FARM LIKE A HERO EXPERIENCE: Kylie Magner, IE

Okay. Welcome to a new episode of Farm Like a Hero, folks. I'm Richard Perkins. Today I'm here with Kylie Magna of Magna's Farm in Tipperary in Ireland. Established in 2017, Kylie runs 8 hectare farm with her husband Billy and their four children. The farm has about 900 laying hens, produces pastured boilers and produces award winning chicken bone broth as well as hay which they sell off the farm. Kylie is a full time farmer who grew up on a mixed farming enterprise in the central west of New South Wales, Australia and completed a bachelor in business in agricultural commerce at Sydney University. And so lots to talk about today, really exciting farm. So Kylie, thanks so much for taking the time to join us.

You're really welcome, Richard. Thank you so much for having us.

Great. Yeah, thank you so much. And I'm curious to hear your backstory because you've grown up on a farm, been through sort of farm education and had a long journey to get to where you are now in Ireland and a lot to do with horses as well, right?

Yeah, that's right. I grew up in a mixed farm in central west New South Wales in Australia. So my mum and dad had sheep, cattle and a bit of cropping as well. It was pretty small farm by Australian standards, 600 acres. So I suppose we were all involved from a young age. We were all involved with handling sheep, cattle, riding horses and, you know, saw droughts, fires, things like that. So my dad died when I was 12 and our farm was sold when I was quite young. So I think probably that was a critical point in my life that, you know, such an impressionable age. I really missed the farm. I missed the lifestyle and the animals. And it probably stuck with me forever, you know, that I always wanted to do something agriculturally related. When I left school, I went to do a degree which was kind of agricultural commerce. It was a bachelor of business, but it was all based around agriculture. So very traditional agriculture methods and farming. But it was a great course, I suppose, gave us good background, accountancy, law, marketing. But I suppose my true love was always horses. I loved riding horses, competing horses, and I, you know, had a lot of work lined up with horses. I didn't really know where I was going to go with it or what I was going to do. But eventually it kind of led me to Japan riding racehorses, Sydney working with yearlings, working for a bloodstock agency, bid spotting. And then kind of finally brought me to Ireland where I kind of had always wanted to visit. Ireland's kind of known as the epicenter of thoroughbred breeding and racing in the world. So it was kind of really just drawn to the source of the best racing centre in the world. I didn't really know what I was going to be doing, so I brought mucking out gear and riding out gear and a couple of pairs of heels, just in case. And then I ended up working for Coolmore Stud, which is probably one of the biggest and best known horse studs in the world. So it was kind of like a dream job for me. I was really happy, really loved my work. And then Billy, my husband, and I had four children over a period of about seven years. So that was very intense, trying to work in corporate, you know, it's just not conducive, really. Probably not doing a great job at either either things. So Billy and I moved back to Australia for seven years and I set up my own business, advertising agency. And then when Billy's dad passed away, we came back for the funeral and we came and visited our farm in Oiglas, which we had bought in 2004. We never really thought we could afford to live on it, but I said to Vili, if we move back to Ireland, I really just want to live on the farm. I want to, I don't know, do something with it, just raise the kids on a farm and our farm. So that's how I ended up in Ireland. And whilst we bought our farm in 2004, we'd never really done anything with it. We'd leased it to horse people, so it was completely set up for horses, stables, stud railing. No infrastructure really for livestock cropping or vegetables or hens or anything like that. So, yeah, that's how I ended up here.

Amazing. Do you. Is Billy from farming background at all?

No, Billy's family, I'm from Clonmel and they're actually involved, they used to be involved in the drinks company Magna's Cider, but that was great grandfather. So no, his family's no kind of background in agriculture really at all.

And so is it primarily you running the farm?

Yeah, so I'm at home 100% of the time working on the farm seven days a week. And as Billy always jokes to everybody, he's got two jobs. He comes home from his first job and then work starts on his second job. And I suppose, yeah, having that backup as a, you know, having a partner who's interested as well and involved on the farm and prepared to kind of put in the hard yards is really integral to our kind of ongoing kind of survival, really. And then having four children who are not Always willing workers, but they're definitely great help around the farm. So we have a wage book. We write up the hours when the kids do any hours to help on the farm and they get paid at the end of the week. So I suppose, you know, you. You learn all these lessons as you go. And the farm has had so many benefits, you know, not just, say, financial or growing our flock, but, you know, so many things that your family can be involved in together, which has really been, you know, quite amazing for us.

Yeah, but, yeah, such a rich environment and life lessons. Right. That's very tangible and transferable.

Yeah, definitely. I mean, when we started, we. We really, you know, we were kind of really in the red. If you look back, it's vision, you know, for kids at a crucial time of education. I could have gone and got a job, you know, and earning money, but I guess I felt really strongly about what I wanted to do and, you know, kind of just jumped in feet first and just. I remember when we bought our first 10 hens and we were kind of collecting the money in a jar under the sink and we'd accumulated €150, and, you know, I said to the kids, what will we do with €150? And they said, let's get more hens, you know, Know. So it was a big lesson for them because I think, you know, learning about how hard it is to earn that €150. They saw that. They saw how much effort went into that money, and I think that's, you know, kind of an incredible lesson for them to learn, definitely.

So there's lots to talk about, but I want to know a bit about the upbringing you had. Obviously, it's very different. Climate, like Tipperary is fairly wet. I guess it's moderate for islands. Is it like 12, 1400 mil of rain you get there?

Yeah, it's quite. It's quite wet here. Obviously, we're not that close to the coast, but we still would have very good rainfall. We're very lucky. The farm that we're on is very well drained. It's really good limestone land. Very fertile, but very wet compared to where I'm from. And I suppose when I first moved here, I couldn't get over how wet it was and how mild it was and cool. And I remember the first year, you know, saying to Billy, like, something's wrong with those trees outside. They're. They're dying. It was September, and Billy says, well, it's like autumn. They're losing the leaves. And I said, but we haven't had summer, you know, like, where was summer? Oh, gosh, Sam.