More piglets: a new brood of little rascals

Just before Christmas, Tallulah had some more piglets.

Unusually for her, there were only three but they are already promising to be adventerous little blighters - exploring the yard and getting further a field every day! Truly free range!!





For more pics, check out our pigs set on flickr, here.

James D-H

back for 2009 from freezing east anglia

Happy New Year! We hope everyone had a great holiday - sorry we've been a little quiet but Jim's been on holiday & the rest of us have been playing temporary farmhands.

My respect for my brother has quadrupled - in the last week I've discovered muscles that have been dormant since I began my deskjob over 7 years ago. Apart from the twice-daily routine of feeding and watering cattle, pigs and sheep I've cleared out his toolshed, chopped and collected firewood, dug the front garden (well a little bit of it), pruned the fig tree, cleaned the wood panelling, moved sheep between fields, held a new year's eve murder mystery party and fed 16 hungry walkers on new year's day. Proud of myself? Just a bit.

Feeling exhausted but very pleased with my new ruddiness, I took the dogs and my camera out for a quick walk yesterday morning, before the morning feed. It was a beautiful frosty morning and the cows were already up and mooing for their breakfast.



However I was soon to discover that Nature had a little going away present for me - the frosty morning also heralded frozen watertanks, hoses and taps...



So ensued the postponing of any other plans for what was a glorious winter Saturday. After breaking the ice, we spent the best part of the day boiling water in the kitchen kettles to defrost the hoses then filling big plastic bins with water to cart around the farm and ensure everyone had enough water. Further respect to my little bro, who deals with what the great outdoors throws at him every day.

Juliet D-H

Trials & tribulations of a herd and its boss

Being seen as the boss of all the animals is an extremely important part of looking after a herd of cattle. If the herd gets an inkling that I'm not in charge they would run riot. The two animals I am most likely to come to loggerheads with are the bull Bernard & matriarch Kitty.

Although Bernard, as the lone bull, is used to getting his own way and knows just how big he is (having broken our crush once by bending 1 inch thick metal bars), Kitty has had to defend her title repeatedly. She has to be the most ferocious when it comes to a challenge as her technical fighting ability is of extreme importance in order to be queen of the fields. A cow further down the pecking order is more likely to pick a fight when Kitty is under the weather but she cannot lose face in front of any of the other members of the herd without jeopardising her position.

Losing face in other arenas is also a serious taboo. Bernard has pride of place at the feed troughs, with Kitty a close second. When it comes to moving the cattle between distant fields, none of them particularly like going in the trailer but both have to be unflappable. It is generally easier for us to move Bernard first then leave Kitty till last, as if she doesn't want to move not a lot is going to make her!

As you work down the pecking order there are more subtle changes. Younger cows move up the ranks by challenging their elders. Because we have both horned White Parks and non-horned Red Polls the complexeties get even more confusing. Of the Red Polls it is only really Ruby who presents a challange to any of the White Parks. As the matriarch of the Reds she has to be able to stand up to most of the horned cattle, even Kitty, putting her in the top three for the overall leadership.

When a new Heffer is born they are intigrated into the herd at the same level as their mother. When they are young, the calves compete between themselves to establish a place in the herd that is above their mother's position. Bull calves also fight for practice in later life. All of which means I must avoid being between them at the wrong time to ensure I don't lose control (or the seat of my trousers!).

Jim D-H

Presenting Tallulah the Ginger Pig

Having recently turned 28 I've been reminiscing about past birthdays and more particularly past presents. One stands out from the rest - Tallulah the Ginger Pig.

Tallulah is a Tamworth sow, reckoned to be among the truest of indigenous British breeds. She was given to me by my best friend Jonny as a weaner (a young pig that has been weaned from the sow's milk). She was born on the 22 September 2005 of the Abbess Lucky Lass blood line. She is a lovable pig with a very eager personality and is very tame. She loves a good scratch along her bristly spine and is so friendly and careful with me I have no qualms about sitting beside her in her pen to enjoy the last of the summer sun.

