Large White cross Tamworth piglets keeping warm inside their wooden ark. Jon took the picture this morning on his phone.

See their grubby noses? They love to root about outside even in this chilly weather.

Ginger, the Tamworth gilt is their mother, she was named by visitors on Open Farm Sunday last year and this is her first litter of piglets. It was also the first litter to be born to our Large White boar who arrived from Cornwall in July. The boar's name is Jack Flash.

Naming the three pigs

Thank you to everyone who entered our naming competition for the 3 pigs before they join our breeding herd. We and a lot of our helpers spent a very enjoyable half hour on the Sunday night reading through the book and voting on the names.

The names chosen are as follows:
The Middle White gilt is called Treasure: named by BBC 3 counties radio and their Treasure Quest. Thank you 3 Counties Radio.

The two Tamworths are now called Apricot and Ginger. Ginger is the darker one on the right. Apricot is the biggest of the two, on the left of this photo.
Thanks to: Emily Goddard, Ryan Farrell, Tiernan & Saoirse Quinn, Hutchinson & Mountcastle, Mia Fehr, Oliver & Ettie Riddle, Euan Gilfillan for choosing these names.

Your small prize will be in the post very soon. We do apologise if we have mispelt your names, we copied them as they appeared in the book.

If you chose any of the above names and do not receive a prize it is because we did not receive or could not read the full address details, but we thank everyone very much for taking part and the progress of these 3 pigs will be monitored on here. They are off to meet their new husband very soon.

Preparation for the open day

The plans for our OPEN FARM SUNDAY have gone up a gear with our press releases sent out today and further detailed planning in hand.
There is always so much that has to be done in the last few weeks and at the very last minute.

In between working and everything else I do I have been practicing my bread making skills for one of this year's practical demonstrations as the theme this time is 'Bread and Butter'.

The next litter of piglets looks likely to arrive in time for our visitors as all the children really love to see tiny piglets. We're all counting on Ruby and she was one of our star's on the day last year so hopefully she'll be taking a bow again this year. Ruby can be seen here, she is the white sow with piglets on the film of last year's open day. Two of the little orange Tamworth piglets seen in the same film are now old enough to go to the boar in June. We will have them penned on the day and ask for suggestions for names, their mother is called Marmalade.