Te Hua Farm
On our 10 acres, we raise a large vegetable garden and some soft fruit and have a small orchard planted for the future. We breed Toggenburg dairy goats in addition to our rare breed goats -- Arapawa and Rawhiti goats. Our livestock also include Kunekune pigs, Rex rabbits (standard), white turkeys (not the broad-breasted whites that you’re used to seeing for American Thanksgiving and at Christmastime, but a white mutation of the bronze, wild-type turkeys), Indian Runner and Muscovey ducks, and various poultry; Aracaunas, Rhode Island Reds, Silver Grey Dorkings, Indian Game Birds and North Holland Blues.
We like to focus on heritage or rare breeds, many of which got lost in the commercialisation of farming, and are beginning to be appreciated again here in New Zealand. They are animals which take longer to mature, generally don’t produce as much as their commercial counterparts, but are valued for their much-longer production; for example, commercial egg laying hens are culled at the age of 14-15 months, because after that their production drops off dramatically. Our livestock are also valued for their hardiness, their character, their beauty and their contributions to our farm. The chickens work in the vege patch, scuffing up the soil, and eating weeds and bugs, the pigs work in the rocky parts of the farm that we can’t get into with a machine rototiller, and they do so with gusto and seem to have great fun, the ducks eat all the slugs and other nasties in the vegetable garden when the chickens can’t even be allowed in (or they eat all our food!), because the ducks mostly leave the plants alone and focus on the insects, without scratching up the soil, and all the animals provide their manure for fertilising.
Te Hua is Maori. You can look up the meaning of "hua" here.
The main focus of the farm is goats, specifically for dairying but also rare breed conservation. The Toggenburg, originally from Switzerland, is considered to be the oldest recognised dairy breed in the world. In New Zealand the Toggenburg is considered a minority breed, since most commercial goat dairies tend to use the Saanen for their higher milk production.
Te Hua Magnolia, a senior doe at Te Hua Farm
The other focus of the goat breeding here is New Zealand rare breed conservation. We maintain a small breeding group of Arapawa Island Goats and a larger herd of Rawhiti goats, representing more than half of what remains in New Zealand.
We are striving to preserve this feral breed that closely resembles their ancestors, the English goat, but has adapted over the past 150 years to the bush of New Zealand. Read on, and don't miss the history of these fascinating goats, as well as our conservation and photos pages! We are currently following a Rescue Conservation Breeding Program to save this breed.