Healthy chickens
for you everyday!

About Stone Chicken Farm

Maulana was born in Zimbabwe in 1987, he is one of 7 children. He completed his schooling in Zimbabwe and worked in a steel factory for 2 years and attended cattle for a year. Life in Zimbabwe was tough and so Maulana and his friend Gabriel decided to seek a safer and better future in South Africa.

And so one night in February 2007 with a 5l empty water bottle strapped to their chests they swam across the crocodile-infested Limpopo river and entered South Africa. Within hours they were mugged at knife point by a gang and robbed of the little they had – it was at this point that Maulana and Gabriel became separated. After 4 days of walking through farm lands he came to Louis Trichardt where he was able to get a few days work as a „dagga boy“ – mixing cement.

From there he got a train to Pretoria where he found work in a car workshop. In April 2007 he went to the Home Affairs office to seek asylum. Shortly thereafter he was arrested as he had no papers but on discovering he had applied for asylum he was housed in a refugee centre until he was released with a work and temporary residence permit.

Having several poorly paying jobs, Maulana was forced to live on the streets of Pretoria for 3 years. It was dangerous especially as ethnic violence was prevalent. Maulana decided to move on and worked his way South, after spending several months in Kimberley he finally found himself in the Western Cape winelands in 2011 which is where his luck started to turn.
He was picked up by a kindly strawberry farmer, Jeffrey Zetler, who took a liking to Maulana. Jeffrey was deeply impressed by Maulana’s hard work and positive attitude. He gave him a good job on the farm, a place to stay and helped him get a passport and driver’s license. Tragically Jeffrey was murdered on his farm during a robbery in June 2018. Maulana left the farm several months later and went back to visit his family in Kwekwe where he met his wife Sibongile.

On returning to South Africa he took a job in construction driving heavy machinery. In 2020 he suffered a serious health condition when his appendix burst and he spent several weeks in hospital. Shortly thereafter COVID hit the world and he lost his job in construction. Fortunately a Provident Fund had been set up and Maulana was given a lump sum of cash with which he purchased a parcel of land in his home town of Kwekwe and started to build a house.

However, having no money and no prospects he returned to South Africa after COVID and started working as an Uber driver in Cape Town. It was in Cape Town in October of 2022 that he met Gavin Webb and Birgit (Bigi) Hermes who were on holiday from Germany. Maulana explained his dream to start a chicken farm in Zimbabwe with his wife and Gavin and Bigi agreed to help him.

Gavin grew up in South Africa but moved away to the UK in 2000. Currently he resides between Worcester in the UK and Dusseldorf in Germany. He works in the software industry.

Bigi is German, together with Gavin they live between the UK and Germany. She owns and runs a digital printing company.