Archived News

5th January 2010

December has been a month of comings and goings.   Lizzie, a visiting sow came for a holiday with our boar Percy whilst Prudence and Phoebe were still busy with their piglets. There appeared to be a fair attraction between Percy and Lizzie on the first day of her visit and she seemed to be on heat when she arrived, so hopefully ideal timing.  There was a fair deal of ‘action’ in the first day or so, although Lizzie seemed more interested in cake than Percy! After 21 days there were no signs that Lizzie was back in season so we are hopeful that she is pregnant, but we’ll just have to wait for news on that.

When Lizzie’s owners, Jo and Tony saw our weaners, they were so taken by them that they decided to buy ten!  They collected the weaners a week before Lizzie returned home and by all accounts the piglets quickly settled into their new home; despite an early escapade when the intrepid piglets decided to take out the electric fence (literally by the mouth) and run a-muck.

 Andrew, me and Paul after Pigs loaded & paperwork complete!

All 26 piglets were weaned from Prudence and Phoebe and were relocated to three good homes last month. My friend Paul has joined forces with two of his friends and between them they will raise ten of the weaners.

Flo, a Belgian Blue cow runs with the older group of Belted Galloway cows, just lead Flo out of a field and the Belties follow!  Last spring Flo was served by Harvey, the Belted Galloway bull and I discovered her with twins on December 9^th 2009; one heifer and one bull calf we have named them Blue and Flyn. 

December 30^th saw the birth of three Belted Galloway calves; one heifer and two bull calves which Christopher has named Buttercup, Flash and Greg!  One particular cow tends to give birth a month after the others, so we are still waiting for one more!

Another seven Belted Galloways are due between April and June, these cows are Harvey’s offspring  so they were served by Waterbeck Willow , a visiting bull.