A Peek at Spring Life on the Farm

After months of stillness, Clavering Hill is waking up, full of promise, pollen, blossoms, buzzing bees and growing livestock.

We've had a particularly cold Winter across Robertson and the Southern Highlands with unusually wet weather and icy ground, followed by intense west southwesterly winds that have kept soil temperatures well below the 15C we need to stimulate any pasture growth.   At 800m above sea level, our Winters are generally long and cold, however this Winter felt extra long and cold.

Supplementary pasture feeding our Angus beef cattle throughout Winter is our standard practice, and this year we started supplementary feeding Rye pasture silage in mid February and are still feeding deep into October.  In fact, we are inclined to continue supplementary feeding until the end of Spring.

You see, despite good rain throughout Winter, the frozen soil has meant our pastures have really struggled to present with any consistent growth, even though we drill sowed and broadcast spread a Winter pasture blend of seed across every paddock, followed by a liberal spread of organic, slow release fertiliser in late Autumn and late Winter.  When working with nature, nothing ever goes in a straight line.

We did, however get a nice surprise when we had our Vet pay us a visit to pregnancy test our cows and conduct his annual health checks on all of our animals.

Our cows are all in calf (except for one of our oldest cows) and we will have another bumper calving season across December and January.  This generation of calves are the progeny of "Mundarlo T14" who stood at the farm from March until May this year.  He was a cracking type of stud bull from Mundarlo Angus at Tarcutta in NSW's Riverina region and we have high expectations for his calves to present with high quality genetics and consistent growth rates once on the ground. 

We also weighed all of our animals in mid June to help us gauge the best time to commence our "Harvest" events for 2025/26.  This process was a little disappointing as we had expected that the largest of our weanlings (season 2024 calves) would have been ready for "Harvest" in early Spring.  However, the most advanced of the steers tipped the scales at 330kgs, at least 100kgs shy of the target weight we seek before marketing.  

Optimally, we expect our steers to reach 450kgs in live weight before we take them to market.  A steer in peak season can gain at least 1kg in live weight a day, however Winter is far from peak season and it's not unusual for animals to stop or even decline in weight when the weather is cold.  Nature will not be rushed.

So, our 2025/26 "Harvest" is currently in a holding pattern while we work hard on helping the best of our 2024 steers click into growth mode.  As most know, we practice regenerative farming, avoiding chemicals, synthetic fertilisers and herbicides in our system.  We only feed our animals natural pasture grasses and pasture supplementary feeds, no grains or other nasties for weight gain.  As a result, we will continue to supplementary feed our cattle throughout Spring as we access the highest quality Ryes, Oaten Hay, Lucerne and pasture improved grasses from our suppliers.

The good news is that the light switch called Spring has been flicked in the paddocks.  After great rain in August and September, October weather has brought warmth back into the soil and soil temperatures are now above 15C.  We've only had 1mm of rain over the last few weeks however we sense that the storm season will begin soon and this means significant rainfall and almost overnight pasture growth.

The signs of Spring are all around to see.  The house garden is a blaze of colour and our flock of resident Wood Ducks have started teaching their ducklings to swim and graze the house lawns and pastures.  The bee hives are filling up and are at the stage where they will need to be split to prevent swarming.

It won't be long before we can announce the 2025/26 "Harvest".  We are going to have a special event at the farm to coincide with this as we are keen to show you how things work around here and perhaps you'd like to enjoy a little Clavering Hill hospitality around our farmhouse fire pit and taste the flavours of the farm for yourself - but that's for later!