Today we visit Auntie Petro’s farm near Senekal.

What a wonderful privilege it is to cross paths with someone like Auntie Petro. This auntie is already 75 years old. She farms in a way that is hard to believe. She is an example to so many people. Her dedication, her passion, her absolute energy on the farm, her love for her animals, and her total commitment to helping every animal, even the ones that many other people would have given up on long ago.

And her wonderful stories. It is such a privilege to sit and talk with Auntie Petro and simply share these incredible stories. It is also my privilege to walk this road with her and see how we can make a difference in each other’s lives.

So we are going to let Auntie Petro speak and hear what she has to share. The incredible breakthroughs we have had in her situation, and how we could help with the warmth and the mud to sort out serious problems.

So let us give Auntie Petro the floor.

“The product came across my path a few years ago. What a wonderful discovery. From the beginning until today, it has become part of my daily farming routine. There is always one reason or another why I need it.

These days we use it a lot for my sheep and cattle. There are also many people who have had great success with their horses using it.

One cow’s skin came loose from the knee right down to the hoof, the whole foot had peeled off. The bare bone was sitting there. There was probably only a piece of open flesh left about the size of… well, here is the palm of my hand, even smaller than that.

It took me five months. Every day I applied the Thermal Mud. And for the cow, probably eighty times, maybe a hundred times, I dosed Vermate. She recovered beautifully. The wound healed nicely. Any places on her body that broke open healed beautifully.

I took a brush with a little plank fastened onto the back of it so I could reach her more easily and paint it on. The next morning it was still there, only little bits had fallen off here and there. So the wound stayed covered and the flies could not get onto it.

Nowadays we use it daily in our sheep, especially the mothers with lambs. They get it daily in their ration for milk production, and Vermate gets mixed into the feed.

The cattle that produce milk, and calves that need extra nutrition, get it mixed into their calf pellets. Our little calves still drinking milk also get it. If there are twin lambs and we need to strengthen one of the lambs a bit, then we mix it into the milk.

It is fantastic for preventing diarrhoea. If a lamb does get diarrhoea, it also gets Vermate.

I do still use other medications as well. I actually see Vermate as my old little wagon where every now and then I load something extra onto the cart and pull it along with it. I will always add something if needed, but most of the time it handles the problem on its own.

It is a product that must be given regularly. It asks for daily dosing, especially if you have a very sick animal with a high fever. Like a lumpy skin disease cow I had that was really very sick. I lost one cow already and it affected all the animals.

I did give the cow a long-acting antibiotic as well when I saw there was some pus draining from the wounds. But I only gave that when it was necessary. The Vermate did what was needed both externally and internally.

Another discovery that crossed my path was with sheep or lambs that had sore eyes. I took a little cloth and washed the eye. In earlier years we always washed them with vitriol water. Now I wash them with Vermate and then drip a little into the eye. Very, very rarely did I need to add a mastitis eye ointment afterwards, only if there was a serious infection.

The ordinary sore eye usually clears within two to three days. That is usually the treatment period, two to three days.

I also had sheep with bluetongue. Then we washed their mouths and smeared Thermal Mud nicely inside and around the mouth. Then we dosed Vermate and I gave an antibiotic injection as well.

Then I left it for a day and checked whether the face was still hot. If necessary, maybe on day three I would give another injection, but usually we just continued dosing Vermate morning and evening.

You can never overdose Vermate. A sheep gets 5 ml a day, a cow 10 ml. But you can give a cow as much as the cow can drink if it is lying down, sick, dehydrated, and feverish. You can easily dose 100 to 200 ml. It works. The animal suffers no harm, it only benefits from the treatment.

With cattle and sheep, if you have udder problems or mastitis, then you paint the mud on thickly. It draws out the inflammation and mastitis, and you give your animal an antibiotic injection as well. If it is a cow, you can also give a pain injection.

With sheep and cattle that have foot rot where the foot is swollen, we paint it on with the brush and I inject my long-acting antibiotic as well. Then every day we either press the sheep’s foot into the mud, or paint the cow’s foot with it.

By day three, there he goes again, no longer limping, back on the move. He does not even hold the foot up anymore. So that is another problem area that it handles.

There are so many things I can think of, too many to mention. I always say I cannot manage without the product.

The chickens, the little guinea fowl that run around the pens helping to control flies, got fowl pox. I cleaned the little eyes, painted on the mud. Second day, third day, those thick pox sores were healthy again.

Now I mix it into the maize we give them. My little hen had terrible drops in egg production when the seasons changed from summer to winter, because I do not feed expensive commercial feed here on the farm. They do not get fancy shop feed.

Then I suddenly saw, goodness, I am running out of eggs.

My neighbour grabbed me one day and said, ‘That old auntie’s mud, my cow’s foot is practically healed. There is not even a spot left anymore.’

There is still one place I am treating that I thought would disappear completely. It looks like it is just going to leave a tiny little hole now. I thought when the abscess burst open I would have another problem that would take months, but now I can see it is only going to make a tiny hole and then dry up. Then we will be done. Then this old auntie will be able to walk alongside the truck again.

We are almost there. I just need to get going again.

I was busy with the sheep. One sheep had bloat and another one had lambing problems, so I first had to come sit down quickly with a cup of coffee.

It was a crazy day. Every day is crazier than the next. It feels as if every new month the year gains momentum. What its story is, I do not know. Whether the wind is blowing and everything wants to run, I do not know. Whether this old auntie can keep up, I also do not know. But that is life.

Now I must quickly go throw supper together.

Sleep well. We will talk again sometime when we have time to sit properly and chat.

Thank you for everything. May things go well with all of you.”