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Well, sincere apologies for lack of blogging. Open Farm Sunday was a resounding success with our visitor numbers reaching 4 figures…. wow, had we known that would we have done it? Anyway we all survived with the help of so many kind volunteers who gave their time and knowledge freely.
OPEN FARM SUNDAY
We had an inch of rain on Sunday morning in a very short time, I just wanted to get back into bed after waking at 6am, I was so worried about the day. I only went to bed after midnight after stuffing carrier bags for 3 hours with some very kind friends and family who joined in to help this laborious task.
However fifteen minutes before our gates were to open a streak of blue sky appeared and we actually had a fine day, which made all the difference. It was wonderful to see so many happy smiling people enjoying the animals and machines and we hope they learnt something about how their food is produced.
Well, we are already planning for next year now - 13th June 2010 – while the clearing up and taking down of displays goes on and we will have a major de-brief when we get time.
The new piglets all arrived in time and I hope to put a pic on soon. We have more visits this week of school groups and pre-school while we are still set up for visitors and the concrete yards are so clean. It truly seems that the work of a farmer is never done and it is no longer just about producing food - sharing knowledge and improved public relations seem to be just as important.
Food for thought and food to eat, indeed!
The ladies-in-waiting are still waiting and I feel extremely foolish for announcing we’d have piglets last weekend, however I was guided by the date the vendor gave me for the Tamworth. I really hope one of them will oblige in time for our Open Farm Sunday next weekend.
It is another lovely sunny day and there is no sign of rain. Three hours of rain is all we have had this week and although we all love to work outside in the warm and the dry conditions it has actually been very windy and this combined with the lack of rain is now becoming worrysome.
We are waging war on the pigeons, who have homed in and attacked our well grown brassicas and netting the long strip may be the only answer. Jethro has managed to reduce numbers by shooting a few of the pesky things, but then others come. I wonder how pigeons tell each other where the tasty greens are so that more and more come? Jethro has even tried out a farm scale battery powered noisy bird scarer. The effect of this weird noise [like a wonky burglar alarm] was to simply upset all the sheep in the field opposite, cause the fattening cattle to stampede and irritate us and the dogs so much we eventually had to turn it off.
The beans and the squashes still need planting out hopefully today and tomorrow. Food production, we still love it but as always it remains challenging at times.
There was a new lamb last night, and there can’t really be many more to come. The lambs look well [a dry year always suits lambs] and the sheep and lambs have had their dose of clik to prevent flystrike. We had had two sheep mildly affected by maggots, and they were treated with insecticide to kill the maggots and eggs. As we deliberately lamb late in the season there is always a balance to keep between leaving the sheep in peace or rounding them up to apply the Clik. Rounding up sheep with small lambs is not easy. Every year is different but the sunnier weather has hatched a lot of flies.
No piglets yet! Did we put her off by cooking roast ham for Saturday lunch? The due date given was Sunday and the signs were there but she is hanging on… Now we wonder which of the three ladies-in-waiting will be first?
The Tamworth has made a giant straw nest, this morning, and hidden herself behind this wall of straw… so we’ll keep checking.
Meanwhile it has rained for about 3 hours today and we planted all the brassicas and sweetcorn out yesterday.
We now need more rain and less pigeons who have already homed in on our little plants, shredding and consuming their growing leaves as part of a May day feast.
Reading last week in the Telegraph about life inthe countryside made me laugh out loud.
Why has there been such a long a gap in my blog entries .. not due to any shenanigans on my part that’s for sure. And there it was again on Sunday - in You magazine, the very same topic .
Laugh, we haven’t stopped! Well, in between wondering what expenses will next be charged to the public purse by over 600 professional persons and simply coping with all the after effects of all the sex and all the seeds.
Yes, I did say SEX, but sex is as normal an occupation for animals as breathing or eating. Sex, or service as it is often referred to in the farmyard, happens a lot in our herds and in our flock and Spring is the main time of the year for us to reap the consequences. It is just as well, putting it simply, if there was ‘no service’, they’d be no animals and we wouldn’t be farmers.
