What are the opening hours?

Monday 08:00 - 17:00 Tuesday 08:00 - 17:00 Wednesday 08:00 - 17:00 Thursday 08:00 - 17:00 Friday 08:00 - 20:00

Omweg Farm

We apply regenerative farming practises in the Hermitage valley of Swellendam, and raise pigs and chickens on pasture.

02/01/2026

Wishing you a fruitful 2026! 🍏 May your efforts bear fruit, your footprint be light, and your footsteps many - keeping you healthy, curious, and open to new paths.

Our apple trees are starting to bear more fruit, and we continue adding compost to the soil to make them stronger and more resilient to pests and disease. A new year lies ahead, one where we continue doing what we love. There’s still a long road ahead, but we’re grateful for where we are today - and deeply thankful for everyone who walks this journey with us, whether through advice, buying our produce, or simply cheering us on. 🫶

31/12/2025

Zoomies! 💨😃 Every evening Spikkel gets a burst of energy and races around the veld like a puppy. After that, she settles in for the night with the herd - calm, content, and safe. What a beautiful sunset to end the day. ❤️

24/12/2025

Handcrafted locally 💕 how special is it to buy and gift something made right here in Swellendam? ✨

Michelle Eyre made this beautiful sensory book for us, and we loved seeing the care and thought that went into every detail. With years of experience as a teacher, she truly understands what captures and holds a little one’s curiosity. Michelle creates and personalises sensory books for different ages and themes, each one thoughtfully designed. These books invite slow, hands-on exploration - from textures and fine motor skills to early learning like colours, animals and numbers. 🐷

If you’re looking for a meaningful, memorable gift that encourages sensory exploration, and introduces early learning like colours, animals and numbers – this sensory book is a real gem. 💛 Feel free to DM us for her details.

15/12/2025

Bottle-feeding 🍼 a calf is cute for a little while, but calves are strong, and bottles are too small to carry 3 litres at a time. So in comes the bucket! 🪣

As we immerse ourselves in the world of cows (completely new to us), we’ve been learning about the importance of suckling for a calf’s digestive system. Suckling stimulates saliva production, which is rich in lactoferrin and lactoperoxidase, an enzyme system with antioxidant and antimicrobial properties that support immunity and improve the protection of the calf.

The suckling action also ensures a controlled flow of milk and helps protect the airways from aspiration. It triggers the oesophageal groove to close, directing milk away from the rumen. Instead, the pH-neutral mixture of milk and saliva enters the acidic abomasum, where a curd forms. From there, lactose is absorbed into the bloodstream, while the “sugar-free” curd moves into the intestines for further nutrient absorption.

In short, suckling supports full nutrient absorption, while the longer drinking time also satisfies the calf’s natural suckling instinct. Fascinating to learn and the reason we opted for a Milk Bar bucket with teat, rather than an open bucket. Spikkel seems to love it! 🐮

06/12/2025

Cute discovery in the Camphor Bush, completely helpless waiting for their next meal.🪹 Beautiful how well hidden the little nest is.

30/11/2025

How wonderful to hear the sound of the Kliprivier again. We only had 6.5mm of rain yesterday, but the mountain catchment (about 4km upstream) always gets a lot more. Accumulated with last Sunday’s rain (we had 14mm here) the river now started flowing again, which is a relief as last week we didn’t see any difference. That rain only created some mud baths for the pigs, which they thoroughly enjoyed. 🐷

It’s humbling to experience we’re not in control. Two years ago excessive rainfall was the challenge, we’ve had damaging winds, and to now experience a very dry period reconfirms the importance of taking care of the land and supporting it to be resilient. Building soil health to improve water pe*******on and retention, with a diverse pasture and trees that support life in and above ground. It takes time, but we trust it’ll be worth it. 💚

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28/11/2025

BLACK WATTLE FRIDAY 🌳🖤😉 and the goats are loving it

We were introduced to this simple but super-effective Tree Popper through the Swellendam Hackers, the group that uses them every week to eradicate alien trees from commonage in and around Swellendam. It’s work that can feel like a drop in the ocean, but it recently proved its value when a fire started in Masbiekers Valley, where extensive clearing has been done over the past five years. As a result, the fire didn’t get as hot as it would have if more alien trees were present, and it was brought under control relatively quickly.👏

