Mike and his Boschveld Chickens.
Zimbabwian born farmer Mike Bosch has a free range chicken farm near Bela - Bela (Warmbaths) in the Limpopo province of South Africa that is green, humane, flourishing and as African as it gets. He kindly agreed to an interview with Louise van der Merwe, South African Representative for Compassion in World Farming.
Louise van der Merwe: Mike, it seems you have already received world recognition – while I have only just got to know about you! You were the only farmer/producer invited to present a paper at the Global Animal Welfare and Trade Conference held in Brussels in January 2009.
Mike Bosch: Yes, Boschveld Indigenous Chickens is the first chicken farm in South Africa to have been accredited with the highest food safety and good agricultural practice certification by receiving GLOBALGAP SYSTEM and British Retail Consortium (BRC) certification for our free range eggs and farming methods.
LvdM: And now, the Albert Schweitzer Foundation will be doing a documentary on Boschveld Chickens?
MB: Yes, this is scheduled for later this year.
LvdM: Albert Schweitzer was renowned for his sense of compassion towards all living things. One can assume, presumably, that the Foundation is interested in Boschveld Indigenous Chickens because humane farming methods are used?
MB: My chickens can freely express virtually all their natural behaviours and can even roost in trees if they wish to. I even have some of my hens hatching out their own chicks in order to retain that mothering instinct that chickens have been known for throughout history.
LvdM: Please tell us how Boschveld Indigenous Chickens all started.
MB: Well, it all started about 10 years ago when the price of dip went up and I decided to try and replace dip to a large extent by breeding a chicken that would eat the ticks off my cattle at the water points. I experimented and eventually came up with the Boschveld Chicken which is an all-African indigenous cross-breed. The Boschveld Chicken has reduced the need for dipping from 26 times a year to 14 and because of this, there are fewer chemicals in the environment. I now have noticed that ox-peckers have returned to the farm too.
LvdM: Please tell us more about the Boschveld Chicken itself. I understand that it is in demand by small egg producers, rural households, organic grape farmers who want to use them to clean up the pests in their vineyards, dairy farmers for the control of flies around dairies, you name it…
MB: Yes, it is a beautiful, colourful no-fuss chicken that has been bred specifically for African conditions from the hardy and feisty Ovambo chicken, the Venda chicken with her good mothering and prolific egg-laying abilities, and the Matabele chicken which is big and burley. The hens each give us 240 eggs a year, and the cocks are in great demand.
LvdM: So, there is none of this pulverizing of newly-hatched cocks into fertilizer as is the all-around custom in the commercial egg industry?
MB: No, certainly not. All our chicks and cocks are in great demand.
LvdM: And Boschveld chickens are not exhausted and ‘spent’ after just a year of hectic laying every 25 hours, giving 300 eggs a year?
MB: By no means. As I say, they lay about 240 eggs annually for three years and after that they still have the capacity for a further 70 – 80 eggs.
LvdM: Do you off-load them at the cull depots after three years?
MB: Most definitely not! We sell them into Poverty Relief Programmes in rural areas where they can still run around laying eggs, go broody, hatch out their chicks and generally give people a leg-up when it comes to providing their own food.
LvdM: Mike, one of the more unusual sights on your farm is the mule carts that can be seen transporting chickens and eggs, tell me a little about them.
MB: All our transport – of eggs or chickens on the farm – is done by mule cart.
LvdM: How amazing is that! What is the thinking behind using mule carts as opposed to trucks?
MB: It’s a sensible solution, not only to reducing noise and dust pollution to almost zero, and lowering our carbon footprint, but also in providing more jobs in an economy that desperately needs it and, as an added bonus – the mule carts kick a hole in the high price of diesel!
LvdM: What about debeaking and detoeing and so on. None of the 22.8 million laying hens in commercial batteries around South Africa can be sold into poverty relief programmes like the one you have just mentioned because they have been debeaked and often detoed – so they can’t peck and scratch and survive in a rural setting.
MB: Debeaking, detoeing or any other mutilation, is absolutely out as far as we are concerned. When chickens are under stress, such as in the overcrowded conditions of a battery cage, they attack each other and that is why battery farmers debeak their chicks. My chickens are not under stress and so they don't go around attacking each other. Free range farmers also debeak their hens so as to prevent them eating their own eggs. But a hen eats her own egg only when she has some sort of nutrient deficiency. My hens don't suffer from any nutrient deficiency. The fact is that humans come along with these artificial production methods that require all sorts of mutilations and chemicals and antibiotics to sustain them. It is a no-brainer that artificial production methods will drive us into trouble. I say we must work with Nature because Nature is smarter than all of us. The mistake factory farmers have made is to weaken the immune systems of their chickens. Breeding chickens that need environmentally controlled housing to survive is going about it the wrong way. My chickens must be tough enough to run outside 365 days a year. They must be tough enough to withstand diseases like bird flu.
LvdM: Compassion in World Farming wishes you well. May you lead the way to a much better dispensation for the humble hen, through your example.
MB: I am immensely proud of what I'm doing. Boschveld Indigenous Chickens is truly and proudly South African.
Boschveld Indigenous Chickens is now in its third year of operation and is 88 000 chickens strong. To learn more about these truly free range chickens and eggs and where to find them, visit www.boschveldeggs.co.za or email mike@boschveldeggs.co.za |