So far we have had over 300 lambs and are already in double figures for calves. We have one young pig due from 24th May and another two sows now do look to be in pig [fingers crossed]. We have a lot more calves due and still about sixty sheep to lamb.
The ‘dodgy boar’ may not be dodgy after all, he can be forgiven though as he was however young when he met the ‘muddy girls’ and a complete virgin, so perhaps it took him longer to put the pieces of the jigsaw correctly together. They are after all out door, and very free range, pigs and it has become clearer to me quite why some rare breeds are so rare! The friendly boar has has a ’stay of execution’ and will get another chance to sow his seeds again if the two sows produce good litters of piglets. We are all hoping all will be well and he will go on to be a champion sire.
And while I am on the subject of seeds I can report that the arable crops are doing well and I have a forest of tomatoes waiting to be turfed out into the unheated greenhouse from the ancient conservatory. However as the greenhouse is currently full of seedlings [caulilower, red cabbage, broccoli, leeks, lettuce, cabbage, more cauliflower and purple sprouting broccoli, and sweetcorn] ready for the large vegetable garden, and the large garden is waiting for Jethro and his rotavator it may still take some time. I have resorted to feeding fertilser to the plant plugs that look sad to avoid the work and expense of totally repotting so many plugs just before outdoor planting.
At the weekend I sowed lettuce, radish, more lettuce , basil , carrot, spinach, swiss chard and hoed all the onions and garlic. I have been late with the sunflowers and have had complete failures of certain types of courgettes and runner and dwarf beans. So bad were the failures that I have wondered if they were all sown in the same bag of compost. The beans and courgette seeds just vanished. Normally I have very green fingers and it is very unusual for germination to fail and on such a scale. The later resowing of beans are just erupting now so it looks second time lucky for them. It is too soon however to see if the new courgette seeds have worked but the one courgette plant I bought early on from a road side stall for fifty pence is almosty in production so next year I must be much earlier for the indoor ones.
We are now desperate for rain here. It appears to be the sort of year where the grey clouds come and are swept away on these strong cold easterly winds. Jethro says this is a farm that either gets all the rain or none, and after two washout years in succession this could be the latter.
Well Mollie and I walked slowly and carefully around a few waterlogged fields today after the blacksmith replaced her lost shoe and we tried out our sheep gathering skills of a few lambs at walking pace. The lambs moved well into a corner of the field and Mollie seemed relaxed. All good, as I work to rebuild confidence in both of us after the shattering motor bike incident 10 days ago. The horse and I remained totally calm despite startling a muntjack deer in the hedge and the many pheasants were obviously loudly announcing that from Saturday they will be safe until next season.
Ruby, Jethro’s dairy heifer, gets bigger and bigger, and I begin to think she may have twins, although this is unusual for a heifer [first timer]. She ran with the bull from April 1st last year and was due anytime from 9th Jan, however it may have been during the second cycle that she conceived. We keep watching and waiting but she lies around more and continues to eat well. The phrase ‘a watched pot never boils’, certainly comes to mind.
It is often said out loud regarding the frequency of London busses [or even men when single] , when you need one there are none, and then all of a sudden three come at once. We have now had more Policeman than you can possibly imagine in the locality however I cannot go into all the details. Except to say that on the matter of the motor bikers everyone is working together from Parish to County level, the Police and the landowners. Gates, ditches and signs will all be tried in a combined effort to educate and restrict. I doubt they can be stopped but the frequency may be lessened. I will get off next time I meet scrambler bikes or else take off across the fields, Jethro’s potential wrath over his crops will be easier to take than another fall.
I have some more pigs to view asap as I’ve had a call to say two Gloucester Old Spots are looking for an outdoor home and are about ready for the boar at 11 months old. We seem to be developing a real mix of rare breeds now and as we only have one boar crossing them should be interesting and fun. I have just received a box load of Jamie Oliver recipes already to send out with my pork boxes from Jamie’s new series on pork.
