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

Introducing Alys...

This is Alys. She is a White Park/Short Horn cross (both breeds are on the RBST watchlist). We tend to keep only pure bred cattle to breed from, rather than crossed breeds, however we have kept her as a breeding cow because her birthday is the same as Mum's (mildly eccentric I know).

She is a friendly cow, loving nothing more than a good feed and a scratch just above her tail. Part of the reason a lot of our cows are so friendly is the time I spent with them when they were growing up. They now all come to call and are so friendly that if you don't know them you might be quite intimidated when they barge past one another to get some attention from you!

The photo was taken at around 9.30 on a Spring morning and what you can not see is her first calf off to the left of the shot. It was born sometime during the night and as with the White Parks cattle in general it seemed to be an easy private birth (they don't tend to like people around during birth so will find a more secluded part of the field and usually birth at night).

To find out more about White Park cattle, visit the White Park Cattle Society's site.

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

Some crackingly good crackling

Hmmm... home-grown pork roast. Wins every time.













Juliet D-H