The Atherton Farms in Templers, South Australia | Personal blog

The Atherton Farms

Locality: Templers, South Australia

Phone: +61 432 478 085

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24.01.2022 From all of us at The Atherton Farms to all of you out there, have the best Christmas. Hold those you love and make the most of the season. BTW, this is Bruce and Domino wanting to make the most of the ham I was cooking for breakfast. :)

22.01.2022 It's our first week of winding down and we're making the most of it! We're reclaiming our old veggie patch as a start. We had the lambs in there to clean it up, but they baulked at the stinging nettles (you can't blame them). So we pulled out the big guns! Socks eats nettles like they're nothing, and will have this few hundred square metres cleared up inside a week. Her babies were pretty happy about it too. :D

21.01.2022 It's our second-to-last market and WE HAVE SPECIALS!!!! :D All of our hand-made gourmet sausages are 20% off!!!! If you spend $20 or more we'll give you a smoked hock or bag of bacon bones.... Come down to the Adelaide Showground Farmers Market on Sunday between 9 and 1, or farm gate sales on Friday afternoon between 4 and 7.

20.01.2022 We may be sadly winding down, but I think Socks missed that memo. :) She has six gorgeous little Berkie/Saddleback babies, and of course in the worst of weather. Still, she's doing a great job and is an amazing mum. I'm not going to lie, having piglets around makes this winding down thing a bit easier to to handle... :)

16.01.2022 It's our second to last market at the @adelfarmmarket and we're having a sausage special! We'll be here til 1pm

11.01.2022 SOLD OUT!!!! STAY TUNED FOR MORE!!!! BULK PORK!!!!!!!! Remember when we used to provide you guys with the best quality ethically raised pork you'd ever seen? Well, we can do that again! Well, for a few of you... ... We have a few growers ready for processing. They're the absolute perfect size and condition. We're doing halves or wholes, and have two that aren't currently taken. They're $12/dressed kilogram, which includes all of your basic butchering, and you'll have to come up to Templers to pick them up. First in, first served. NOTE: The picture isn't them. These growers are still running around my paddock. :)

09.01.2022 This is the most meat we've ever brought to market, we have 50% off nitrate-free bacon and kassler, AND most importantly Linhda is at the market today!!!!!!!! Come down and see us for a sample and a chat! #freerangepork #ethicalmeat #linhdaisthebest

08.01.2022 There's ONE LAST CHANCE to come and stock up on our amazing meat! We'll have a last round of farm-gate sales this Friday, between 4 and 7. We'll be around for CSA pick-ups anyway, and so figured we'd drag out the BBQ, cook some sausages to share, have a couple of beers, and sell meat to anybody who wants to drop in! Come for the sausages and beer if nothing else! :) I didn't have a picture that matched that scenario, so here's one of Bruce. He's a handsome boy! :D

08.01.2022 Miracle Twins!!!!! For those of you who've been following us for a while, you'll remember that we bottle-fed a handful of lambs last season. Three of those are still with us - Della, Lizzy, and Annie. Their "brother", Hansel, moved to live with a friend's flock, to hopefully father many lambs of his own. Of the three we kept with us, Lizzy and Annie have grown into full-sized ewes who could have their own babies with no problem. Della, on the other hand, is tiny. She was a... twin, and while her brother was a strapping young ram lamb, she was the smallest lamb we'd ever seen. As a result, her mum wouldn't nurture her, choosing rather to ensure the survival of the lamb with the best chances (Mother Nature can be a bit harsh). We would never knowingly breed Della. She's just too small, and was always destined to be one of our family. We kept Hansel with his "sisters" for several months before re-homing him, knowing he was too small to actually do the deed. The heart was willing, but the legs were stumpy. The problem was, we now know, that Della's legs were equally stumpy. You can probably fill in the rest of the story yourself. :) We noticed that Della was pregnant a few weeks ago, and she started to bag up (get milk in) shortly afterwards. She never really got very big, and we weren't sure when she'd drop. I was 100% confident that she'd need our help, and even then I was scared that it wouldn't be enough. We were keeping a close eye on her, ready to jump into lamb pulling action. Then yesterday morning this happened. We woke to find that she'd successfully delivered twins all by herself. In hindsight, twins is a better, easier outcome for her, though I'm sure she might not agree with me. :) Twins are smaller, and I think would've been easier than a single, larger baby. Both are ram lambs, and neither are particularly large. One is smaller, and she clearly favours his larger brother (ironically, like the mother who would've left her to die). Still, she's feeding both, and both made it through their first night. It was cold and we have foxes about, but this morning Della had them both close. In summary: Della is awesome and totally surprised us. Never again though. She'll never be near a ram again. These boys will be castrated over the next week or three, and 12 to 18 months from now will be in the freezer.

