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FARM UPDATE |
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Autumn/Winter 2009 Earlier this summer we were lucky enough to have made some high protien hay and silage in June before the rain set in, giving us ample fodder for the winter. The rams will be introduced to their wives on November 5th when sparks will fly and the farming cycle starts all over again. Dan bought two fine young suffolk rams in early October, much to the interest of the ewes! Some older pastures were reseeded in May as they had gone past their best. These new leys are now providing some lovely grass for the lambs to fatten on who, in turn, are waiting for you to buy them.
Spring 2009 Winter has passed at last and although cold and snowey it has been a healthy one. We had very heavy snow in late January and as you can see our labrador, Bella, found her legs were too short for it! Luckily all the ewes were safely indoors snug and warm and we were able to bring in the last seasons lambs to safety with no losses. Lambing will be thick and fast in April leading to, we hope, warmer grassy times for ewes with young at foot in May. Then the pastures will be laid up, left free of stock, during late May and June for hay and silage making. And so the seasons progress |
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SUMMER/AUTUMN 2008 We don't need to tell you what a terrible summer it has been so far this year, but we are glad we are not camping. The wet weather has meant it has been impossible to make any hay, although we still hope to if we get the chance. Nevertheless we have had a bumper crop of silage and the rain has produced lots of lush grass for the lambs.Our first lambs were ready in mid August and will continue now, with luck, through to about mid February 2009.
Silage making went well and, as you can see, the contractors tractors get larger every year. This is all very well, but means we have to keep widening our gates!
Dan and Clara with new lamb and Wilma AUTUMN 2007 As you will have read on our Home Page, this is not a jolly time for farmers with the Foot and Mouth outbreak, caused by a Government Reseach establishment, (but will any heads roll!), and now the outbreaks of "Blue Tongue", caused by nasty midges from across the Channel. Both these diseases could be controled by vaccines, but lack of research resource and Government will has meant, firstly that a new identifiable F and M vaccine has not been produced and secondly that there is no Blue Tongue vaccine available for use in England until, at the earliest, next spring. Why not, when this disease is well established in Europe and was bound to cross the Channel at some time?
Dan is now preparing the ewes for the introdution of the rams. This does not mean he is explaining the facts of life to them, but making sure they are healthy, strong and in prime condition for pregnancy. He has selected some topping ewe lambs from his flock which he will be keeping as next years replacements. Another of the problems caused by F an M is that we are, at the time of writing, unable to move sheep on or off the farm except to slaughter. We will soon be checking up on our neighbours who supply our turkeys and geese for Christmas. But more about this nearer the time.
Summer 2007 As the weather swings from boiling hot to heavy showers and back again we dash into action preparing for silage and hay making by harrowing and rolling the fields. Late June should see a start to harvesting our grass which is growing well. This is good news for Dan's lambs who are also growing well too. Some should be ready for market by August. Dan and his bride, Clara, have returned from honeymoon much to the relief of David and Isobel who had to look after the sheep while they were away. This meant office work was a bit erratic, so apologies for any delays in processing orders! Great excitement as our nephew, Dan's cousin, Marcus and his bride to be Penny are having their wedding reception in our lambing shed at the end of the month! An original location to say the least! Marcus, who makes films and documentaries, has often helped out on the farm and you can see a photo of him at rest in April 2003 on this page. Just scroll down. Winter/Spring 2007 We are now preparing for our busiest time of the year when the ewes have their lambs in early April. The next task on the farm is to ultrascan the ewes to see who is having singles, twins, or triplets. We can then divide up the mums into special pens and give those who are having twins and triplets higher rations whilst keeping a close eye on them. All the ewes are being brought in to our new sheep shed and will spend the rest of the winter in the dry, which will make them very happy as it has been incredibly wet and miserable up here on Exmoor so far this year. It will also be a great relief for Dan who has had to carry hay across soggy muddy fields since November. For our sheep dogs Bet and her daughter Star it is a time for rest and relaxation! |
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Autumn heralds the start of the shepherds year with the rams being introduced to their ladies! Sparks begin to fly on 5th November and after about 4 weeks we hope all are " inlamb". This autumn has seen a new lambing shed built after the old one became too tired to continue! The ewes will find the new one very comfortable 4 star accommodation when they come in in january ready to prepare to lamb in april. Dan has a new pup, an enchanting fox terrier that sleeps on his shoulder when he is reading or watching telly. He is now engaged to lovely Clara and wedding bells next year. Time moves on.
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Summer 2006 Summer seems to have arrived in a blaze of heat up here on Exmoor after a wet and cold spring.
After lambing things quieten down considerably on the farm and we can concentrate on mending fences and hedges whilst we wait for the lambs and grass to grow at their own pace. By the end of June beginning of July that will all change as we rush about making silage and hay, between the showers no doubt!