She is also an excellent mother - she's raised four litters of piglets, averaging around eight per litter. She always seems to begin birthing in the evening so I am normally up all night prepared to be on hand if help's needed. Some sows become aggressively protective while birthing however Tallulah is very calm and quite happy for me to handle her piglets as they come into the world and to help them to find her milk for the first time.

It is a pleasure and an honour to work with Tallulah, who I've come to know as a funny and intelligent character.
Thanks Jonny :-)

For more about Tamworth pigs, check out The Tamworth Breeder's Club website.

Jim D-H

With a little help from our friends

Over the weekend an old pal came to stay. Unbeknown to him, our arable land was having the final buzz with the combine so we would have to set about collecting our final quota of round bales and lugging 150 of them into and out of the trailer.

Now the friend in question is very proud of the little he does (being 28 and only just learnt how to fry an egg, no joke!!!!). He is also a rather keen architect of high standing. Upon arrival I was relieved to hear that he had come up to take his mind off his rather stressful work. 'What better way of forgetting your city troubles than by getting down and dirty doing a good honest day's labour on the farm' I suggested. This was received with a frown and some light questions about what I had lined up for him. After a few expletives he explained that he was here to help and by jove he would!

Not only did we get all the jobs done, we had time for a lovely pub lunch in Mum & Dad's award-winning local The Pheasant on Saturday, followed by a delightful slow-roasted mutton shoulder (cooked by Annabel (wifey)) on Sunday, when the parents joined us. The weekend was deemed terrific by all. I have just received word that Az can not only still smell pig poo but is still aching from all the work.

Although it's my job and doing it every day of the week can make certain parts sometimes tiresome, it always amazes me how keen friends are to lend a hand and on the whole how much enjoyment they get from doing something a little different. It also helps them work up an appetite for what is inevitably a large and delicious home grown feast, which is the least we can offer in the way of thanks.

Jim D-H

Toe tips

Ok, so these are old pics (when did you last see a sunny day like this?) but there aren't nearly enough sheep on this blog yet. So here we are, checking sheep's feet last summer.

They need to be checked regularly, to be trimmed and to ensure they don't have any infections like foot rot (nice). So we round them all up (which is another story - the next time we try to herd 15 sheep from a large field into a small pen using a sunny afternoon, five family members, a teenage lurcher, a sausage dog, one long rope and a lot of swearing we'll invite a paying audience), check them all, treat any that need it and let them all back out into the field, grumpier but lighter of foot! The marks you see on their faces is safe spray so we know which ones we've checked.

ps: sheep's feet or sheep feet? hmm... answers on a postcard please.

Juliet D-H

Harvest Time!

Well here we are again, harvest time… While many may think that this only really affects arable farmers, it is actually one of the busiest times of year on a livestock farm as well, as the harvest has to be stored for the winter feeds and bedding. James is currently clearing the barn in preparation for 160 round bales of straw, which must be collected from the fields.

Now if you have never encountered these ‘round’ bales before then you won’t quite realise what a formidable task this actually is. Each one is over six foot in diameter and about five foot in depth and must be collected from fields up to a half-mile away. As a result both tractors are working full time. The trusty John Deere trawling back and forth with the trailer, while the not so trusty front-loading ‘Jinma’ stacks the bales ready to be picked up. Now this may sound like relatively easy work, however when one considers that the geriatric John Deere has a top speed of about walking pace, and only four bales can be taken at a time, it is actually an extremely time-consuming process.

Thankfully there have been no problems with the ‘Jinma’ yet, although judging by previous form it is only a matter of time. The John Deere on the other hand is a stalwart, although missing a door and a couple of window panes, as well as a having a speedometer that would actually make a good metronome, it is probably one of the sturdiest and most reliable tractors you could hope for.

