As the year draws to an end we reflect on the farming calendar…

2011 will go down as one of the driest year ever here at Willows. Whilst this has been good for our visitors it was not so good for the crops.

Our yields were some of the worst we have ever seen, just through a lack of rain. On the plus side we had an easy harvest and it has been simple to establish the crops that we will harvest next year and so the cycle begins again  The crops do look well and I think that the application of compost is starting to show positive results.

Another positive impact of the unusually dry autumn and early winter is that we still have cattle outside at the beginning of winter thus making a saving on expensive winter feed and labour. Most years we have to bring all the cattle inside during October.

By now all the sheep on the farm should be in lamb. Our first group will lamb in February during February half term and as these were all mated the same week we are due to be busy! These sheep are now getting a supplementary cereal based feed every day to provide enough energy for the pregnant mother and her unborn lambs.

The remaining sheep are still just eating grass as they will not have their lambs until Easter.

At this time of year we cut the hedges around the farm. Historically we used to cut all the hedges every year but latterly we have only been cutting a proportion each year in order to benefit the wildlife. One thing that is noticeable around the estate is the increase in wild birds of prey. As part of our stewardship scheme we now leave a 6m grass strip around most of our fields to provide habitat for various creatures. One benefit is supposed to be the increase in small rodents on which the birds of prey rely. I wonder if this is why we are seeing more and more of these beautiful birds?

It was with great sadness that we said goodbye to ben our shire horse Ben who had lived here on the farm for about 20 years. Up until a few years ago he was a popular feature in the Farm Village. Ben had a wonderful life here at Willows and must have been stroked by over a million people visitors during his lifetime. For the last few years he has lived at the bottom of our garden and Anna has fed and looked after him every day. We will miss him.

Anna is making good progress with her new dog Castro, he is very obedient and showing real promise working with the sheep.

Finally may we take this opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

It's harvest time again…

Harvest has started but it is stop and start between the showers.  We have finished the Oilseed Rape and the yield was 3.3t per hectare which was about 15% down on our normal yileds, but not too bad. The price at approx. £400/t is very good however and this will help make up for the reduced  yield. 

We have also completed harvesting the Oats which yielded 8t per hectare, which was better than expected, again the price at £154 per tonne is very good as Oats are less expensive to grow than other cereal crops. Unfortunately we have not been able to bale the straw yet as we keep having heavy rain. We bale the straw from the Oats to feed to cattle in the winter and also for our horse tenants to use as bedding as Oat straw is very soft.

The wheat harvest is a disaster in terms of yield, due to the very dry weather earlier in the year.  We have completed about 25% of the harvest so far and the yield at about 5.5t per hectare is approx. 35% down on our normal average.   There is also less than 50% of the straw we would normally expect and as such we have purchased straw from a neighbour to help ensure we have enough for the winter.

One thing the recent heavy showers have benfited is the potatoes that we are growing for the september weekends Potato Shindig event on the Farm Village.  I had a look recently and the potatoes are filling out nicely so everybody should enjoy digging their own spuds!

Over the last month we have also mde a lot of hay and silage and to to this  we start by cutting the grass with a 3m wide mower.  The next day, if we are trying to make hay, we spread the grass out to get the sun to dry it.  For silage we leave another day and then we rake it into rows and the baler rolls it into round bales of approx 1.8m diameter.  We then wrap these bales with plastic to make them airtight and they then 'pickle' to turn into silage.  The hay we keep turning until it is completely dry and then bale into square bales and stack into the shed.

Our maize crop is catching up after a late start and will hopefully produce some good cobs by the end of september when we will chop it up for silage for the cows for winter.

As soon as we have cleared the fields we will get contractors in to spread the compost from our processing plant onto the fields which we will then plough into the ground. This will help fertilise next years crop and we hope retain moisture during dry times. 

Livestock News

All lambs are now weaned i.e. separated from their mothers.  They stay with their mothers and drink milk for 12 – 16 weeks and after this time  they are ready they go to market or  if they need a bit more finishing they will graze grass until they have put on sufficient weight and have good confirmation.  It is important that the ewes are weaned so that they have a rest before we prepare them ready to go to the ram again in the Autumn. We check the ewes to ensure that they are sound in their udder and have good feet and teeth; if these things are all in order then we will breed from them again, if not then they would be sold.

We have a few Polled Dorset ewes who have been running with the ram since the end of June; this breed are capable of lambing out of season, which means that given a 5 month gestation period  they will lamb at the end of November ready for our Nativity story.

We had an eventful evening when some of our Manx Loaghton sheep decided to see what the grazing was like on the busy A1081 dual carriage way and then decided to give us the run around; there were 4 police vehicles and several policemen assisting in an attempt to prevent them causing an accident! 

08.07.11 Pilgrim the pedigree Longhorn bull arrived, he is here for the next few months to mate with our cows, they will then calve in the Spring. We have 4 Longhorn cows, so hopefully we will breed some pure heifer (female) calves, they will then become replacements for our herd. The other breeds such as Highlands and White Park,  will produce cross-bred calves.

31.07.11 Bobby a male (jack donkey) arrived, he is here to mate with our two female donkeys Gracie and Jasmine.

Our Saddleback pigs continue to produce big litters; we usually hand rear some in Farmyard Favourites and have retained the last 3 gilts (female pigs) as replacements; because they are hand reared they are very friendly. We will look after them now until they are old enough to run with the boar, we will need to sell the boar we have and buy a new one so that they are not related. They are in a pen near the house, so get any food waste such as potato peelings and fallen apples which they love in addition to their cereal diet.