Dan has been reseeding grass fields with plough and harrow moving slowly up and down preparing the ground. All being well this will give us some good succulent grass to finish the lambs on in the autumn.
The next major job this June will be to check feet and dip the flock against fly strike. Be assured that we only use NON organophosphate dips approved by the soil association.
Cutting hay in the evening sun
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SPRING 2006 After a long cold and dry winter it is now relatively warm and wet, which is good for the grass, but shivery for the new born lambs! The grass has had farmyard manure on it and is now "snacking" which is an old expression in this part of Somerset to mean its growing fast! Dan has just started lambing and has 750 mothers to care for all clammering for attention. As the lambs are born they are put in small single pens with their mums for between 24 and 48 hours before being taken out to the fields. The extraordinary thing is that it seems like yesterday that we were doing this last year. This will be the 34th year I have lambed ewes on the farm! Isobel has a new digital camera and if I can get her away from our new grand daughter I will ask her for some photographs for this web site. That's all for now, best wishes for the Spring David, Isobel, and Dan |
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Autumn News 2005 |
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It has been a very busy summer on the farm following our record lambing. All the lambs were weaned at the beginning of August and are now fattening well. Dan has sold some smaller ones as 'stores' . These go off the hill where they will be fattened on softer pasture during the Winter leaving us with the larger lambs to 'finish' by the end of February on grass, hay, silage and some rolled cereal if necessary. Dan has been 'oop North' to Yorkshire to buy replacement ewes from a farm he knows well and these have now arrived here in their new home. We have a lot of woodland on the farm and during the summer there has been a massive thinning operation going on by contractors, so never a dull moment as we prepare for the Christmas rush. We will have a few more turkeys this year and they are growing well. They are truly free range and proved very popular last year. As we only have a limited number please call us direct on 01398 371387 to discuss your requirements, alternatively email us. Guideline turkey prices including delivery:
We will also have a few free range geese
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February 2005 All the ewes are now safely housed away from the wet and soggy weather. They have been scanned to allow us to see how many lambs to prepare for. We separate the the ones having triples twins and singles. This lets us adjust the ration accordingly. They have also been shorn by Dan. This means we can keep an eye on their condition and also encourages better lamb growth. That is why the ewes are now tucked up on deep warm straw! Lambing is due to start in April so we are now in " the lull before the storm" phase. Which is why Dan is going skiing leaving his father in charge........ April will see us giving 24hour care to the
ewes and lambs and praying for reasonable spring weather and
plenty of lush grass. Dream on. |
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Autumn News |
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| Christmas is fast approaching and, as you can guess,
it is a very busy time of the year for us, both on the farm and in
the office.
At present we are preparing the ewes for tupping (mating), with extra rations for the leaner ones and diets for the fatties! Feet are trimmed and general condition checked. Dan has increased the flock this year, so we have a lot of frisky young ewes who tend to jump out of the fields at the earliest opportunity. The Rams are introduced to their new wives on November 5th, when its fireworks all round. This will give us lambs during the early part of April when we hope for the return of lush pasture after the winter months. |
 Tupping time! |
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June 2004 |
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| Dan has been having a topping time. By the end of June he had finished topping all of the fields that need work done. The sheep have all been into the shed, had their feet checked, then run out via the foot-bath. This time last year we made silage - the silage shed was lined with black plastic sheet, then filled with several hundred tonnes of cut grass before being covered over with another plastic sheet and sealed with hay bales and old car tires. However, this year Dan has decided not to make any pit silage - there is still quite a lot left from last year. He has made a fair amount of round bale silage instead (which is easier to feed to the ewes when they are still outside). |
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May 2004 |
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The Ewes and lambs are all
out in the fields. The doubles are in small flocks of about 25
ewes and their lambs, while the singles are in a bigger flock (it is not
so difficult for these ewes to keep track of their lambs). They
are all doing well, enjoying the grass and the weather.
This time last year Dan had just finished putting in the kale seed, he has just finished planting this years crop. A farmers life is governed by the seasons, and although one year may be warmer than another, events on the farm will always happen at pretty much the same time. That said, this time last year Dan had just started training Star (one of Bet's puppies), and now she is almost fully trained and works very well along side her mother. |
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April 2004 |
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Lambing was as exhausting as ever. This year
Dan's help came in the form of Charlie Murphy, and together with no
small amount of help from David everything went fairly smoothly.
We haven't had as good a crop of lambs this year as we did last - but
then as we had scanned the ewes in January, we were expecting
this.
