February 2018 Farm Round Up

Shiny-coated Tamworths

We are in the grip of the Beast from the East as I type this – howling gales and light fluffy snow! The good news is that this means there is no mud to contend with, the bad news is that all our outside water taps are frozen up!
The month started much warmer – see the photo above of our lovely Tamworths with their winter coats shining in the sun – one day was even Spring-like with real warmth in the sun that had us posting pictures of catkins heralding the arrival of Spring – it will be back, I know but right now, it seems a long way away!
All relatively quiet on the animal front this month – February seems like a turning point for the farm – from the weather and the animal point of view. The surviving guinea fowl will start pairing up soon – we’ve got something of an imbalance between boys and girls following the fox hits that we have had this winter – there are going to be some lonely boys this year, unfortunately! Instead of selling eggs to others for hatching, we will need to be buying eggs to build up the flock again. Fingers crossed, the ones we have left are the smart ones who will teach the new ones how to stay safe! I think that is more hope than reality!
If you are interested in making sure you eat healthily, check this article out – see how well pork scores! Better than all the other protein sources. Made me smile 🙂
We have a visiting boar on the farm at the moment – Harry the Berkshire who has come calling on Eyelashes, our lovely Berkshire boar. Their liaison last year produced some lovely piglets so fingers crossed for a repeat performance this year – hope the weather isn’t dampening his ardour.
A new arrival on the farm this month is Frosty – aptly named by her previous owners but as she arrived, so did the big freeze. She is a 3-year-old Large Black sow who has come to join the herd and we’ll hopefully be seeing some piglets from her later in the year.
The holiday cottage has been quite busy – mostly with people celebrating big birthdays which is nice. One of the key plus-points for our guests is apparently the fact that we have 4 equally lovely ensuite bedrooms – so when a group of people go away together there is no need to have the battle about who gets the master bedroom and who gets the box-room. We have guests due in this weekend – fingers crossed they make it through the snow!