The Farm | the-dented-barn

Our Livestock

In addition to our focus on rare breed pigs, the farm boasts a variety of animals. We have a small cattle herd headed by our matriarch, Duchess. She is a 4 year old highland cow and was our first bovine acquisition. She has a daughter and grand-daughter in the herd now. Our remaining cows were purchased at 5-days old and are about to produce their first calves. being hand reared, often they will come for a scratch when walking through the paddocks

We have a small flock of sheep, initially meant for the production of sheeps milk however, now they graze freely in the paddock enjoying the offerings of The Dent-ed Barn

Other livestock include a water buffalo called Tank, two donkeys, ducks and chickens who are totally free ranging and a growing number of household pets. We are often greeted by wild turkeys migrating through the valley along with an array of native birds who like to call our covenanted bush, home

Our Other Projects

Diversity is the key to The Dent-ed barn which has lead us to try different enterprises as we growI

Oyster Mushrooms

This was a project that was solely undertaken by Jennie with great success. She was able to produce the very best quality mushrooms which meant that they commanded a premium.

Unfortunately, we were unable to produce sufficient numbers to keep up with demand and rather than letting our customers down

Jo was able to sell these at The Matakana Farmers' Market where compliments on the freshness and quality of produce came easily from our customers.

Honey from the Farm

A recent addition to the Farm, we placed bees on the top ridge last year. Unfortunately all of the hives died and we were left without honey in 2016.

Just four weeks ago, our friendly bee keeper moved the hives to a lower section of the farm and introduced new swarms. Incredibly, just a couple of weeks into production and we were able to harvest our first frame of honeycomb

with orders we were unable to fill; we decided the venture was no longer tenable