Archived News

15th August 2010

The weather is now fit for ducks which is perfect, as we recently bought five! ; two Silver Apple-yards and three white laying ducks which are Apple-yards crosses.

We’ve allowed two broody hens to sit on eggs this summer, the first hatched out two of the four eggs she was sitting on and the second hen managed to accumulate eggs from other hens until she was sitting on sixteen! 

We moved her to her own broody house and Henny is now the proud mother of seven chicks of various colours.

I have spent a fair few hours pulling ragwort in Abinger where the spring herd of Belted Galloways have been grazing.  They’re out of grass now and will need to move soon.

Granite, the bull has been running with this herd for about eleven weeks and will move to Churchfield for some well earned R&R before moving in with the autumn herd after they have calved.  In the meantime the spring herd will be pregnancy tested and if any of the cows are not pregnant they will transfer into the autumn herd to run with Granite again.

Here I am with our bull Mochrum Granite

Nine cows were scanned earlier in the year and we had a rough idea that calving would begin in July and be complete by the end of August.  We’ve been checking the cows at least twice a day for the last three weeks and one has looked fit to burst all that time, but not one has calved.

There's a small ploughing match in one of our stubble fields today and an opportunity for some of the young farmers to have a go for the first time including our boys, so we'll see what they make of the job!