A Large New Arrival and a Poorly Goat

Dora and her calf

Dora, our Highland cow, has given birth to a large boy calf weighing in at 36kg. She 
quietly wandered down to the bottom of the field and had her calf early one morning. Once the calf was born, she wanted to tell the world, bellowing very loudly. Conor was like a proud dad as he went down to check the baby calf. We have brought Dora and the calf up to the main farm so that we can monitor them and put the ear tags into the calf’s ears, as this is a legal requirement and must be done within the first seven days after birth. The calf will then be issued with a passport – yes, all cows have a passport!

My farming friends will give me grief when they realise how much I spent on veterinary bills on one of our smaller goats. Louise was feeding the goats one morning and noticed that one of her favourites (bear in mind she has over 300 goats) was limping badly. When we looked at it more closely it was obvious that this poor little fella had broken the bottom part of his leg. At this point a ‘real’ farmer would have this small goat put down as it is only worth £20, but as I watched Louise trying hard to hide the tears, I phoned Sarah the vet to come out as soon as possible to try to splint the leg. Even vet  Sarah sounded surprised as she questioned me about the possible cost of this procedure. “Let’s give it a try", I said. Now you can look out for ‘Leggy’ hopping around the yard with his pink bandage on. Would anyone like to purchase a goat which is now worth over £400?

Talking of babies, it seems that Kylie has now realised her donkeys are simply too fat and that they are not so heavy in foal as she had once thought. She has now put them on a diet, poor things.

We have started to think up new ideas for our area at the New Forest Show - our aim is to make it as "hands on" as possible and have considered many different activities, however I'm not sure how the Health and Safety executive will react to some of our ideas! 

Spotty, the Kune Kune pig, and her piglets have outstayed their welcome in the animal encounter area after she decided to remove the boards along the outside wall and then kept turning her water trough upside down. She was given her marching orders and sent back to the Farrowing unit, which is where you will see her with her litter now.

Ducks and ducklings seem to be the 'in' pets this year: we have sold so many despite us warning people that they are the muckiest creatures on earth. We also have had some cute houses made to keep them safe from the fox, so they’ve been popular too.

New Forest Tour - we're on the Red Route

We’re now on the  New Forest Bus Tour (red route) from 28th June—to 14th Sept 2014, so hop on for a fun trip around the Forest after your visit to the Farm.