We are so confident that what we do with our pigs is right. They live outdoors all year with wooden arks with wooden floors and a large patch of ground each except for when they farrow. Just as they are due to give birth they come back to the farm and are in large old stables near the house with a warming lamp for the piglets. After 3 – 4 weeks depending on the time of year the whole family is back outside. Weaning is at around 8 weeks [ in a commercial unit weaning is often at 3 weeks] and the piglets stay in their home and on the same food and we put the sow back with all her friends and the boar. We have one sow to wean on Friday.
Weather forecasters are predicting another very cold spell soon in from the East but at least we may be able to stop swimming. Time will tell if they are right, one of my best friends in America always made me laugh by calling the forecasters ‘the weather guessers’.
Off to get more rare breed pigs any minute, I’ve just made the sandwiches, ham of course, and cheese!
We are collecting an in-pig sow and several fatteners at various stages for Farmers Markets and Christmas parties… we have to do this until all our wee piglets get bigger. The last of the previous few batches of fatteners that we collected in July went away this week and although perhaps contrary to the current economic conditions the demand for traditionally reared quality meat has increased. This has meant looking for 2 pigs that will be ready to go away in 2 weeks instead of several months. We only source weaners and fatteners from farms who keep their pigs in the traditional way as we do, and usually the pig keepers have been recomended to us. By the spring we should be totally self sufficient in supply of fatteners and able to keep a ‘closed’ herd, except for changing boars every now and then.
We will be gone most of the day, and when we get back we will have to poultice the rams foot again. However we are all out to a lovely lunch tomorrow, and then there is a lot of catching up in the house to do, so more updates on Monday.
Have a good one…
Well the lady-in-waiting (the young pig) is waiting no longer but now we are the ones who wait for her to get on with it, but as we all know mother nature cannot be hurried.
Nest building since this morning, lots walking around and definite signs of labour but no piglets yet.
Just had a cuppa and going back out to check, at least although cold it is daytime and daylight!
I will post again when there is something to report.
EDIT:
3 hours and several cups of tea (for me) later we have 10 suckling piglets and a snoozing pig. It is so cold tonight that even with the heatlamp on in their little creches we have decided to shut the top of the stable doors on both sets of gilts and their young piglets.
Yesterday, the new mother of 10 did not finish her breakfast.
A pig not eating is a VERY BAD sign so we took her temperature, which was raised, and immediately administered antibiotics by injection. With an ill pig every minute counts, their health can go up and down in a matter of hours, not days, if you wait, it can be too late. With so many piglets in need of a mother we could not waste a second. There were no obvious signs of mastitis (infection in the udder) or metritis (infection in the womb).
The pig got worse. The 10 piglets started to look hungry and restless as the milk supply lessened so we called the vet. The vet was as puzzled as we were, and gave additional medicines to reduce the fever which was now dangerously high and another antibiotic. The birth had been totally normal with no interference to the mother, just a little help to get some of the piglets who came out backwards to take a first breath.
At tea time and again after supper I spent ages sitting with her and syringing fresh water into her mouth to try to keep her hydrated, every so often she would swallow. I also sponged her down to reduce her body temperature, she was really hot to touch. The piglets had another feed from her and settled back under their heat lamp, this time they appeared to be satisfied, this was encouraging.
Before bed time I checked again, this time the gilt walked around the stable and nibbled on a brassica leaf I had picked from the garden for her. A good sign. I fetched her pig meal and she ate some, an even better sign. She flopped down again and I used the 100ml syringe again, she sucked the cooling clean water down straight from the syringe, she seemed to be making good progress.
I woke in the night and got dressed, even though it was 4am she was very pleased to see me. She had eaten a lot of the brassicas and windfall apples I had left for her and had a little drink. I gave her some more meal, and watched the piglets feed again. Her sister who is due to farrow tomorrow snored loudly in the next door stable. Apart from that the night was quiet until something, a fox perhaps, or a cat, disturbed the ducks on the pond and a cacophony of noise echoed around the farmyard. Once the gilt had settled down to sleep once more and the piglets snoozed under their lamp I made a cup of tea and went back to bed.
Daylight came all too soon, and the thermometer revealed a slight fever still, but we could all see a much healthier pig. We must finish the course of treatment and keep a close eye on them all. I am feeding her little and often until she gets back to normal, her digestive system seems to be functioning normally.
