EDUCATIONAL VISITS Manor Farm is fully accredited by the Countryside Educational Visits Accreditation Scheme (CEVAS)
THE FARM 
Contact us for availability.
Archived News
24th January 2010
The farm is generally fairly quiet on winter Sundays and we get the chance to watch the boys play rugby and then have the delight of washing their kit yet again. After lunch today, there was a fast disappearing act from three boys; Edward got stuck into History homework whilst his brothers AKA Ray Mears and Bear Grylls, prepared themselves for an epic trip into the wilds of Surrey!
As I loaded the dishwasher I was gazing out of the window, trying to decide between an afternoon of gardening or sewing labels onto kit, exciting eh? When I noticed a car moving very slowly down the lane and imagined a pedestrian in its way, however I was soon to discover it was something entirely different.
Picture the next scene in slow motion, as that’s how it seemed. Our neighbours Sheila and Steve, with a look of amazement on their faces moved towards their gate, but all the while their eyes were pinned on ....Phoebe, who was wandering up the track!
Phoebe, one of our sows had decided to go walk-about (another fan of Messrs Ghrylls and Mears I wonder?)
So with a cry ‘there’s a pig out!’ the family dropped everything and came running. We had to check back up the lane just in case Prudence and Percy were in hot pursuit, but luckily they’d decided to stay at home.
After a brief stint of exercise Laurence went back to his newspaper, ‘Ghrylls and Mears’ went off in search of rare bugs and bush-craft and Edward it transpired had missed all the fun as he missed the cry for help!
Phoebe was in no mood to return home quietly and I could ut this down to the condition she is in. More than 21 days have passed since the sows were served by Percy and with no sign of him serving again; they must be pregnant!
There’s no field work at present, but the livestock routine continues and we’re looking forward to a week without snow.
A new and very effective cattle handling system (cattle crush) arrived last November and word has got around to local farmers, who are asking to see it in action. So this week there may be an audience in a field at Raikes Farm as the crush is put to good use, weighing the cattle.
Running through the features of the handling system on arrival.
The cattle are weighed every couple of months to check that they are growing and at the same time we can check that no ear tags are missing. If any tags are missing within a particular group we take note of the identity number and place an order for replacement tags. Even if just one animal needs a replacement tag, the entire group of cattle in the field will need to be fetched up once again, into a corral and pass through the crush until the animal with the missing tag arrives in line!
Three loads of wheat will leave the farm Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and each load will travel with a wheat passport which is handed in at the destination. The passport provides information for food traceability and is just a tiny part of the farm assurance work that we undertake. This particular seed wheat variety was grown on contract for Openfield, but in the end they chose not to use that variety to sell on as seed, therefore it will be used as milling wheat.
Back