What a winter! Snow freezing conditions followed by more than our fair share of rain, without exception all our animals were grateful in having a roof over their heads during the coldest days, even Billy (the Shire) was reluctant to gallop round the feild on several occasssions,the goats simply refused to take one stepoutside.
A major part of our winter has been taken up by hostingofficials from The Health and Safety Executive andvarious other decision makers. who have had the delicate task of deciding if children should be permitted to contact with animals at open farms, after hours of discussions and debates, throughout the country, I am pleased to be able to confirm that commonsense has prevailed, and the entire group supports open farms fully, as long as they are prepared to follow a strict code of practice, which is already fully adhered to at Longdown Activity farm, so in a nutshell it is business as usual, you will notice a few changes, such as more hand wash pointsand the removal of 'Hand Gels' and some animals will now have to be doubled fenced, we fully supporrt the HSE's decision.
Our Grey Faced Dartmoor sheep are dropping their lambs at an alarming rate, we didn't want them to start until March, but it seems that the Ram was in a hurry, so far all the ewes have produced twins, and all mums are doing an excellent job in looking after the, meaning that we have not had to bottle feed any as yet, however we now have 50 plus goat kids needing their bottles of milk twice a day, due to the colder weather we have kept the smaller kids under heat lampsuntil they are strong enoughto join the others.We are often asked why we do not encourage bottle feeding of lambs, yet we pratice baby goat feeding, the reason is simply that it is extremley difficult sourcing lambs from flocks that are completley free of Toxoplasmosis, therefore they would incur a high risk to pregnant mums,in our opinion it's simply not worth taking that chance.
We are waiting for Hannah (large white pig) to produce her litter, shedoes have a habit of pretending to be close, so that she is moved into the Farrowing unit, here she gets special treatment and a few extra nuts a day, over her last 5 births she has been 3 weeks late, possibly just making the most of her home comforts.
The first batch of calves have arreived, 15 Aberdeen Angus cross calves, yes they are the all black ones with eyelashes that all the girls love, and Becky who looks after the calves is already insisting that we keep the 'cutest one'
Hope to see you soon
Farmer Bryan
