Tuesday, April 24, 2007

October 2006 Winter is on it's way

October proved once again to be another busy month both on the holding and at work with the beginning of the new shooting season. I had thought I might be sitting here talking about how beautiful the leaves look on the trees, changing their colours to yellows and browns. However we have had our first taste of what winter holds with our first winter storms. Trees have been blown over around the area and there are only a few leaves left on the trees now but it is still hasn't diminished the beauty of the area. All the seasons seem to retain their beauty in their own way. Even during the bleakest winter weather the scenery is there to be appreciated.
We have managed to sell the gilt weaners that Bonnie farrowed back at the beginning of August and as hoped they have been bought as breeding stock rather than going to the freezer. The boars we shall keep for our freezer in the springtime. Bonnie has now joined Malcolm again after we deliberately allowed her to have her first season away from him, which should mean that her next litter will arrive in the springtime when they should grow well in the summer months.
The last of our freezer pigs have now been processed and we have plenty pork to see us over until the springtime which will take a lot of pressure off the shopping bill. Lady as well has farrowed her first litter and performed really well. She had 9 piglets but 2 died at birth cause unknown. However the 7 that survived have developed well under Lady's care.
We feel really pleased with the way our pigs have come on after the disappointment of the Tamworth's breeding experiences and we feel that we are now at the point where we can produce all our own pork products whilst also selling on some of the weaners and pork products.
We also bought our first cow at long last. She is a Dexter cow with a young Dexter heifer calf. We had seen some beautiful registered stock locally but felt that financially we just couldn't afford the prices so spent a lot less on Hope the cow and Glory her calf. We deliberately made sure we bought her having not been with a bull so that we can spend the next few years learning about keeping cows. Hope is only 3 so we have a few years to learn before we decide whether to go into the breeding of cows to produce our own beef. They have settle well although it is obvious that they have had little human contact and are still a little apprehensive to approach unless we take some barley down for her!
We have already had our first scary experience, which happened on the first afternoon they arrived. Our surrounding fields have young fattening steers and they all seemed to be socialising well. That is until the owner arrived with their feed and the steers ran off up the field. Hope didn't seem to like them all running away up the field and tried to jump the weakest part of my fencing. Thankfully she didn't manage to get across and I was able to re inforce the fencing, which has stopped any further attempts. The steers have now been taken away but it does leave me with a few anxieties for next spring when more will return. Hopefully by that time Hope will have settled more and see this as here home.
The sheep have arrived back after having been on a grass-cutting holiday, but what we have noticed is that the lambs are far from being in good condition. Some of this we think may be down to our lambing time which has happened in the middle of the grass growing season so that by the time they wean the grass is past its best whilst the other problem being that it has taken us until this year to actually bring the grass back to a good standard. Next year should be the first year when we have a large amount of good grass available, for the remainder of this year we have a source of hay, which should meet the requirements of the animals. With this in mind we have decided that this year we will not be inviting a ram to stay and will grow on the animals we have to provide us with lamb and mutton and take stock next year as to how to proceed. It may even be a case of us getting a smaller breed of sheep but I am loathed to do that as the Suffolk do provide a good carcass. I guess it all depends upon the grass next year.
The last of the broodies (fingers crossed) has hatched 7 chicks and poultry wise we are well and truly sorted for poultry meat over the winter. The game birds as well are just starting to get to the point where they are reaching their prime so no doubt I will be bringing all kinds of game meat home shortly.
The game keeping is going really well at the moment and I can't believe that is a quarter of the shooting season gone already. It has proved to be very frustrating as well as there are occasions when the birds are not where they are supposed to be, but on the whole I think I have done as well as I could for my first season. One thing is for sure I have learned a huge amount so hope that the next seasons give better and better results.
That is about it for October, time to really start making winter preparations as I have a feeling the bad weather is not too faraway.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home