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!

half term

Sadly we had to say good bye to Perry the Boar on that glorious Sunday just past!  It was a long process - starting with the loading (or not loading) in the morning....!  We didn't feed the pigs as normal - keeping the food out of reach thinking he would just follow us into the trailer - not a bit of it...Sandy thought the food was lovely and went straight onto the trailer - Perry however was having none of it, and managed to get quite some speed up in the extremely muddy conditions in his woodland home!  With perseverance, and some assistance from Lucy, Mike and Ella, we enticed him out of his lair with mangos and bananas....slowly, slowly, Lucy begged him to follow her with the delicious fruit, whilst Gerry and i kept behind to stop him turning - finally he gave in, and went up into the trailer!
Ella and i drove him back to North Nibley in glorious sunshine and dropped him off at his permanent home, back with his girlfriends.
So, fingers crossed, Sandy will now be pregnant - we have put her in with the other two weaners, to let her end of the woodland rest - it's suffered more than the rest of the wood with all this horrendous rain.   We will then get the pig nursery ready for her to move into at the end of April.

We are running a day of children's activities on Thursday, and have good bookings both morning and afternoon - we will run more at Easter, so do keep checking the website for updates.

The two 'barren' ewes are going off to market next Thursday - the students really enjoy their visits to Driffield, to the market, and we always go and have a look at the poultry while we are there - just in case!

This week is a break, but the students start back next Monday - although we still have all the animals to look after - but luckily Ella is back this week to help - she especially likes looking after Manny one of our horses.

NEWS!

ok i think i can now show you some photos....having had a lesson from Archie my nephew and godson! So here goes

Perry the Boar we have borrowed to
run  with Sandy! 

Our two new weaners enjoying
the woodland!

Perry is here for two more weeks so we are keeping our fingers crossed that Sandy will be 'in pig' once he goes back

My Land Rover's demise on
the way back from the
abattoir....




Do have a look at our website - Gerry is running
some Half Term Activities for School Age
Children!

www.scrubditchcarefarm.org.uk

The End!

 We are all totally FED UP
with the weather....endless
rain! But we have kept the
students busy and well fed on Gerry's home made cakes at break time!
We had the ewes scanned
this week - two of them are 'barren' sadly, but the others are all expecting.
These photos are the the sad end of my 15 year old Land Rover.....

Preparing the Pig Nursery

Who's been in the poly
Tunnel....eating our
salads?

I think we may have a bit of

a rabbit problem....!