More uplifting news

So after yesterday's unremitting doom and gloom I wanted to give you the more exciting and uplifting news - Barley has had puppies. They were born about 36 hours after Flynn died so it was a bit of a rollercoaster weekend. She had six, though one was born dead and one died at four days old, but the others are hale and hearty and already great fun.


Puppies at 13 days old

We've decided to keep the yellow one (a girl) and call her Fig, the others are known as Hector, Bramble and Hickory (though we can't tell Bramble and Hickory, both girls, apart yet!).

The other exciting (!) news is that we have the pork back from the first five animals we sent off, but I will post more about that later...

Sad news

When we started down the path to being farmers, we accepted that along with life there would be death, and we've experienced our fair share of that over the last few months. Two weeks ago we had the saddest loss, which we're both only just beginning to come to terms with - we had to have Flynn, the horse I'd owned for six years put down. As anyone who has pets will know (and yes, he was a bit large to be considered a pet, but that's essentially what he was) it is completely devastating to lose them. The poor chap developed an acute neurological disorder, we're not sure what caused it, we fought all day to save him but in the end had to admit defeat and let him go.

RIP Flynnie, you were loved.

Hay there!

Ed has been manic for the last week or two trying to make enough hay to see us through the winter. There is meant to be a photo here of the finished product in our barn, but I forgot to email it to myself from my work computer so you'll just have to imagine it. Ed decided to make big square bales of hay as they are cheaper than small bales but easier to handle than round bales. We think we've got the equivalent of about 200 small bales which should hopefully do the horse(s?) and pigs for the winter, especially now we've had some rain so won't have to start feeding it in August! We're also hoping the grass might have a growth spurt and actually give us enough for a second cut.

The first two pigs went off last weekend. We took them to a local abattoir on Sunday afternoon to give them time to recover from the journey and calm down before they were killed on Monday. I had serious misgivings about taking them early, and felt they would be less stressed at home with their friends in surroundings they knew, but at the moment we're listening to those who have far more experience than us. I have to say that the process of unloading them was very calm and none of the animals seemed stressed or worried. Whilst producing the meat is obviously the point of our business, we are both very concerned that our animals have a good life, partly as we think this has the biggest impact on the flavour of the meat but also because animal welfare is of paramount importance to us.

The pigs were picked up by a local butcher on Tuesday who said they looked good, if a bit too fat. We are therefore taking the last three saddleback cross pigs off this weekend and will have to be more aware of when the animals are ready to go. It's all part of the learning curve!

Note to self

I must make time to blog more often. I keep thinking of things I must put up here and then life somewhat takes over and I miss the moment. However, there have been some momentous changes here in our little corner of Somerset and it is time to update you on them.

Firstly that which I dreaded has happened. I have gone up a decade. It was traumatic and I have to admit that I still consider myself 29 and 57 weeks. However on the plus side I had an amazing party to celebrate still being in my twenties, attended by my most fabulous nearest and dearest.



Whilst I was incredibly lucky with the people I lived with in the south-east, who couldn't have made me feel more welcome, I nevertheless felt that to be 30 and still living in someone else's house half the week wasn't really where I wanted to be. Fortunately as I mentioned in a previous post I now have a brilliant new job in the south-west and managed to move home two days before my birthday!

I'm loving my new company, who have really helped me fit in, and the shorter commute is a total dream, as is living at home with my husband for the first time in three years!

In other news numbers have increased again, we bought three Tamworth weaners at the beginning of May which were swiftly nicknamed Bacon, Sausage and Tomato by a visiting friend. Whilst we have a policy not to name the animals that are going to be eaten we have chosen not to work out which boy is which so they haven't been able to develop characters in our minds.


Bertha and Bacon/Sausage/Tomato

The saddleback weaners are shortly approaching finishing - we are planning to book at least two in this week. There was a slight delay in sending them off when we realised we didn't have the right ear tags for them, and when they arrived we realised the pliers we had to fit them didn't work so had to wait a bit longer for them to be delivered. However, all has now arrived and we're preparing for the first load of pork soon.

