Nitschke chaff was first started in 1912 by Fredrick Wilhelm Nitschke (my dad’s grandfather) on Vinegrove road Greenock. It then moved to a property west of Greenock to a little village called Nain in 1914.

This property was bought by Fredrick and there he set up a modern chaff mill for its time consisting of an upstairs bagging and loading area. The area of land was approx 250 acres and there Fred grew his hay for chaffing.

The hay was cut into sheaves with sunshine binders, put into stand up stooks and left for approx three to four weeks to dry, then was carted by hand using horse and cart. The hay was loaded and unloaded with a three pronged pitch fork.