SHE'S DONE IT!

Sandy has farrowed!  15 minutes after the last student left on Thursday....sandy's waters broke (luckily just before Gerry left for home!) and i got a frantic phone call asking me to come back NOW!

CLEVER MUM!

I got back in time to see 11 of the 13 piglets born - it was an amazing sight ....they rush out at such a rate with their eyes wide open and they have eye lashes!! one of the piglets didn't last the weekend for some reason - but Sandy is an amazing mother, so we are hopeful that we wont have any other problems. She's so quiet around them, and feeding them all well.

Gerry holding the first one!

We had a disaster on Saturday afternoon - a fox ran berserk around in the hen run slaughtering our laying hens.....it must have had at least 8 of them (both black cockerels had disappeared earlier in the week) it left them lying around in the hen run ...obviously hoping to come back later for them - really sadly Fiver was among the dead ones - she was our favourite; having managed to save her when she was a chick....such a shame.  The foxes are SO brazen at the moment; chancing their luck, picking hens and ducks off all day if they can - it's their feeding season, and they just try anything.  They seem to know when there's nobody about.  So all those people out there who think foxes are sweet animals...take note they are NOT!

we have two chicks that have hatched in the incubator and Bluebell has hatched one chick in the hen run - not a good tally again i'm afraid.  We put the quail out into the hen run with their ark too as it's too hot in the poly tunnel now.
The students worked hard today filling and watering everything in sight - it's so dry everywhere...the potatoes have shot up as has the salad in the poly tunnel - and the beans and sweet corn are nearly ready to go into the prepared beds.

Just off to feed Sandy again - she's getting 3 feeds a day now....proud mum!

Farrowing.....due to start this week!

The students are all back and raring to go...we have a new student on Thursdays, and he is settling in very quickly.

Sandy settling in to her new home!

We moved Sandy into her own 'farrowing nursery' last Thursday - great fun running down the track with some food; being followed very swiftly, considering her size now, by Sandy!  We were a bit worried the first couple of days, as she didn't sleep in the ark.   We have added some straw to the shavings and she has now settled in there.  We put up a heat lamp yesterday, ready for the impending piglets (fingers crossed!) so that she gets used to that too.

our newTractor - in need of some tlc...but
 all in working order!

The students have been planting out madly - beans, cauliflower, cabbages, sweet peas
and in the poly tunnel we have salads, tomatoes, and other veg waiting for some warm weather

Sandy meeting the sheep!

We found this tractor advertised in wiltshire, and i sent off Mike (husband) with Dan friend, and tractor man to have a look at ....and they thought it was a good buy, so Dave (another friend!) and i went and collected it last weekend, and took it straight round to Tim down the road, to look at and service - he's coming up with a list of things that need doing!
It will be a real help to have a small tractor to do topping, mucking out yards, collecting up stuff, and generally maintaining the site.
Apparently it's very easy to drive, 4wd, so we may even be able to teach some students to drive it in the future...
The quails are going mad, we have collected 10 eggs in the last three days, and there are only 3 laying hens...?  Not sure what's going on there, but we are not complaining!
We have eggs under a broody 'Bluebell' hen, and some in the incubator so will have some special chicks hopefully in two weeks time.

LAMBING FINALLY FINISHED!

We had our first set of twins on 22 March, and our last single lamb on Good Friday!  I am totally exhausted - having done lots of early mornings (3am!) to check on the ewes in the barn, and then out in the field....we decided to put the last ewe out with all the others as she just didn't seem to be showing any sign of lambing - i had nearly given up on her, when she finally started lambing on Good Friday morning.   We had to give her a helping hand, as it was a huge ram lamb and she was really struggling.  She wouldn't come in from the field, so we just put a pen up around her and kept an eye on her there.   It has been great finally having some sunshine and the lambs are all looking really good.  The ewes not quite so good, as the spring grass seems to be going through some of them rather quickly!

We have had a bit of a disaster with our quails - the two older ones disappeared out of their house at the weekend - the door was wide open and they had flown off - i hope they are somewhere safe....and sadly only 3 of the quail we hatched have survived - no wonder they are so expensive to buy in the shops!

great to be out in the field

All our bantam hens are suddenly going broody and refusing to get off the nest boxes / or are to be found hiding in the barn and the hens are all laying furiously at the moment which is great.  We had so many eggs at Easter, that i took six dozen down to church on Easter Sunday, and put up a sign saying "help yourself to eggs" and put the donation box beside them!   It proved to be a great success, and we only came back with six eggs....and hopefully we may get some new customers too.

re-locating the hedgehog!

'we love it here...'

The potatoes are through already and so i've been busy 'suring' them up (i think that's the right terminology?) and in the Poly tunnel we have lots of seedlings coming through ready to plant out - cabbage, cauliflower, celery & parsley.

'March with her lovely ram lamb

Sandy finding it difficult to get up...!

