"Welly Wednesday"

‘Welly Wednesday’ was a brilliant success. As it was National Science Week, I invited the nursery reception class at our local primary school, Crossgates, to visit us and spend some time in the lambing sheds. Mrs Roach, the class teacher, was so engrossed in everything that she kept forgetting to take photographs!

They all enjoyed dipping their wellies in the disinfectant point, I never imagined it would take as long to dip wellies!, I also didn’t know it would take so long for 25 of them to take a bucket of water to the ewes and lambs who were penned up individually waiting to go back outside, but they all had great fun, and more importantly they were learning during a real situation, which I believe is very beneficial to many children The highlight of the visit was when Farmer Len went into one of the pens and ‘pulled’ a lamb. Then after he had penned the ewe and lamb up in a small pen the class (and Mrs Roach) watched as the ewe licked the lamb, ‘talking’ to it quietly, then watched as the lamb began to try to struggle to it’s feet, then when it did to make it’s way up the side of the ewe under its tummy to find where to suck her milk.

The children also came face to face with Brynsaga Madog the 4th, one of our Welsh Black Bulls. Again Farmer Len made their day by entering the bull’s pen (something no one should do at home!) and turning him around so they could see his face, all of the children took at least four paces backwards, he must have seemed huge to them. (The children were aged between 4 – 5 years)

We finished off the afternoon with a walk through our oak wood, which is where the single lambs and their mums are turned out after 24 hours in the lambing sheds after they are born. It was a lovely day with the sun shinning, and it was a pleasure to have them with us.

Sapphy continues to grow. Unfortunately she is as big as the bin in the kitchen now so when she jumps up to it falls over, so for now the bin lives in the porch which is a pin when I am trailing around with soggy teabags thinking where to put them! On Saturday when I was on lambing duty all day with Philip she spent the entire day wandering up and down the sheep sheds, never very far away from me, and looking in every bucket, bag or crevice to see what she could find. She loves hay, and in the shed in the wood the ewes have a great roll of hay in front of all the pens, which they can eat all day. She was rolling and diving into it, then setting the ewes, as they came forward to see what on earth it was in their dinner! She has started to find all of the rabbit and badger runs as we walk the children up to the school bus in the morning and very often as I am calling her and looking back I turn around and there she is somehow in front of me, with her head cocked on one side as if to say, “well here I am where are you”?

Lambing is very slow at the moment. Last night there was the flurry of snow which was well forecast, and yesterday Philip had done a trail of the fields to bring in any ewes and lambs not looking as if they were strong enough to survive a very cold night. So Maggie had company in her stable last night. Unfortunately this morning there were two casualties, both whom we think had something physically wrong with them inside and would have died no matter what, but Philip always takes it so personally and it starts the day with quite a downer, you’d think with the 1500 lambs plus which we have, that two wouldn’t matter, but you’d be wrong. Farmers have a very strong connection with their stock and hate to loose any. Very often at Nantleach there will be a lamb in a box in front of the rayburn warming nicely, unfortunately not many of them make it, but I always like to think they were comfortable in their last hours.

My daughter Hannah and her friend Sarah, passed their Pony Club C test yesterday at Underhill Riding Stables. They were very chuffed especially as they were quite young to take it and they have worked very hard in doing so. My son James, and his friends Kathryn and Daniel all passed their Karate gradings on Saturday at Llandrindod Wells Sports Centre so James is now a green belt, half way to a black belt so he tells me. Well done to all of them.

I’ve a lot of office work to catch up with this week, I really don’t know where it all comes from, and where all of my time goes to but it does so that’s all for now and we’ll catch up again soon

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