Hello, I'm Kim S.

My name is Kim Smith. I grew up in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne. There was always a dog around while I was growing up but my favourite dog was my border collie x kelpie when my kids were growing up. Although she was spayed she was the best, most intelligent and well behaved dog I had ever owned. So I knew then that one day I would endeavour to breed the border collies in the future. My husband Brian and I also ran a very successful Free-Range Piggery in Northeast Victoria. We had 80 to 100 sows in our paddocks at any one time and had an average of 5 litters born a week (from 6 to 12 piglets a litter). A challenging time. Hand raising any compromised piglets successfully made the hard work all worth it. My job was to make sure everything ran smoothly and according to the current ‘codes of practice’, keeping an eye on the pregnant sows, farrowing and the piglet’s wellbeing. This involved many a night sitting with a sow that was exhausted and helping deliver the babies. I was also in charge of sales, food orders and marketing. Brian was born in the Strzelecki Ranges in Victoria into a local dairying family and as an adult purchased his own dairy farm near Leongatha in Victoria. After the death of his first wife he sold the dairy and moved to North East Victoria and ran beef cattle, breeding and fattening and also hay production and cropping. Then as above I gave up my office work and we started our free range piggery. Brians job along with the other workers we employed was to do the hard yakka, fencing, animal husbandry, maintenance etc. Being from a farming background he is good at most things which comes in handy. He wasn’t much into the ponies but was always there to help out when needed. He had working dogs (heeler and heeler x kelpies) when we had the beef and he had the dairy cattle. Farming in Victoria was tough especially owning a piggery albeit an all outside one, so he also decided to retire in 2019 bringing us to our home in paradise on 30 acres with Macleay River access. We retired in 2019, selling the pigs and the farm and moving to Mid North Coast NSW. We are close to the beautiful beaches of South West Rocks and regularly take the dogs to the beach for a run on the sand and swim in the ocean or river. A great place for them to socialise also.