Rose caught us out on Monday and today Tammy did as well. She farrowed in the field with Twinkletoes alongside her keeping her company. Twinkletoes wasn’t really in the way but he is big and piglets are very small, so lured by food we moved him out to a new paddock.
Tammy lost two straight away but the remaining 6 are all doing well happily sunning themselves in the September sunshine. Mind you their first night was quite chilly and Tammy kept them out all night. She must be quite sensible as the first night it rained she took them inside the ark.
We’re weren’t sure if both Tammy and Rosie were in pig but over the last couple of weeks it was obvious. I thought I had more time to move arks and set up a new paddock for Twinkletoes (the boar) but Rosie caught me out and had started to farrow when I went down on Monday afternoon.
Bit of a rush but we moved Twinkletoes and Tammy to a new paddock and left Rosie where she was. Happily she’s had 8 piglets all healthy and doing well.
2022 has been an incredibly dry year for us, the brook was completely dry for weeks and the grass stopped growing. Being on clay it took a while before the ground was done dry, however in July we had to give the sheep hay and the ewes needed concentrates as well.
We gave the lambs about three times the normal acreage which meant they had enough grass to keep them going, just. We don’t creep feed, my view is that purely grass fed lamb has better flavour and is less fatty.
By way of contrast in February we had too much rain lol
Dumblehole 