Signs of spring

This was some of the Longhorn cattle on the way back from Kings Walden Park to the farm before Christmas.

The same cattle can now smell the grass and are looking hopefully at us to be turned out again. It is far too early to consider this for a number of reasons and the fact that we may yet be caught out with some more wintry weather.

However signs of an early Spring abound. Partridges and other birds are noticeably pairing off, grass and clover is growing in the pasture. The sheep's dung has changed completely in the last few days indicating the changes to their diet and pony owners need to be aware that this season the spring grass is already growing.

Time to wean the calves

Today is the day we weaned the spring born calves from their mothers. This job has been slightly delayed this year on account of the run of treacherous ice that gripped the farm for the last 2 weeks.

The dozen oldest calves from the Offley Hoo based herd have been vaccinated against respiratory disease (IBR - a type of pneumonia) and will be housed until the spring. The herd based at Kings Walden will be weaned another day. The reason we vaccinate them is that in the first year the Longhorn herd became really quite ill on housing and lost condition. Once we started annual vaccination, after consultation with our vets, the health of the herd, especially the young stock, improved hugely. It is rather like us having an annual flu jab.

The youngest calves will remain on their mothers and be housed right through the winter.

Back to reality

Back to real farming! Today's cold and snowy Saturday morning requires two men to see to the stock instead of the usual one. Jon has got the water bowser out of the shed to take water down to the outdoor pigs as the freezing temperatures have played havoc with the water supply.

The trip to the NEC @ Birmingham was a tale in itself - the traffic was so terrible on Wednesday it took us 2 hours to get as far as Milton Keynes where we eventually abandoned the truck and had to run for a train. We arrived at the reception in bay 17 on time with no margin to spare. Many of those attending had terrible journeys, and I am not even sure that everyone who should have been there actually arrived!

It has also been a busy week on the farm with all the Wiltshire Horn ewes sorted into groups and the rams let out. As a pedigree flock it is a very complex business making sure the sheep are correctly sorted and the appropriate rams used on each group. Our outdoor lambing will start on April 20th, 2011 and should utilize the best of the spring grass growth.

The other big sheep task has been to check the pedigree and ear tag of every ewe lamb and potential ram lamb in the flock for registration with the Wiltshire Horn Society. We only register the very best ram lambs and out of the seven registered this year probably only 3 or 4 will make the grade as rams for breeding in due course.
Four beef cattle, six lambs and three pigs have also been sold.