Archived News

10th April 2011

Spring is a very busy time on the farm and at home.  Over the last month or so the Friesian x cattle have been weighed and sorted and a number of them sold as store cattle at market, reducing the number on the farm to around 500.

As the grass begins to grow, cattle are moved out to fields from their winter quarters and we’re hoping that there’s enough rainfall this spring and summer to keep the grass growing; we don’t need a repeat of last year’s drought which resulted in having to buy in fodder for the cattle.

The piglets are growing well and all have new homes to go to once they are fully weaned.  In the meantime Polly is the perfect mother to her first litter and seems quite relaxed about it all!

Two finished pigs went to the abattoir last week and will be butchered locally in the next few days, providing a good quantity of fresh sausages for sale.

One of the Silver Appleyard ducks was a little under the weather and sitting quietly alone rather than waddling around with the other ducks, we thought she might be egg bound. 

Two duck eggs; imagine laying the one on the right!

One of today’s eggs is so large; it must have been the cause of her discomfort.  The duck is back to normal now, happily quacking and waddling around once more.

Four hen eggs and two duck eggs (from left to right)

Now that the hens and ducks are laying plenty of eggs, our boys sell them at the farm gate; well they did until last week, when someone stole the ‘honesty box’.  It’s great to have children with entrepreneurial spirit, and as they care for the animals it’s good to see them marketing the eggs and having a sense of achievement from the work they put in.

Last year money was taken from the box and we stopped putting the eggs out for a while even though the boys wanted to continue.  This time the entire box and contents have been stolen including the sign on the box which described the boys’ enterprise and that the money went towards chicken food. 

How sad it is, that a few people can spoil the simple pleasure that others find in buying local produce at a farm or garden gate.

On a positive note 900 whips (small trees) have been planted to ‘gap-up’ hedgerows we planted last year at Paddington and between Raikes Farm and Abinger and a new hedge has been planted at Thorn Grove. 

The soil was dry and sandy and many of the small saplings died during last summer’s drought conditions.   Although tree planting season is November to March, we have to wait for the shooting season to close before being able to access these areas and this late planting may cause a higher proportion of the whips to die.  We’ll try to get a water bowser out to the new hedge plants to prevent this from happening again.