Our farm is in a perpetual state of motion and the past few months are no exception. We wouldn’t have it any other way as we continue to produce 100% pasture raised nutritious food from happy, healthy animals.
Training
In early June, a diverse group including local farmers, small scale operators and western Queensland farmers attended a natural sequence farming workshop at our leased property, Onyx Park. Different mindsets and perspectives allowed for some dynamic and healthy discussions. It is so heartening to see so many people interested in knowing more about how to best manage the landscape and look after water resources.
Cattle
It has been a successful breeding season and we now have calves everywhere. Our first Nguni Angus and Boran cross progeny are on the ground and we are excited to see how they will fare in our climate. Interestingly the usually dominant black Angus colouring is being challenged with quite white speckles appearing in many of the babies. Our paddocks certainly look pretty.
We are hoping these new genetics will be what we are after. We anticipate that their smaller frames and ability to handle mixed conditions of our climate will ensure they can be finished on the grass that grows at Forage Farms. Resilience to pests is also key.
Eggs
With the avian flu in the southern states affecting supply, our eggs have been more in demand than ever. Some stores have doubled and even tripled their usual orders. Fortunately, we have expanded our chicken operation this year, but it has still been a challenge to keep up. The good news is that more people are finding out about our premium product!
Butcher
We now have a fully approved on-farm processing room. Mostly, it is being used to process our chickens, but our intention is to extend its use to other products as time goes on. Our customers can now buy pieces of chicken as well as whole birds and this new offering is proving popular in our weekly orders.
Farm infrastructure
We are nearly finished an important upgrade for the laying hens – a big job including fencing and new waterlines. Our laying hen production area has been setup from the beginning across 6 individual lanes that the chickens move up and down. Since increasing the number of birds on the farm and decreasing the number of birds in each flock, we have found that the hens are putting too much pressure on specific parts of the paddock but not all of it and that we were not getting enough recovery on the paddocks.
Our original chicken area with 6 lanes.
A big part of our management is focused on recovery of the plants, so we wanted to find a way of better managing that. The decision was made to turn our existing 6 lanes into 12 - which automatically doubles the recovery time of a paddock after the chickens have gone through it and means the area that we were once slashing for the chickens can remain growing and keep our green surface area. Extending it to 12 lanes will allow for better recovery and more plant diversity to keep our birds (and all the rest of the menagerie) happy and healthy.
Our new 12 lane chicken area
Lane 1 split in half.
Helping hands
A big shout out to Alex who is doing his TAFE apprenticeship with us and Declan, our Year 10 work experience student who comes to the farm one day a week. The extra help is invaluable and certainly contributes to making things happen at Forage Farm.
