It’s been a while since our last story, and there has been so much happening on the farm that we thought we would add one big story to tell you all the news. We have had a really mixed season of weather with some late rain, which held the harvest up slightly but didn’t prevent it from being successful. 325 hectares of wheat still need to be harvested, with 826 hectares already done. Our yield for the wheat is roughly 3 tons a hectare, which is good considering the lack of rain we recieved leading up to the harvest. All of our canola has been harvested, with the triticale, barley and oats still to be done.
Three weeks ago the sheep shearing took place with great success, and many of our guests enjoyed witnessing the procedure. The AI (artificial insemination) of the sheep has also been successfully completed, but only a few guests with iron constitutions were able to witness this particular operation!
The Wagyu project is also doing well, with some calves expected in the new year. The embryo transplant was also very successful. During this year Wagyu has really taken off, with the official membership of the Wagyu Cattle Breeders’ Society of South Africa doubling. This has meant that we have been able to sell six of our bulls for breeding, and we shall in the next few months be able to purchase 25 embryos from the States. In turn we hope to be using our own females for breeding, as well as the Bonsmara females still being used as surrrogate mothers.
The Quagga Project has also seen a lot of changes this last year after the game auction, with the animals of the core herd being brought to Elandsberg and two other peoperties. It has been decided that these will be the main breeding animals, and their offspring will be sold off in the future to other reserves. We had a few relocations to manage and the Reserve team was on hand to assist with the moving of the animals to Elandsberg.
We do hope to welcome you in the near future, to see some of our breeding projects as well as our working farm in action.