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.
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!
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
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.
I’ve made salami for several years on and off using different recipes. This year I’ve made Finocchiona which is a fennel salami, quite soft and the lactic acid gives it a tangy acidic taste. It’s gone down well in the village, I’m making a batch every couple of months.
The summer was a challenge with it being so hot, normally I have to heat the salamis to keep the temperature up during the fermentation. This summer I had to get them cooled down. Cold blocks weren’t making a difference and I had to quickly cannibalise an old fridge/freezer that we had in the shed. I always planned to use it as a salami cabinet but just hadn’t got around to it, the heat spurred me on!
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
Having had Berkshire pigs for years we decided we would move to Oxford Sandy and Blacks (OSB), not that we didn’t like the Berkshires anymore just that they are a Pork pig which means that all pigs in the litter would have to go at about 6 months. We wanted to send a couple of pigs a month to the butcher and this is where the OSBs come it. With the OSBs they don’t lay down fat as quickly as the Berkshires and can carry through to 12 months.
This March we picked up a trio, 2 sows, Tammy and Rosie, and a boar, Jack. The OSBs are a rare breed and Rossie is from the Sybil line which is uncommon within the OSBs so hopefully we can do our bit to keep the bloodline going.
Rosie was close to farrowing when we got her and 3 weeks later she farrowed. Two of the gilts, Spot and Patch, were good enough to register and we’ll breed from them when they’re about a year old.
Xero, our cade lamb from 2 years ago has had her first lamb. Amazingly the little ewe lamb is the spitting image of her mum and is very easy to pick out in the field. Xero has turned out to be a really excellent mum, never letting the little one go very far from her.
Overall lambing has been much easier this year, with fairly mild dry weather and plenty of grass for the ewes. We have our fingers crossed that the benign conditions continue. We now have 30 breeding ewes and 40 lambs with another 12 shearlings to breed from this year. We anticipate selling most of the rams for meat for friends and family and hope to sell some of the pedigree ewe lambs later in the year.
Dumblehole 