Archived News

23rd June 2010

We’ve been hosting school visits again this year; mainly over the summer term because this makes for an enjoyable learning experience rather than a rain soaked one!

This week 22 boys from Woodcote House School came along as part of their Geography curriculum. The boys have been studying farming in Ghana so their visit to Manor Farm provided significant contrasts. 

Firstly we visited the grain store and grain drier and discussed modern arable farming, then to Raikes farm to discuss beef and finally Coast Hill Farm to talk about diversification. 

The children asked  many relevant and searching questions about labour needs, costs, outputs and farm size which made for a very interesting morning for Laurence and I as well as the children!   

Tomorrow we welcome back, Kender Primary School from Lewisham.

Three more weaners left for pastures new this morning and they had the most unique form of transport I have ever seen; an old tin bath in the back of a car!  I thought the pigs would simply scramble out of the bath and be running lose in the car before they’d completed the ten minute journey.  However with some straw in the bath the three piglets seemed quite content and settled down straight away; now I’ve seen it all!

After weaning the piglets a fortnight ago, Prudence and Phoebe were moved into their paddock which was once the farmhouse vegetable garden.  They seemed thrilled to be back in their old home and were soon trotting about.  The next morning it felt like disaster had struck; Prudence wouldn’t get up, not even for food.  Eventually we got her to move so that we might see what was wrong but she would only stand on three legs.

Things looked pretty bad, maybe ligament damage or a dislocated hip.  It seems that pigs can become lame after changing from one environment to another but it hasn’t happened to our sows before.  I was shocked the following morning to see that Phoebe was also lame but not quite as badly as Prudence at that time.

The vet tells me that sows often ride each other when they’re in season, so this may have caused them to damage a back leg in some way.  I have directions for care, but it’s really just a matter of waiting to see whether they heal.  Prudence seems to have improved slightly and is getting about now, but Phoebe has worsened.

The problems don’t end there though: we can’t keep the girls if their condition doesn’t improve.  Injured livestock are not allowed to be transported, so they can’t go to the abattoir and will have be killed and removed from the farm by a disposal firm.  In the meantime Percy remains alone which isn’t ideal.

It seems we have to prepare for the worst; that Prudence and Phoebe will be put down and I’ll need to find new gilts to accompany Percy.  Alternatively Percy could go to a new home and we could keep some of our weaners for breeding, a boar from one litter and two or three gilts from the other, but the boys are adamant that we can’t be without Percy as well as Prudence and Phoebe.  I’ve weighed up the options but there's no easy solution and so far, not one that can be agreed upon.