Since the browsing of our young fodder trees is limited, we hang the “popped” Black Wattles as upside-down trees on the tree protection, and the goats enjoy the alternative browsing. Perhaps they understand the need to get rid of them: apart from making veldfires incredibly hot, they also guzzle water (each tree close to a full water truck annually; picture the number of Black Wattles in our area and how many trucks that adds up to!😳) - something that’s even more undesirable in this drought.💦

Tree Popper is running a special until 31 December, with a 15% discount on a Tree Popper: https://treepopper.co.za/size/

Keen to join the Swellendam Hackers? 🌳 Come down to the Masbiekers dam (drive in through Buirski street) at 5pm today for some hard or light work, taking down (or out!) 1 alien tree at a time. 💪

23/11/2025

And so it starts … 🐄 Unexpectedly, we got a calf on Thursday, neglected by his mom. It took about 30 hours to regain strength and we were relieved to see it starting to bounce around. Lenna is caring, she seems to sense that she can’t play rough with this one.❤️

20/11/2025

Not exactly Wildlife Photographer of the Year material, but glad I could still capture this butterfly as it was fluttering around the Lovage plant while we were planting seeds in the vegetable garden this morning. For a brief moment it sat still, and lay its egg – a tiny dot that we would otherwise never have noticed. Curious to see the caterpillar appear over time. 🐛 This plant has enough to give so we don’t mind sharing. In fact, we planted it for its roots.

We often use ground Lovage (root) to spice our cured meats. It gives a delicious flavour, but it’s not available here so we need to source it from The Netherlands. The leaves add a punch to soups and stews, and the scent apparently makes it attractive to this Citrus Swallowtale that normally chooses a citrus tree to lay eggs. A wonderful visit in the garden.🦋

17/11/2025

We kept a few Black Wattles two years ago for shade in the pasture 🌳 and judging by how packed it gets on summer days, it was one of the best decisions we’ve made! 😊Lovely to see them all hang out together 🐐 🐓 🐾

We can’t wait though, for the day when the trees we’ve planted can take over the job - giving shade ánd boosting the soil, adding nutrition, and bringing back more biodiversity. 🐦‍⬛

06/11/2025

It started with a request from a Dutch customer 🇳🇱 He missed one of his favourite sausages - the 𝘨𝘳𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘴𝘵: a cooked Dutch sausage with a spice rub that creates a golden, flavourful crust when grilled. Popular since the Nineties, it’s often enjoyed warm, or sliced cold on a platter or sandwich.

We loved the idea, so we took up the challenge. Using our pasture-raised pork and local Gouda from the The Cheese Shop, Swellendam, we crafted our first Omweg Spiced Deli Sausage - made in the traditional Dutch way, with that same irresistible, flavourful crust.🧡

Our Dutch tasters and customers are unanimous:𝘪𝘵 𝘵𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘴 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘺𝘰𝘶’𝘥 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘵 𝘢 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘣𝘶𝘵𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘳.🤩

Now we’re wondering… will other Swellendammers fall in love with it too? Get it online - we deliver in Swellendam.🚚
Pop it in the air fryer or on the braai to develop that tasty crust, and discover a juicy, flavour-packed sausage born from Dutch nostalgia and our love for good food.

Illustration credits:

02/11/2025

A new little jumper arrived this week! 🥰Curious, calm, and easy to love – everyone seems like her (except for the hen perhaps, fiercely protecting her chicks against this curious bouncy creature). For now she’s on the bottle, but soon she’ll be grazing and running around with the others. 🐐🐐

Address

Hermitage South Avenue
Swellendam
6740

Opening Hours

Monday	08:00 - 17:00
Tuesday	08:00 - 17:00
Wednesday	08:00 - 17:00
Thursday	08:00 - 17:00
Friday	08:00 - 20:00

Telephone

+27834441020

Website

http://www.omweg.co.za/

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