The Bream dream
Passionate about the environment and animal health, young farmer Caleb Ellis has big dreams for the Mangawhai farm, and providing beef and lamb to the local community is one of them.
Bream Tail Farm may be familiar to anyone who has walked the incredible ‘Mangawhai Coastal track’, but some may not realise that the walk sits on a 1200-acre coastal beef and lamb farm. More than half of the farm is covered with native bush and the Resident Association runs an effective pest control program as well as investing heavily in new native plantings. Collectively they employ a farmer to manage the farm and were delighted to welcome Caleb Ellis and his family to the community in August 2021.
When Caleb arrived with his two children and heavily pregnant wife, Maddie, it was the beginning of lambing season, and to add to the challenges the country was thrown into a national lockdown. Undeterred, he and Maddie set about their tasks and gradually developed their own ideas on how they saw the farm working.
Like many young farmers, Caleb is passionate about the environment and animal health. He encourages biodiversity and sustainability to minimise the impact of the industry on the land and environment, whilst at the same time improving animal welfare. He has reduced drenching by introducing ‘self-administered’ Himalayan salt-lick blocks and is investigating making his own fertiliser from seaweed collected from the beach. Additionally, he is progressively replanting the kikuya with regenerative pasture to build better feed for the stock.
Caleb’s dream is to market the property’s beef and lamb to the local community and so at the end of 2022 they did a ‘test run’ to their local community with resounding success, selling lamb, and beef BBQ packs. As they are just starting out they are unable to offer individual cuts but have planned another run for the end of March.
Orders close on Friday 10 March and the product will be delivered at the beginning of April.
For more information check out their website or give them a call.
www.BreamTailFarm.nz
027 260 4274