I’m sorry to say, the Manor Farm website went off air for a while in January and when it returned, it did so without my January news page…which was somewhat frustrating to say the least!  Computers -hey!

So here is a quick recap.

As the weather and fields became increasingly wet, some of the Belted Galloways were moved to new ground. 

The heifers or young females that have not calved, remain at Netley, and will run with the bull for the first time in May.

The males or steers have moved to an open barn for a few weeks until the ground recovers and fresh grass begins to grow along the valley.  They have a fresh bed of straw and feed on hay (dried grass and herbs) which was grown in our local pastures last summer.

Our main group of cows and heifers were brought in from the fields ready for spring calving. They will calve indoors as they have for the past few years to provide increased biosecurity.  We also have calving cameras which help us to keep an eye on what’s happening in the barns, even if we are elsewhere on the farm. 

I bought some new cattle in the autumn with five heifers from Cumbria and two from Scotland; one of whom had a bull calf at foot.

Three of the ‘Appleby Five’ as I call them, were already in-calf when they arrived on the farm and as December was miserable, we gave them an entire barn for calving and they were shielded from the weather.  Three good calves were born without any help required.

As the remaining two Appleby heifers had been turned out into the field with our bull, Mister M, it was noted that Nectar looked quite rotund, but as she wasn’t due to calve, we put this down to her enjoying hay a little too much!    

And yet, she still surprised us with a heifer calf, born just before the recent cold weather.

Trixie is a lovely bonus to our herd, and she’s thriving on her mother’s milk.  

The small group of autumn and winter calves live outdoors with their dams.

There’s much work to be done on the farm and never enough days in the week, so it feels as though we’re always on the go and trying to catch-up.

Whilst we’ve continued to work throughout the past year and through each of the ‘lockdowns’, everything takes longer with Covid precautions in place, when tractors or trucks aren’t being shared or training courses cannot be held indoors. 

We’ve been fortunate to have one of our sons’ home during the pandemic and he’s been a great help repairing fences in readiness for spring and summer grazing.