Animals Farewell - Horses' New Home and Piglets Gone

Earlier in September, our 2 ponies Arend and Valk found a new home... Because we are only staying on the farm until the end of the year, we knew from the start we would have to sell them again. They taught us many lessons, and we have been blessed by the opportunity to have had horses and getting some valuable experience and life lessons.

What triggered the sale so soon though, was the planting of new orchards. Their camp (and grazing/food) next to our house is now a young fig orchard.

The new owners live on a farm in the Baviaans, and we are sure they will take good care of the ponies - so after having come to visit and see Arend and Valk once, the next step was to figure out the transporting business. 

After weighing Arend on the cattle scale, we determined that the 2 ponies together on a trailer would still be under the weight limit. Thus, the trailer it was! 

First, they tried coaxing Arend on, thinking that if they could get him on Valk would quickly follow. Unfortunately they had underestimated Arend's stubbornness. 

Tempting with treats...

He refused to budge. 

Farewell To Some More Piglets

Farming with animals requires constant care and the boys have learnt that lesson well. There is not a day that you can think of not feeding them, or just ignoring them when you want to sleep a little late...  Animals are hard work and require commitment! This was one of the reasons my parents allowed the boys to have the pigs as part of this adventure on the farm - to learn what it takes to care for animals (it is fun and easy the first few weeks, however as the months passed it got tiring), to learn the value of hard work for money (especially if the chore is not so much fun after all), to take the risk of plans not working out (as we discovered in the process of selling the pigs) and to learn that working in a team helps motvation (when the one can help the other when it just gets too much).

Our other five piglets (the 3 Minions, Plum, and Fig) have been eating, sleeping, and growing quietly, but the time has run out age-wise for the oldest three – boars has to be slaughtered before a certain age, otherwise hormones are released into the muscles and the resulting meat is not recommendable. As a result it has been piglet-catching time again, and ‘tannie’ Marina from Uniondale fetched 2 of the Minions for slaugther.  The good thing is that the remaining three are suddenly much less effort than the seven together!

As they were smaller than the previous Ham and Bacon, they were much easier to catch and load.

 Picking the target.

They simply grabbed them by the hind legs and pulled them to the 'bakkie'. 

 Out the gate (the crucial part where everyone is yelling advice and piglet screaming our ears off).

 Then they picked them up by the ears and hauled them onto the back of the bakkie - squealing the whole way (my mom is laughing).

 Cheers piggies!

Goodbye Ham and Bacon

Last week, the 2 oldest piglets ("Ham en Spek") were sold to a neighbor - at 5 and a half months, Ham weighed 80kg and Bacon 50kg. Getting the pigs on the back of the bakkie proved to be quite a mission though....

The boys were glad to get their money, and even gladder they didn't have to slaughter the pigs themselves haha.

They used a steel plate to stop the pigs from slipping past them.

Clever little pig. Even though we put food in the scale, they refused to go in.

Johnny gave Bacon some help, and pushed her in by one leg. The scale can open on both ends, so they decided to get the pig inside the scale first, then lift it up so that the pig could climb out the other end into the bakkie. 

They did the lighter pig first, so the lifting was not too difficult. 

With Bacon safely on the bakkie, it was Ham's turn. He was more of a challenge though, and led Theuns, Johnny and Zahn on a wild goose chase for a few minutes, before they trapped him in the pigsty and maneuvered the scale in front of the entrance.

Action!

The Rain Has Come!

The past week it has been cold and wet here on the farm, and the Kammanassie River overflowed several drifts, blocking the shortest route we have to George. The rain is welcomed after a long dry summer, but it is causing some interesting experiences.

The second day of continuous rain brought up a problem we hadn't anticipated - the two smallest poor piglets' pigsty had drainage problems, and was filling up with freezing water. Luckily my dad came to the rescue and hauled them over into a third separate pigsty next to the other pigs' cage.

Much-needed rain.

Flooded pigsty.

 Catching the pig.

In you go piglet!

My parents and brothers then left with our car to find some new straw for the pigs, and got stuck in the mud (literally). After attempts to pack rocks and give the wheels some leverage, my mom went to find help and oom Jan pulled them out with his 'bakkie' (I had a good laugh). 

Stuck in the mud. 

Packing rocks. 

Ponies looking drab - they've grown their thick winter coats, but looked miserable nonetheless. I would too, in their position after 3 days of continuous rain. 

When the rain finally stopped, we went to check out all the drifts.

Oh bother...we can't get through this drift for a while.

Business Projects Update

Almost halfway into May, there has been a few lessons learned in the business world... Refer back to my post on the start of these projects here. To recap, the idea was to give us a hands-on experience in the world of running your own business. My brothers chose to raise piglets and sell them again, and I had a few chickens to sell the eggs. What we learned however, is that what makes perfect sense on paper and spreadsheets, doesn't always work out the way you want it to in the real world.

By the end of March I could already see the chickens were not laying nearly enough eggs for me to be able to make a profit.  So we gave them another month to see whether there will be any changes using the eggs we got now and then, in our own household. Unfortunately one of the hens turned into falcon-breakfast, and I began doubting whether we should keep them at all for the 1 or 2 eggs they supplied now and then... To confirm my doubts, another chicken died rather mysteriously a few weeks later (it was probably a snake). That was the last straw, so we decided to stop the egg business and after a sad chicken funeral, the remaining 8 were caught and given away.

The piglets have fared a little better so far. In total there are 7 of them, the oldest two will be soon be 5 months old and should be ready for slaughter. They haven't grown as fast as desired though so maybe we'll give them another few weeks...

All of them have names: Bacon, Ham, Minions 1, 2 and 3, Fig, and Plum far at the back.

As with all animals there were ranking issues, and the little ones got some nasty bites; as a result we still have to keep them apart.