Lambing is coming to a close, only 7 ewes left to lamb. Although it’s felt like a hard slog lambing has gone well and the weather has been benign, we must just be getting old lol.
On the Home Straight
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Trudy & Socks have farrowed
Normally our pigs are outdoors 24/7/ 365 but the ground is so wet and there’s 2 foot of mud outside their arks. Not great for the sows and certainly not good for the piglets so we brought Trudy and Socks up to the lambing shed just before farrowing. Actually I was a bit slow bringing Trudy up and she’d already farrowed when we went down to get her.
Getting her up to the shed wasn’t too bad. Carrying her piglets across the put from the ark to the dog crate was the trickiest bit. Six trips with 2 piglets at a time wading through 2 foot of mud, I was knackered.
The piglets are almost 4 weeks old, old enough to go outdoors. Trudy and Socks were really pleased to be back outside on grass.
Pig Ark Build
The pig arcs have taken a battering, the group of delinquent teenagers have taken to chewing along the bottom of the plywood ark and a couple of the sows have pushed the back out of one of the tin arks. To be fair the tin ark is fairly old so not unreasonable it needs a bit of TLC. I can’t get the arks out of the field and back to the barn without trashing ground so I’m going to build a new ark for Tammy who should farrow mid Jan. I’ll pull the old ones out when the ground is dry or frozen and repair them back in the barn. You can never have too many arks!
Do I build a tin ark or a wooden one? The tin ones are quicker to build and do last, but I think the wooden ones are better for farrowing as the piglets can get into a corner and won’t get squashed when the sow flops down. I have a design that I’ve used since we first keep pigs. I found in on the web and would credit the author if knew who they are. It’s a good plan that anyone can follow and build a decent ark.
Short Days and Plenty To Do
It’s been fairly quiet for a change. The tups went in at the start of October, Spot farrowed and the odd tree fell over in the October storm. It was the rain that caused most hassle in the Autumn, we had our highest October rainfall and November was above average as well. The pasture has stood up pretty well but the pig paddocks cut up quickly and in no time turned into mud soup.
Now we’re into winter the days are short, no sooner is lunch over and we need to crack on with the afternoon jobs before it’s dark. Several groups of sheep need hay plus a little cake for the ewes, then onto feeding the 4 groups of pigs and not forgetting that the dogs need a walk as well. After that there’s not much time to do anything else outside. While the ground is sodden I should be repairing fences, it’s a lot easier to bash the posts in when the ground is soft.
Finally the Hay is in
Like tens of farmers this year I really wasn’t sure we would get the hay in. It was ready at the start of July but it just kept raining 2 days out of 3 and August was no better.
Last Sunday the Met Office and OpenWeatherMap were promising that Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday would be dry so I cut the 4 acre field. The grass wasn’t great as it had been standing for weeks but it’ll be good enough for the sheep.
The forecasts were wrong it rained every night and some times during the day. Not too heavy but not ideal, I even tedded in a shower. The forecasters were saying heavy rain on Friday and rain every day thereafter, but Thursday looked OK. If Wednesday was dry we had a chance. Wednesday morning it rained and I thought we had no chance to get it dry enough to bay.
Then the Sun came out mid morning Wednesday and by Wednesday night it wasn’t looking too bad. No rain overnight and although it was overcast on Thursday it was dry enough to bale in the late afternoon. The baler didn’t miss a beat and with the help of 3 friends we manged to get almost all the bales in the barn by 21:30. What a relief.
Maternity Unit is Open for Business
Lambing is well underway, the first lamb was born last Saturday and it’s been a steady week. Very easy so far, a couple of ewes lambed over night and we’ve had to bottle feed a set of twins for a couple of days, both on my night shifts.
Yesterday we let the older lambs out as it was warm in the sun and the rain/snow had stopped in the morning. Weather outlook isn’t great so the lambs will have to stay in until it improves or they’re old enough to handle the wind and wet.
March Market
Sunday 7 March back at Bromyard for the first market of 2023. Not as busy as December, hardly surprising really as it was quite chilly, on the upside it was dry and everyone traders and punters are friendly and interested in what we do. We only had lamb this time as unfortunately the upgrade works at the abattoir overran and hence the pigs couldn’t go in time. Overall though we sold most of the lamb. We didn’t sell many joints, seems like people are using their ovens less in favour of air fryers.
Amanda could only stay for a couple of hours and needed to get back to check the ewes. Really enjoyable morning the time flew by and looking foirward to the next market on 2 April and we’ll have fresh pork and lamb.
It’s feeling a lot like Christmas
Cold, bright and snow on the ground it does look like a Christmas scene. Very cold this morning -11°C everything is frozen solid. Fortunately we’d taken straw and water butts out to the pigs yesterday. The little weaners were toasty warm this morning and running around. The sheep have plenty of hay and get a few nuts to tie them over. Ryelands are a bit dense when it comes to looking under the snow for grass!
Our First Market
Last Sunday we did our first market ever! Andrew cut and packed the pork and lamb so it was just a matter of setting out the stall. Everyone was really friendly and helpful. Jayne the organiser lent us a gazebo, the other traders chatted and bought some meat from us. The Bromyard residents came out in force and were keen to know what we did. Not only did we sell some meat we enjoyed ourselves. Looking forward to the next one
Did I really say it was dry!
November’s not over yet and we’ve had almost 3 times our November average rainfall and 50% more than our previous November high. Which means it’s wet, very wet. The fields the sheep are on are OK as the ground was so dry.
It’s a different story for the pigs though as they’d turned the ground over and with the rain on it it’s like slurry. The good news is that it’s only a few inches deep, although I’m not sure James would agree. We had a night away from the small holding and James kindly offered to feed the pigs for us. I’m not sure he’ll offer ever again!
We just weaned the latest batch of piglets onto fresh grass, how long the grass will last who knows probably only a few weeks.
Dumblehole 