06.01.2022 IT'S OUR LAST MARKET!!!!!! Don't be too sad though, because we HAVE SPECIALS!!!!!! :D All of our gorgeous, hand-made, gourmet sausages and bacon (including kassler and gammon) are 20% off!!!!! We're getting a heap of pre-orders and we'll definitely sell out of most things, so please let us know if you want something put aside.... We'll be at the Adelaide Showground Farmers Market on Sunday from 9 to 1. This is an outdoor market too, but we'll try and post on the morning to give our location. We can't have our normal Friday night farm-gate sales this week, but let us know if you're desperate and we can organise something for Thursday or Saturday.

06.01.2022 MEET DOTTY LAMB!!!!! You'll remember that Della had twins a couple of weeks back. My theory was that she'd fell for the wiles of our stubby-legged ram because she was a shorty herself. That theory has now been completely blown away by Annie, the tallest of our bottle-fed girls, who delivered this bundle of gorgeousness in the middle of the week. Dotty, and no prizes for guessing where she gets her name, was a full week younger than Della's twins but bigger than either. She's... a really sturdy girl, with gorgeous silky wool. Lizzy is the only bottle-fed girl left without a lamb at-foot. She's a fatty, but isn't bagging up at all. I'd not be surprised if she delivers a trifecta in the next month or so though. Stay tuned... :)

04.01.2022 This week we have fresh LAMB back and our normal amazing fresh PORK!!!! Plus more gourmet sausages than we've ever brought before. :) We also have SPECIALS: both NITRATE-FREE BACON and KASSLER are 50% off!!!!!!!!! Come see us at the Adelaide Showground Farmers Market Sunday morning between 9 and 1. We have no farm-gate sales this Friday, but let us know if you're desperate and we'll work something out. :D

02.01.2022 LAMB UPDATE!!!! Annie Lamb turned 1 earlier this week, which means she's officially no longer a lamb! She's the big black-headed dorper in the front of the pictures. She's always closest to the people. Della turns 1 at the end of the month, and Lizzy sometime after that. Annie and Lizzy will be big enough to be mums, but Della will always be too small. I'm pretty keen for Annie and Lizzy babies though. :)... We fenced off part of our back garden this week to let them clean up. We want to reinstate our veggie patch in 3 or 4 weeks, and it's much easier to have them do the initial clean-up than me. :) Now we just need to make sure they don't bust through to the rest of the yard...

01.01.2022 We could not have had a better send-off for our last market! It was insane!!!!! :) Thank you all so much for your support over the last three years. It seems weird to be bowing out after we've worked through our early feed/breeding problems, when the farm is running so smoothly, and when the business side has out-stripped all of our expectations. Normally this is when things really take off, but we simply can't keep doing it. This is entirely a family and life-style decision..., and while that's necessary it still sucks. :( Below is a video of Socks. She's a Berkshire x Large Black, though she really just looks like a giant Berkie with floppy ears. :) She only has six babies, but has clearly gone for quality over quantity - they're SO chunky! Socks, Honey, Frankie, Donk, all of our girls and all of the girls like them are why we do what we do, and are why we'll keep doing it, if on a smaller scale. We will always have pigs, so please keep following us for piggy adventures. We'll have some more meat available in the not-too-distant future, and will let you all know via FaceBook. In the meantime, drop us a line if you have any meat needs. We might still be able to hook you up. :)