumn with the wet weather but they have bounced back, growing rapidly, and happily continued rooting, foraging and regenerating our veld.
Goats
The goats have been good luck and bad luck this season! Looking strong and healthy, our free ranging goats have been steadily gaining weight and building babies, with a high rate of pregnancy in the flock. Unfortunately in their desire to feed their unborn kids, the goats have taken to fence hopping onto both of our neighbour’s properties. Not only is this unfair to their grass in the dog days of winter, but also dangerous. Twice they have crossed the main road so now they have to remain in their camps, and have supervised grazing time each day. This was the bad luck.
Just when we were at our wits end, luck struck again and a set of triplets was born! What followed was a flurry of births, resulting in 26 kids in a week - 13 of these were born on one day alone! Check our social media for plenty photos of gorgeous baby goats!
Grass fed cattle
This has been our first winter with cattle - a big learning experience. While the weight gain has not been as we’d hoped, they’ve managed on the veld, with some lick and bales. They have quietly plodded their way along the mountain, munching, trampling, manuring beautifully. We can’t wait to see how the grass responds!
Hopefully we can have some grass fed grass finished beef back on the menu soon.
Fun on the farm…
Our tunnel is a place of abundance! It is a daily treat to visit and enjoy the produce. We hired a wood chipper for a few days and chipped garden refuse to lay on the paths and to make compost for next season’s crops. Can’t wait to see how it comes out! Our tractor and bakkie obsessed boy loves to help in any way!
And finally - we got our winter break! Woohoo!
We spent our first holiday, just the three of us, at the sunny and warm South Coast. A glorious long weekend that really recharged our batteries, ready for the action of spring!
