Its strange to explain to people that whilst were on a bit of a lull with the farming work, were still actually as busy as ever.
There isn't any "active" jobs we've got to be doing with any of the animals, like lambing or calving, just lots of prep and running around and keeping on top of all the little jobs that need fixing and sorting.
Gary has finished harvest on the farm, but now is full speed ahead trying to get the cultivating done. Easer said then actually done with this Great British Weather! We've got a holiday booked (a proper holiday!) but it means that we need to have all the drilling sorted and finished before we go. There is never enough hours in the day, especially now with the nights closing in on us.
The rams are hard at work, but admittedly the girls are taking longer to cycle then we had hoped. We had been warned to expect them to cycle later in the year, ready to lamb in the nice spring weather, but we thought we would give it a go anyway and hope for the best. We have 9 girls tupped in the first 3 weeks. Pretty dismal really, but its a big learning curve for us. Some breeders we bought off put their tups in at the same time as us, where as others suggested we might be better holding off another month or 2. Lets hope in 2 weeks we have a big surge of action and the boys are at it like rabbits!
Did I tell you we added another 16 girls to the flock?
Sometimes its nice to work with a good even number, and we had decided to not put the ewe lambs to the rams this year, which left us with only 27 to tup, which is no improvement on my lambing numbers this year. So we contacted a farm from whom we had already bought 3 ewes from. They sold a ram at the sales too and we were really keen so see if you could obtain some more of their stock as we really liked what they produced. Luckily, they put another 16 girls for us together (4 gimmers and 12 older girls) and they arrived with us on 10th September via the same transport we used originally, Willows. Those extra 16 plus Myrtle, Clarice the 2 Southdowns and 2 Suffolks makes a nice even 50.
This weekend will be 3 weeks that the boys have been in with the girls so its time to have a change of crayon colour. We split the flock into 2 as we want to keep track of who is working well and be certain which tups have served which girls. Were also getting to grips with some new management software, iLivestock, that we hope will make it a lot easier to keep track of the ewes, their lambs, who is a good mother etc. I do like useful tech, so im excited to get up and running, especially when we scan the girls to keep track of how many lambs we have on board!
The Dexter's were sent this week ready for a Beef restock with Mill Cottage Meats, as well as preparing for the pigs to go. We took a ride out to Alder Carr farm shop to taste some of their produce and speak to Nigel, their butcher, about pork cuts and butchery. Its an exciting but daunting time for us, with quite a big investment sitting in our pork. But I'm also a massive lover of bacon and sausages so to have some from our own pigs for the first time is just going to be incredible!!
Others jobs have basically just involved moving the cattle and sheep to fresh pasture to tide them over through the last few weeks that they are outside. There is very little nutrition left in the grass at this time of year, but so long as their bellies are full, they're quite content. The calves are doing well on the creep and beefing up (nice pun there :D) ready to be sold on at Christmas time. The calves from our suckler herd go directly to the same buyer each year as stores, whilst the farm send finished cattle to the local market on a weekly basis.
Its becoming more apparent by the day now how close winter is. Once were back from holiday we will be arranging transport to bring the cows into their winter barns, on both the farm and our own suckler herd. The farm are due 3 calves in December, a trial run for new bull Phoenix. Then a short break before the extra busy calving season in 2022. Due to a farm policy change, all the girls will now calve in the spring, so we will be calving around 60 from the farm, 25 of our own and lambing 50 sheep in a very short period of around 2 months. Madness! But once you get knee deep into it, you really dont want to go back to the real world!
Stay dry and positive!
Zoe xx
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