We are busy getting all the fencing sorted for the pig nursery - Sandy really looks pregnant now, and will be due to farrow around 7 May, so we want to make sure she is settled into her farrowing ark and nursery at least two weeks before if possible!

more lambs!!

The students start back on Thursday, and so we will have plenty for them to be getting on with - let's hope the weather holds fair

nearly Easter break....just one more week!

We have had some lovely school visits this term, two from Shrubberies Special School, near Stroud, and one from Paternoster School in Cirencester - they have all been really successful...the first class from Shrubberies are coming back for their second visit in May.  The year 6 children from Paternoster school have been finding out about jobs in the community, so were asking us lots of questions!

We have had another set of twins today - both ram lambs, and all doing well!  It's a shame we have had to lamb inside this year, but the weather has been so bad off and on from January, and we have less grass here on site, that we felt it was the best solution...but hopefully after the weekend, the ewes that have lambed will be out in their field again (with sunshine too fingers crossed!)

Gerry was cleaning out one of our old hen houses this week; ready for the students to do some refurbishments, and found a hedgehog hibernating in there!  We have put it in a box in the tool shed for now...until we find out where to best put it when it comes round....

We also keep finding bantams eggs in the funniest places - 12 of them hiding in a load of old barbed wire - laid by several bantams over the last few days!  One of their favourite places is in the hay bales in with the ewes.

The students have been really busy over the last week or so; helping Dan to finish off the woodworking shed - it now has wonderful sets of shelves, and a fold away working bench.  We really needed the extra space, and can't wait to get started making and designing some items to sell in aid of the project.

Next week is our last week before our Easter Break, so we are having an Easter Picnic next Thursday with all the students and volunteers - let's hope we can have it outside!

LAMBS!

We have our first set of twins!  Born Saturday morning - i checked them at 6.30am .....nothing then - left Mike in charge of feeding at 9 am, and got a phone call from him saying that they had arrived!

Spring is 'springing'...violets on the
track!

LAMBY with her twins

more beautiful violets

week 10 / 11

Our quail have been hatching!   We had 10 hatch...but only 8 are still with us - they already have their full wing feathers after one week, and are stuffing their faces - so in 6 weeks we could have egg-laying quail (as long as they are females - not easy to tell yet!)

No lambs yet...although we think it's any day now - some of the ewes look very full and 'dropped' ready for the off - so i will be blogging some photos by the end of the weekend i'm sure!

We have put plastic covers over two of the larger raised beds outside to try and warm up the soil ready to plant out our chitted potatoes by the end of the month - although the weather's seriously gone on the turn again right now....and the seeds that students planted a couple of weeks ago are looking great inside their glass house (in the poly tunnel)  we have cabbages, cauliflower, rocket and basil plants

We are trying to harden off the sweet peas ready to plant out, but i have to bring them in at night as we keep getting frosts!

The Thursday students mended the hay rack today (with the help of Dan and Mike) and it looks fantastic.  It now has 'carry handles' at either end too (photo to follow from Gerry) and it has new 'pallet' ends - fully refurbished ready for the ewes and lambs in the field next month.

We had a visit from Paternoster school key stage 6 students this week - they are doing a scheme of work, looking a the 'work in the community' and wanted to ask us some questions about what we do at the care farm.  They really enjoyed looking round; helping to feed all the animals, and perhaps some of them might be able to and see us regularly in the Autumn.

We have a student from the RAC hoping to do a work placement from the end of June; and she has reliably informed us (when she visited today) that Sandy the gilt looks as if she is definitely 'with pig'.....so that's brilliant news!

After Half term!

Last week we made the decision to take the two 'barren' ewes to sell at market - so on Thursday, we met the students at market (well not quite all of the Thursday students...some got lost in Driffield village!) and saw our ewes make £65 each - not bad for last week, as the average was £55.00 - it was a quiet week for all livestock apparently

We also put 24 quail eggs into our incubator - we have been collecting them up, hoping to increase our quail production for this year.  They will hopefully hatch around 17 March.

Dan, one of our new volunteers, helped by the students, has been busy putting up the new pig ark, that we have been given funding for.  It's going into a 'nursery', where we really hope Sandy will go at the beginning of May - ready for farrowing....!  It looks very majestic sat on it's concrete plinth in the field!

We also got our wonderful little trailer back; completely over hauled by 'Firefly' Phil, from Cerney House (just down the road)  It looks amazing, and will be really useful her for stock moving around the farm.

Funniest thing happened today (Monday)  we discovered that one of the Marrans we hatched last year, is a cockerel - we were convinced we had two hens, but .....he is definitely a cockerel, and looking far more majestic than last week - he's not crowing yet, but doing everything else!
We had a busy day with the students today - they all worked really well as a team, mucking out and getting the stables ready for the horses; mucking out the ewe pens (which we do twice a week at the moment) and looking after two visitors this afternoon.

We have a new sign up again at the Care Farm - thanks to Cotswold Signs, and one on the drive to direct people up past the yard to our site!

Photos to follow - i can't remember how to download them off my phone again.....sorry!