Once the bales have been finished it will be time to take delivery of the animal feed. This job, while not as time-consuming as the bales, is much worse! Four tonnes of feed must be mixed, bagged and stacked in the barn. The mixing process is relatively easy and is all done in the lorry – a monster of a machine that resembles a cement mixer – however the bags are then filled through a chute and must be carried/dragged into the barn. Each bag, of which there are about 60, probably weighs about 12 stone…and to think there are actually people who pay to go and lift weights at the gym…

Other than these two laborious tasks, life continues as usual on the farm. The village youths have been back to swindle whatever isn’t nailed to the floor. Indeed they were almost rumbled the other day when James caught them red-handed. Sadly, a farmer Jim may be; a sprinter he is not! As a result we continue to seek a solution to this problem. The police have been involved and we have been through various options with them. The more extreme of these options, which had both mine and James’ vote and involved leaving a number of planks with nails hammered through them on the path frequented by these unwanted visitors, was not met with much enthusiasm by the officer who visited the farm; “I didn’t hear that, sir.” I believe was his response!

The piglets are growing up fast now and becoming ever more devious in their attempts to escape from the pens. Indeed I believe James is now seriously considering erecting watchtowers and searchlights in order to keep the little buggers from making a bid for freedom – perhaps they could serve two purposes by keeping the piglets in and the pikeys out!

Charlie D-H

Hay bale image provided by http://www.freefoto.com/

Back to the Farm…

It was not without a certain amount of trepidation that I approached the farm down the driveway after a few weeks away. What back-breaking task would my dearest brother be concocting for me I wondered? The clouds were rolling in ominously and I found myself cursing my luck that, after two weeks spent working in a stuffy office while staring out of the window at a blazing sun, the gods had seen fit to darken my first day back with weather more suited to the Outer Hebrides at this time of year. Anyway, such is life!

It was somewhat fitting then, that I was greeted as I got out of the car by a masked figure clad in a boiler-suit with a suspiciously green tinge to it. My sense of foreboding was increased even further when I realised that this storm-trooper from hell was wielding some sort of long motorised device that looked like it could shred me in a matter of minutes. Oh yes, you guessed it… It's strimming season!

Indeed, James has begun the week attacking the undergrowth like some sort of machete-wielding maniac, and what a difference it has made! I was shocked at how well kept the farm was looking. The area around the pig-pens has been levelled so that one can see right across the farm from the house. This of course is all in preparation for when the cattle are herded into their straw-lined barns for the winter. Before this however, the yards and barns must be mucked out and cleaned. Lucky for us the recent addition of a brand new tractor with a front-loading bucket to our arsenal of somewhat antiquated machinery has made this job infinitely easier… Or so we thought…

Yes the tractor… What a travesty! At the slightest sign of hard work the machine packs up quicker than a footballer in a chess game. The clutch is the latest problem and has left my unfortunate brother with the unenviable task of shovelling several tonnes of manure onto a trailer without mechanical aid!

If that wasn’t enough, we have also had round two of the ‘farm invasion’ by the uncouth youths from the village. Having earlier taken it upon themselves to pinch the lead lining from the roof of one of the barns, they have now stolen a cluster of jerry cans and emptied one of the tanks of diesel on the farm. Let us hope then that they attempt to run their own cars on this stuff, after all it has been rotting at the bottom of that particular tank for nigh on eighty years and I can imagine it having much the same effect on an engine as a pound of sugar in the petrol tank! Every cloud, eh?!








Despite all this doom and gloom, we have struggled through and the farm is in spectacular condition. The piglets are as feisty as ever and we have just about managed to contain them in the pens (this is a greater feat than you may expect; most days we half expect them to have stolen a car and be half way to the airport, such is their artistry in escape!). The cows are grazing happily and the sheep are all healthy and no doubt enjoying the lush grass that the recent rain has brought.

Charlie D-H

Thistle Domination

We spent the lovely heat of sunday scything the heads off thistles to stop them pollinating & taking over the field. Half way up one of the fields, Jim & Annabel's lovely neighbours came out & plied us all with beers! Just what we needed, although we definitely moved a bit slower after that...

Juliet D-H