Snow on the farm
Friday, January 29, 2010 at 9:54AM All the animals coped well with the snow we had at the beginning of the year but with 25cm of snow it certainly presented problems for us humans keeping the sheep fed with hay as they could not graze. However, some of the sheep we have at Willows from the Lancashire fells are very hardy and amazingly worked out that if they scratched down through the snow they can still get to the grass and keep eating.
All of the cattle are indoors at present but the very cold weather continues to presents problems in making sure the water keeps running in the sheds for the animals. The pigs seemed to cope well with the weather and as long as they have plenty of straw in the huts and plenty of food they can stand the cold
As well as difficulties for the animals, the snow also made it difficult for our customers to get to visit us, but now that the weather has returned to normal for this time of year we are pleased to welcome customer back again.
Looking forward we have lots of exciting things lined up for our customers in 2010
February Frolics - Lambing
The sheep start lambing in just over two weeks and we are preparing to bring them inside and get them settled. We are putting up a large lambing marquee and we will create a large yard, covering the floor with straw, with some smaller individual pens so that when the lambs are born we can separate them from the flock and allow the lambs to suckle.
Even though we have kept sheep for many years, Anna and I still get excited about lambing time. It is extremely hard work with Anna and I covering the lambing throughout the nights, with Tuck taking over at 5.00am We start work again at about 8.30 so for a couple of weeks we survive on about 3 to 4 hours sleep a night!
New activity opening at Easter
We have began work on our new activity for 2010 which will be opening at the start of Easter Eggstravaganza. It’s still under wraps but what we can tell you is that it features our new character Captain Chicken and involves children dodging eggs!!!! It will be fantastic fun that will make it even more difficult to get the children to go home at the end of a day of fun at Willows
Willows Farm Shop - update
We are also working on plans to re-organise Willows Farm shop with an exciting new Coffee Shop for our shoppers due to open later in the year.

