Every week we prepare a cake for our staff meeting. But this cake isn’t for morning tea – it’s a poo cake. This poo cake, together with a milk curd test and specific herd observations, forms the basis of our Obsalim practice and is helping us to produce consistently high quality cheese every day, everyContinue reading “Obsalim Takes the Cake”
Search results for: Obsalim
Obsalim training: motivated farmers + small on-farm change = big returns
Dr Bruno Giboudeau has just completed his Victorian workshops (the last one was at our farm) and he headed back to France yesterday, having brought the Obsalim techniques and learning to over 50 keen participants over the past fortnight. Though most of the workshoppers were dairy farmers, we also had a vet, animal nutritionist andContinue reading “Obsalim training: motivated farmers + small on-farm change = big returns”
A four-eyed focus on Obsalim
We’ve written about Bruno Giboudeau’s, visit and our training and learning with Obsalim in an earlier post and page. Since July, our two interns Maider Haicaguerre, from France, and Eva Zanettini, from Italy, have been undertaking a focussed project using Obsalim with the dairy herd. Four eyes are better than two, and Maider and Eva haveContinue reading “A four-eyed focus on Obsalim”
More on Obsalim – Learning the Language of the Ruminant
The box of Obsalim cards says: “The goats tell us about their nutrition”. This is the English translation from the French. It sums it up. You may want to go straight to the videos: https://youtu.be/st18Deiv_h0 (part 1); https://youtu.be/33KisEWCslA (part 2). These video links are a good place to start, as well as http://www.obsalim.com/en/index.htm. And aContinue reading “More on Obsalim – Learning the Language of the Ruminant”
“Goat Essence” – Photo Card Series
We are celebrating our beautiful goats with a series of goat portrait Photo Cards. The photographs by Bronwyn Silver and Janet Barker were taken over a ten year period and highlight a few of our favourite Cuprines. When most people look at our herd of goats they tend to see, well, a herd of goats.Continue reading ““Goat Essence” – Photo Card Series”
Our Photo Cards
We always see the beauty in the goat. Ann-Marie & Carla Goat Portrait Series A set of eight Photo Cards – 10cm x 14cm (folded) with envelopes. Images by Bronwyn Silver and Janet Barker taken over a ten year period, highlighting some of our favourite goats. Read more about the Cards and their inspiration here.Continue reading “Our Photo Cards”
Finding your vocation
Review and reflection is key to how we farm at Holy Goat. We review, reflect and then make well considered change. From the small (how best to sweep the dairy) to the large (implementing a new milking line, or installing a triiion to convert from 2 phase to 3 phase power) making a change onContinue reading “Finding your vocation”
Stop, Look and Listen. Ruminate.
Obsalim. If you follow our blog, and us, you will know we are big fans of this method of animal husbandry and its French instigator Dr Bruno Giboudeau. We have been fortunate to have Bruno visit the farm several times to teach us and other dairy farmers about the benefits of Obsalim and how itContinue reading “Stop, Look and Listen. Ruminate.”
More than gut instinct
We have been managing our farm at Sutton Grange for over 17 years now. Before that we’d spent many years developing our apprenticeships with dairy goats, both in Australia and overseas. We are still learning. It’s very exciting to see things anew and to see new things, even after this stint. The recent visit fromContinue reading “More than gut instinct”
Animal Health
Caring for the Herd Holistic veterinary care requires attention to the most subtle of signs and symptoms in your herd, along with an awareness of all the available strategies and tools for treatment. It requires the farmer to move from a medication-based mindset, towards treating the whole animal; looking for underlying causes and not justContinue reading “Animal Health”