It was a close call for her and for us, probably as close as they come, farrowing fever is what the pig-men call it, to me it felt more like harrowing fever as the concern for 11 lives is immense. Let’s hope her sister does better.
Well, my back gave notice on Saturday that enough was enough and I will be taking a week off from both the farm and this blog from tomorrow.
A trip to the chiropractor has I hope lessened the impact of the latest strain but still day to day life is a struggle and it is really not surprising when you think that none of us have had a single day off the farm for several months and we are all doing demanding jobs that are both mentally and physically challenging.
Farming and bad backs sadly frequently go togther and it is just something we all live with, including me, learning as we go along, how best to avoid the problems and generally look after our spines. I have had the proper moving and handling training and generally my back has been really good for several years so this latest episode was both rather unexpected and an unpleasant reminder that once a back has ‘gone’ it will never be quite the same again.
When my back went ‘ping’ on Saturday I was just shutting the boot of a friend’s pick-up, it was as simple as that, and now I cannot even do an everyday task like putting my socks on and I am very grateful for the modern painkillers that I am taking every 6 hours in order to keep going. Still, I do know it will get better, and I hope this time it will be sooner rather than later as the diary is very full.
Meanwhile the two little piglets are doing very well, and on the other side of the farm it is time to take stock of all the maintenance work that carries on through the winter once the land work is completed. Hedgecutting, property maintenance, treeplanting are all next on to do Jethro’s list.
Well we still have 2 piglets.
The littlest one was unfortunately lain on by his mother yesterday, but the other 2 are now doing much better, suckling well and then retreating to their own area behind a barrier with the infra-red heat lamp, safely away from the danger of their mother’s bulky body as she tends to sigh loudly and just flop down in a heap.
Here’s hoping.
While the media pundits speculate and discuss the disintegration of the globe’s finances which now appear to have been built entirely on promises and IOU’s we have much more pressing matters here on the farm.
What we deal with on the farm on a day to day basis, and by this I mean every single day of the year, is tangible assets. You can see them, touch them and usually know approximately their worth. Growing crops, or failing crops, livestock or deadstock, it is basic and simple.
This morning a gilt [young female pig] has had her first piglets, by their lack of size we think they are premature. There was no sign last night that their birthday was imminent and because we bought this gilt already in-pig, we did not know the exact day of service. Usual gestation for a pig is 3 months, 3 weeks and 3 days. Yesterday she had just started to bag up in the udder area but not as much as a pig usually does before they are due and I certainly could not draw any milk off her last night which is a usual sign of birth within 24 hours.
The gilt produced five piglets. Two were dead and buried right under the straw, perhaps she laid on them as she was birthing. On examining them closely there was no sign they had even drawn their first breath, one would have been the biggest of the litter and the other was a small one. Three more remain alive, 2 small ones and one very small, a runt. We have not even determined the sex yet as if we try pick them up they squeal loudly and this upsets the mother, who is already struggling to cope with her change in circumstances.
The piglets have not yet sucked their mother and it is vital that they receive the colostrums [first milk with antibodies] within the first six hours of life. I have managed to milk out a very small amount from the pig and syringe it into the piglets. It is so much harder trying to milk a pig than a sheep or a cow, perhaps a human breast pump would be easier? I syringed ten millilitres [two teaspoons] into the bigger two, and less for the smaller one, it was all I could milk out of her the first time. It gave them a new lease of life and two then tried to suckle. I managed to get one latched on for a few moments but then the squealing started as it got totally over excited about drinking, as all newborn animals do, so then the gilt got up and round and round the stable we went.
It is not at all easy, and actually quite dangerous for us, although she is lovely pig and very friendly the maternal instinct can kick in at any second and she could turn on us. She must weigh at least 130kg and could knock and pin us to the ground if she wanted to.
I must go and try to feed them again, they need to feed every 1 – 2 hours in their first days. Hopefully Jethro will be back soon from checking all the other animals and guiding large tractors and machines down narrow lanes as still the drilling and cultivations for next year’s still continue non-stop, 250 acres still to go.