On the whole the weather was fantastic, which meant that once the ewes had lambed they only spent a few hours in the shed before being turned out to pasture. And what wonderful pasture it is - there is masses of it about and it seems particularly lush. |
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March 2004 |
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In terms of things happening on the farm, this March
has been very similar to last year: the ewes have in the lambing sheds
getting ready for lambing, Dan has been tinkering with bits a pieces in
the shed to make sure everything is in good working order and he has
harrowed all of the silage fields. |
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February 2004 |
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| Dan finished shearing the ewes then they were all scanned. The cold weather at the end of the month meant that they were eating lots of silage to keep their energy up. Luckily the silage we made back in June is of a good quality and there is lots of it, so everyone is happy. |
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January 2004 |
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| The sheep continue to be fed round bale silage to supplement what little grass there is about. Dan brought the ewes into the lambing shed at the end of the month, and he and Chris made a start on the winter shearing. Unfortunately Chris then hurt his back so has had to take time off from shearing leaving Dan to plod on slowly by himself. |
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December 2003 |
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The ewes are now
receiving some round bale silage and the lambs are feeding on rolled
barley and kale to supplement the shortage of grass.
Feeding the ewes has become a bit of a nightmare job for Dan as the tractor is now fairly long in the tooth and breaks down on an almost daily basis... |
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November 2003 |
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October 2003 |
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Dan prepared the ewes for the tups, this involves
checking, and if necessary clipping every hoof, then putting the ewes onto
the best pasture available. By the end of the month the ewes are
looking in prime condition - an absolute picture of health! The
rams, having been similarly pampered, are fighting fit and raring to go. |
 Lambs in the morning mist |
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September 2003 |
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The lambs have not been as quick to fatten this year as they were last -
probably due to the lack of rain (you can never please a farmer!) and the
relative lack of grass. This means that we have not yet had a big
pick of lambs, but the ones that we have sent out to our customers (an had
back for our own freezer) have by all accounts been excellent.
Dan has been been up to Southern Scotland to buy in some replacement ewes - they seem to be very happy in their new home. |
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August 2003 |
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All of the lambs were weaned within the
first week of August, and by the end of the month the first of this
seasons Exmoor lambs were ready for market. The lambs have been
split into flocks according to their weight so that they can be put on
to heavier or lighter pasture according to when Dan wants to finish
them. Dan has bought in 3 lorry loads of wheat straw which is now all neatly stacked away under cover awaiting use later in the year in the lambing shed. |
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July 2003 |
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| July saw Dan making hay - although we have had lots of brilliant hay making weather this summer, the week that Dan chose was actually a bit gray, so for 5 days we all kept our fingers crossed hoping that the rain that was threatening would hold off - and it did. All of the ewes and lambs were dipped, and towards the very end of the month, some of the older lambs were weaned. |
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April 2003 |
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| Lambing started in the first week of the month. The first flock of ewes and lambs turned out into the fields fell victim to either a badger or a fox - it killed 3 of the lambs on three consecutive nights. However, since then everything has gone very well, the fantastic weather has been a great help, the ewes and lambs thrive on warm days and dry nights - as do the shepherds! This year we have two extra pairs of hands to help us with the lambing. Our cousin Marcus - a Londoner who suffers from hay-fever who is frankly a bit of a liability in the lambing shed(!) and Hamish a seasoned professional from over the border in Scotland. |
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March 2003 |
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On the sheep front all is quite, the sheep are in the
shed, feeding happily on silage and looking well. Dan has harrowed
all of the silage fields, this pulls up the thatch (dead grass) and
aerates the soil so that all the growth in these fields will be
concentrated in the new shoots and hopefully the silage will be
excellent. Dan has also built several new bits and pieces for the
lambing shed (hay racks, pen sections - that kind of thing) and he
assures us these will help make things run even smoother this year.
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February 2003 |
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Dan has been going through the ewes checking that
they are in tip top condition. We have also scanned the flock
(with ultra-sound, the same used on humans) to see how many lambs we can
expect later in the year. The results are a tiny bit down on last
year, but that is no bad thing as we are not expecting too many
triples. With two udders ewes are best suited to rearing a maximum
of 2 lambs, so while not having many triples means that the crop of
lambs might be smaller, the lambs that we do have should do better and
grow on a bit faster.
We have about 50 lambs left - Dan is hoping to have fattened all of them by the end of February, or early March. |
*this particular ewe managed to jump out of the shearing pen last month... after she was scanned she was given a hair cut.
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January 2003 |
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January saw Dan and Chris Govier bring the ewes into
the lambing shed and then shear them all. Not the most common time
of year to shear sheep, but having tried the benefits of winter shearing
on part of the flock over the last 2 years, Dan is now convinced that it
is worth while. Once shorn the ewes stay in the lambing sheds
until they have lambed. Because they no longer have their fleeces
they eat more silage to help keep them warm (they also have plenty of
straw) so that both they and their unborn lambs will put on
weight. Once the ewes are put out to the fields with their lambs
they will have an inch or so of new fleece - enough to keep a bit of the
early spring chill off, but not so much as they wont feel the
cold. The advantage of this is that in very rough weather the ewes
will lead their lambs to shelter.
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