Our Philosophies

Our Jerseys graze all day out on the veld. We believe that cows can only be happy if they live as natural a life as a possible, and happy cows are healthy cows. Animal rights state that all animals should be free: of hunger, of illness, of thirst, of fear, of pain, and to exhibit natural behaviour.

We stick to the freedom rules, taking good care of all our animals. We give them feed and water, medicine when they are sick or hurt, and space to roam and be what they were meant to be - animals. Most of all, we give them love and names and TLC.

We don't make a good profit, but we make a good living, filled with magic and compassion and animals. Here we raise cattle that other farmers would cull at birth, only because it would be impractical to keep them. We give them another chance.

Our three blind cows were destined for the abbattoir when a breeder started to sell, but knowing us they sent their blind cows here. For free we got three pure Jersey heifers, Leader, Lucky and Ice Cream (better known as Grieta, Rita and Ice Cream). Of course, they are blind, but very happy; grazing in the best camp on the farm and led into the parlour, every day and twice a day, on lead reins like dogs. They are three of our best cows.

We had a one-eyed, skew-muzzled, deformed, extremely ugly old thing called Khyba once. Unfortunately, due to some deformity perhaps in her internal organs that we did not know of, Khyba died in late 2009; but she left us one bonny heifer named Katryn, bred so that she had Khyba's good attributes and none of her bad ones. Khyba was a very good cow when she lived.

We have cows with only three working teats; big beefy crossbreds that give surprising amounts of milk; the Blind Squad; a pet ox called Samurai who we simply couldn't sell because he was too much of a darling, so we use him to pacify our bulls (by thumping them around in the dust) and as a pony sometimes (he likes to give the children rides on his enormous tabletop of a back).

Our Frieslands are raised in a feedlot-like arrangement; a series of grassy paddocks in which they can run and frolic. They live in small herds of twenty and are free of mud stress or close confinement. We feed them all the hay they can eat and a good supplement of carefully chosen concentrates. Once a month we run them through the crush to weigh, measure, de-tick and give any deworming or innoculants they might need. They all have names too, though admittedly when one hairy monster crashed through the neck-clamp, hurtled between the bars of the crush and went storming off to the horizon like a demon on the loose she was promptly named Armageddon. When another one followed on her heels, she was called Apocalypse.

Our Jerseys are as tame as dogs and love people, ambling happily after anyone in the hope that they might be given a scratch or a handful of feed. (We had one cow who ate a pear and Samurai loves coffee, though we don't give him much in case it's not good for him; nobody knows because nobody seems to have fed an ox coffee before). Even our Frieslands, who seem very wild by Hydeaway standards, are quite tame. This is a farm of love and magic and extraordinary bonds between people and animals; a family farm, where love is produced as much as milk. Our animals are happy and healthy (even the blind ones) and they are all beloved.

This is a dairy farm with a difference. This is Hydeaway.

Our calves start grazing at a month old                 The kids and Mysti (Hydeaway Mystic Melody)

Dinki and Rita                                             Homewards bound