Archived News

19th January 2009

The weather is still affecting work at the moment.  After the freezing pipes and hairdryers, came a flurry of snow, just enough for some more sledging – for the boys that is, not us!

Then a few days of freezing frosts, which have looked quite stunning, but have continued to cause problems. We heard the dog barking early one morning and went to investigate, only to find that a pipe had burst and the water was rising up around the dog’s ankles.  The dog was okay, if a little mystified.

Along with the thaw came two burst pipes in fields at Tillingbourne and Coast Hill. As the ground began to thaw, along came the rain!  With the fields sodden, 400 acres of ploughing are on hold. 

A Belted Galloway with a frosty behind

Jobs around the farm at the moment: the usual routine of checking, feeding, and littering-up cattle of varying ages at numerous locations, cleaning out the barns at a neighbouring farm and carting the muck to fields and sorting cattle ready for departure from the farm.

Last Friday at 5am, ten Friesian cross cattle went off to abattoir and tomorrow another twelve are going.

It is important to us that once calves arrive here at Manor Farm; they remain with us until it is time for them to go to abattoir. They don’t pass through a variety of farms or markets around the country during their lives with the inevitable travelling this would entail.  Instead they remain here in the same group for two years.  Cattle are social animals and prefer to stay in familiar groups. This style of management reduces stress to the animal and we think that in the long run this should produce better quality meat.

Laurence has been up to London for two meetings, the NFU Regional Crops Board a week ago, followed by the National Crops Board meeting last week.  Laurence spends many hours each month on his computer including the mundane but never the less important job of reconciling bank statements.  This had to be completed in preparation for the quarterly budget meeting this week. As the business has evolved and grown, Laurence’s job has changed from being predominantly practical into one of about 90% management, however this has created a stable business, more able to cope with the challenges of farming in the 21^st Century.