May 2018 Farm Round Up

hazy morning

An amazing turnaround on the weather front – May was one of the hottest on record and everything is growing so fast, you can almost see it!  The spring mornings here on the farm are stunning – they have still been quite chilly with very heavy dew but once the sun starts to climb up above the ridge, there is real warmth in it – picture perfect.

Hedgerows are bursting with the fresh new foliage, almost lime green in colour, and the grass (and weeds) are rapidly repairing the muddy patches of winter.  In fact, and yes, I can’t believe I am saying it either, we needed a bit of rain!  After all my complaints this winter, you are entitled to roll your eyes at me.  And rain, it did, occasionally!  Usually when I was out in the fields on my feed rounds … without a jacket of course.  But, hey, it was warm rain 🙂

Our guests this month in the holiday cottage could not have been more pleased with the weather – it seemed that the weekends were always good and much time was spent sitting on the terrace in the sun, with the BBQ fired up enjoying the tranquillity.  Some lovely reviews too – not only about the weather, seems like they thought the cottage was pretty fab too!

We still have some gaps in the calendar for short/weekend breaks – why not come and check us out – click HERE to see availability and don’t forget, a 10% off deal for readers of this blog!!

The incubator was chugging away all month ‘cooking up’ some Guinea Fowl eggs and in due course, out they came.  On the final day, you can actually hear little cheeps coming out of the eggs as they break through into the airspace inside the egg and take a first few breaths.  Then the hard work begins – if you have ever had a Guinea fowl egg, you know just how hard the shells are – nothing like a chicken’s eggshell.  But these little bundles manage to punch a hole through the shell and then eventually, with a lot of wriggling and cheeping, out them come – wet and slimy to start with, and usually exhausted – turning into fluffy balls with legs in their first few hours.  Once they are dried off, they move from the incubator into the brooder with its heater.  They are disproportionately noisy – hard to imagine that so much noise comes out of something so small and when there are 24 of them …..!  We are usually very relieved after the first few days when they get transferred outside to the barn – still with a heater of course.

Next month’s project will be to source some eggs from another breeder so that we introduce some new genes into the flock to keep them healthy!

On the pig front, Harry the Berkshire Boar who has been ‘visiting’ all winter finally is on his way to his next lady – not sure if Eyelashes is missing him, or glad she does not have to compete for the food any more.  Hopefully, she will soon have some piglets to remember him by 🙂