Occasional Newsletter No’ 33; April 2013
(Beeforders in by 6pm this Sunday please for fresh beef back Wed 1st May)
Spring has finally sprung; all the cows have calved and only 3 ewes left to lamb. These could be hanging around for another 3 weeks as taking the rams outin the Autumnalways seems to be low priority.
Our Good Friday Open Day had over 100 visitors and the rain stayed away. Most tours saw a lamb being born and photo opportunities involving young lambs and children, or just the young at heart, weren’t missed. A big thankyou to all the regular staff who have their routine jobs added to in preparation and to the friends, hens and guinea pigs drafted in for the day. Visitors who found Sarah’s cakes were not disappointed.
Some other visitors on Good Friday were a pair of Egyptian Geese checking out somewhere to raise a family. They decided they were too camera shy to hang around and have headed back to the reservoir.
All the ewes and lambs were indoors on Good Friday and April 15th was when we first managed to turn some out. There is a lot of work attached to having them indoors but nothing compared to the hardship of dealing with the losses from lambing outdoors and having to dig ewes out of snow drifts as happened in Wales this year.
So far the scanning results have only been wrong on two sheep, a scanned twin who had triplets and one of the two scanned with quads who had quins. She produced them without assistance and is still rearing quads ( one was fostered off ) with none needing a bottle top up. Even indoors it is survival of the fittest and Fagin like she seems to send them off to thieve off other ewes. I am reluctant to turn them out yet incase the smallest has ‘fox snack’ written on him.
This is the other quad mum – before and after. Definitely a wide load.
As the weather improved other Spring jobs could be tackled. Mark, who is with us on a year’s internship has been enjoying rolling the grassland and the stripes are getting noticeably straighter. Hedges have been trimmed, ditches dug and the latest gadget tried out.
Your mystery picture for this month ...... a rear facing nozzle on the end of the pressure washer hose for drain jetting. The men folk assure me it produces very satisfying results;and smelly overalls.
The older chicken flock have survived two harsh winters but no longer produce enough eggs to be commercially viable. They have become barn hens until the 60 point of lay Lohmann hybrid birds who arrived two days ago are in full lay. There was a quick turn around to wash the hut, disinfect, give the woodwork a lick of preservative and move it to new ground.
Usually the new hens take days to emerge with only a couple of brave ones looking out of a pop hole and may be placing a tentative foot on the ramp. Not so when the fencing isn’t ready and I hadn’t put the weldmesh round to stop them going under the hut.
I returned 2 hours later to find 30 of them exploring the outside world. Previous experience of extracting roosting hens at dusk from under the hut meant I was soon under there shooing them out and fixing the weldmesh ...... and discovering they were definitely point of lay. The yolks will be pale for a week until they have eaten some grass and processed it so there are currently eggs at 50p / half dozen available.
The OLD LAYING HENS will be available from next weekend at £3 each.
Bob has been busy in his veg’ garden. The potatoes are ridged up, carrots sewn in a fine seedbed, peas under the cloches as much to keep the rabbits and pigeons off as to protect from the weather.
The rhubarb looks like it will be ready very soon.
Shop News ...... 10 am – 5pm Fridays and Saturdays.
Free local delivery every Thursday.
Despite the weather the first BBQ boxes have been requested, and we will be doing them throughout the summer ( we are due a summer this year ).
BBQ BOX - £25 worth of mixed grill meats for £20. Should feed 8 people with a mixture of 8 burgers, 16 sausages, ribs, kebab chunks and chops. Fresh boxes will be available at weekends if ordered.
BEEF – the next fresh beef is back on Wed 1st May having hung for 21 days. As we are keeping heifers back as herd replacements, this is a Limousin cross from Halstead.
Mini boxes are available for £45 at 10% off marked prices and are a mixture of joints, mince, casserole meat plus guaranteed all BEEF burgers and sausages if desired. Orders in by 6pm Sunday please.
Special Offer : Frozen, cured meat half price including gammon, streaky bacon and ham while stocks last.
Finally, if anyone is in Layer de la Haye on Saturday ( tomorrow )10 am – 12:30 pm there is a Farmers’ and Craft Market in the village hall; see you there.
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Kate Gladwin 01206 735 694 07790 095 052
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