The end of another busy week!

The end of another busy week! We have just hosted a visit from Coleg Powys 3rd year agricultural students, who are studying a project on farm diversification. This is the second year we have done this; it’s really nice to have the chance to give something back to the industry. Our tours are taking a little longer now as we get deeper into projects and the marketing of them, and the evolving of the business, perhaps next year we will invite them to stay over for lunch.

We started of at Caergynant, our new farm, which without our farm diversification we wouldn’t have been in a position to buy. We showed the lambs, which were born early January, then February, a first for us, showing the way the business constantly evolves. This ensures Lamb all year around to sell on the market stalls.

We then progressed to Nantleach and the calving sheds, where all of our heifers (1st time calvers) have all calved. Amazingly, all having female calves of their own! We discussed how the Welsh Black breed has improved over the recent years, how quite they are, how easily they calve, and that if we can’t sell the pedigree females at a good price for breeding, we have the option of putting them through the processing unit to maximise their potential profit.

We then went into the butchers unit for a talk on how we diversified in the foot and mouth year, and how we add value to our produce by selling direct to the end consumer. We showed them a lamb carcass that would have fetched maximum £45 out the livestock market, but cut up and packed ready to sell it showed a retail price of £100. Obviously this is not all profit as there are killing costs, transport costs, staff costs and running costs of the butchers unit. One student very wisely commented that it was the difference of it being our choice as to how much we got paid for our product, rather than going to the livestock market, and having no choice but to take the price which was being offered to all farmers on that day.

We then came to my pride and joy, my new office – wow were they impressed. No biscuit tin on the kitchen table for me – oh no! Seriously it is nice when someone can appreciate how much the business is changing and evolving, and how much effort that takes in all areas and departments, and how much co-ordinating and organising it takes.

I have just finished a course which has been run in Wales for the first time with financial aid from the Welsh assembly Government, the Open farm accreditation Course from CEVAS, this means I will hold a qualification which says I have studied in order to hold educational visits to the farm, such as we have been doing with Coleg Powys for the past two years. Next Wednesday, as part of National Science Week, we are hosting a visit from Crossgates County Primary School for the Nursery reception Class to the Lambing sheds. I hope that the ewes all behave themselves and produce some nice lambs for us all to watch being born during their visit!

Two weeks ago we had a nice little bundle delivered to our house. No not a baby, but a Welsh Fox Hound Puppy whom we are puppy walking for the local foot hunt. She is now 15 weeks old, with great long legs and equally long floppy ears, and a lovely feathery head. Her name is Sapphire, Sapphy for short, and lots of other unmentionable names in between times!!!. It has given us the incentive to walk up to where the school bus picks the girls up in the morning, a ½ mile round walk up the road and back, I think we will all feel the benefit of this in a couple of weeks. The first day the pup was tired out, and slept the rest of the morning, but today she has been on go all day, emptying the bin, chewing the slippers, barking at the cows, setting the lambs and ewes and trying to get anything she can reach to eat! It’s quite a nice way to have a puppy. The children love it when they are small, but when a dog is full sized they get fed up with it etc, this way we can have a pup every couple of years and give it back when they are grown up ready to work, and see them at weekends and have them back on the farm for their summer holiday when the hunting season is over.

Our main batch of lambs is due to start on the 10th – tomorrow so far it looks like a good start, very few ewes have lost their lambs prematurely. One ewe had to have a caesarean in the week, (I’ll let you know how much that costs when the vets bill comes). It’s lovely over the next few weeks in the lambing shed, but very hard work for the men, who get more and more tired as the weeks go on. We could be looking at six weeks of long days and nights. But we also have to remember that a lot of very sad things take place we loose lambs and ewes, some lambs may be born with no back passage, some ewes are prolapsed, where the entire womb will drop out behind them. It’s not always fun being a farmer, and we deal with all of things on a daily basis. Some ewes or lambs may have to be put down. A job no farmer likes doing, but does for the well being of the animal. I’ll let you know more next week of what is happening in the lambing sheds

Well that’s me signing off for now, oh and keep your eyes peeled there will be a Blog attached to this site by next week and I hope we’ll have lots of comments off you all, which will be really nice to post on the site as we get comments at farmers markets which will be nice to share with everyone, and discuss topics of interest.

Take Care

Rachael