In preparation we had a sausage making extravaganza this weekend trying several recipes from this book, though adapting them to use gluten free breadcrumbs (we may have a supplier, but that's under our hats for the moment while we work out a plan). Whilst they were ok they weren't as good as we want them to be, so we've got more work to do. One of the things we think we might need is a new sausage stuffer, as with ours the meat gets minced twice - once from lumps of meat so it can be mixed with the flavouring and then again as it's put in the sausage. This makes the sausages quite smooth and with the wrong texture we feel. So, back to the drawing board.



In other exciting news, our website is about to go live. Check it out here.

Finally, the veg is in and starting to look good, we had our first harvest this weekend with some baby gem lettuce, and the chickens are all at full capacity producing an egg a day each. We lost one of the chickens a week or two ago, she was just dead in the coop in the morning. Ed thought she hadn't been well for a few days, but fortunately all the others seem to be ok.

So, I think we're now pretty much up to speed and I will endeavour to update you more often in the future.

I'm baaaaaaaack!

Wow, we've had a busy month. Some of the highlights include:


New Tamworth cross weaners, born mid-december


A new feed hopper to stop us losing on average two sacks a tonne to marauding rats


The original Saddleback weaners are nearly reaching finishing weight. We weighed some of them at the weekend (many comedy pig chasing moments) and they were about 65kg. We're aiming for 75kg for the Saddlebacks boys. A friend has suggested we fatten the gilts to more like 100kg as there obviously aren't the problems with bore taint. We're weighing it up at the moment, on the one hand it would fill a gap in production and save us having to buy more weaners for a few months and we'd produce more meat per animal on the other hand we need to feed them more.

There were also meant to be photos of the new kitchen blinds Ed and I made a few weekends ago, Ed even drove the sewing machine and is inordinately proud of 'his' blind, but we forgot to take photos. Will feature them next time...

Do you want the good news or the bad news?

Lets start with the bad news, get it over and done with, we had to have a pig put down last week. It was one of the saddleback crosses and we're pretty sure he was poisoned. There are a couple of yew trees in the pigs enclosure, which we knew were poisonous, but animals generally know to avoid them. However, one of the trees had some of its root exposed and, as we've been feeding the pigs under the trees to encourage them to forage, we think they probably ate some of the root too.

Ed checked the pigs in the evening and they were all fine but by the following morning most of them were off colour and lethargic and one was very ill (disorientated and struggling to breathe properly) so Ed called the vet who diagnosed poisoning and gave him an injection to fight the symptoms. Unfortunately the pig didn't improve and so was put down at lunchtime that day. Fortunately the other pigs seem to have recovered with no lasting effects. The only pig not to be ill at all was Roger, the smallest Oxford Sandy and Black, I'm taking it as proof she's the cleverest (Ed thinks it's because she's the smallest and not allowed near the good food!).



It was a really sad experience, even though they're going to die soon anyway, and we both felt awful. But we live and learn, and won't make the same mistake again.

The good news...I've finally got a job in the South West. Ed and I have been living apart for nearly three years, firstly with him away during the week, and for the last 18 months with me only at home at weekends so it's really exciting to be contemplating living together again though I'm sure there are going to be a few teething problems while we sort out the tv schedule and the dishwasher loading rota!! One of the most exciting things is the increased flexibility it will give us to start growing our meat production business and hopefully start looking at farmers markets, grants for a cutting room etc.

Self sufficiency

We're on our way...



Ed found these just 10 days after we first collected our point of lay Bluebell chickens. I was expecting them to take ages - a friend who bought chickens last year had to wait about six weeks for her first eggs. It was a very exciting moment for us - so much so that Ed had to send me a picture message and comply with my request not to eat them until I got home at the weekend! They are now residing in some specially purchased egg cups on our dresser (sad, me, no, of course not). Since then production has really picked up and we're getting around four eggs a day. Some of them have looked a little thin shelled so we bought some oyster grit to keep in their pen and they seem to be improving.

We have also bought all our vegetable seeds and I'm hoping to start planting this weekend. I am most excited about the very posh River Cottage ones we were given as an inspired Christmas present by a fabulous friend. I was slightly worried we'd missed the planting boat, but was reassured by Chris Evans on Radio 2 this morning when he said that the soil isn't warm enough for planting yet so everything needs to go in late. Hurrah!