Archived News

18th February 2009

Mike came along to the farm with a mobile scanner at the weekend and scanned the two Black Berkshire gilts.  A female pig becomes a Sow on the birth of her second litter.

The scanner confirmed that both Prudence and Pheobe are pregnant, with one of them being further advanced than the other.

The last time I saw Percy mounting one of his ladies, was back in November.  Adding three months, three weeks and three days to that day in November, I was roughly expecting piglets to be born the third week in March.

The Belted Galloways at Lemons Farm were gathered up this morning and taken to Raikes Farm to be sorted out.  It's time to separate the cows and calves.

Each animal that came through the cattle crush had a little hair cut!  Ears were trimmed so that ear tags can be easily read .

Because the bond between Belted Galloway mother and calf is so strong, we will keep each group indoors for the next couple of weeks.  The calves were brought to a barn at Manor Farm and the cows will remain in a barn at Raikes. 

When the calves and cows are separated there is quite a lot of hollering from both groups and they will try to break out and reach each other, even if they are a mile or so apart.  This has happened before!