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WINTER 2011
The valley has a special beauty at this time of year: signs of Spring are already there in the hazel catkins hanging from the hedges and the Robins singing to mark out their territories. Lapwings and Fieldfares can easily be seen in the fields and the Tawny Owls hoot gently from the trees around the Barn at night.
The sheep scanner has been in and the ewes have now been split into those expecting a single lamb and those with twins, so they can be fed accordingly. Lambing is due to begin in early March. We always rush out to see the first lamb that's been born and, after three weeks of getting up in the night and working 14-hour days, are equally glad to see the last lamb born!
A VIP (Very Important Pig) arrived at Hareley Farm last May. Alice has wanted to begin breeding Gloucestershire Old Spots for some time and was contacted by the Secretary of the GOS Pig Breeders Club to see if she'd like to take on a five year old sow being retired from Liz Hurley's Gloucestershire farm. At that age the number of piglets a sow produces falls below a level that makes it economic to feed her but this one comes from such a rare bloodline there are only seven others registered in the world. We were delighted when she produced three gilts (females) and three boars. We've kept two of the gilts to breed and sold the third to experienced pig keepers in Shropshire to increase the bloodline and expand its geographical spread.
Guests coming to the Barn for the first time often wonder where the nearest shops will be and are delighted to find that Bromyard (three miles away) is a "proper" country town. There is a small Co-op supermarket at the top of the town but we also have three traditional butchers, two bakers (who bake on the premises), and so on. Recent guests broke the previous record by taking back SIX carrier bags full of meat, sausages and pies. Like most other guests they found that local meat from local butchers is half the price and four times the quality they'd been used to from their supermarket!
There's presently an online petition to support clear country of origin labelling on supermarket produce, inspired by a Sainsbury's UK troops charity promotion on ham which turned out to be produce of the EU and South Africa. The UK pig industry is struggling because of the expense of maintaining the highest welfare standards in the world (no farrowing crates or tethers, for example). The petition can be found on http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/22201 and we urge all those who care about animal welfare to sign it.
Our morning courses for guests are being offered again this year. Gillian tailors them to the guests' interests and will happily spend a morning on setting up a smallholding, countryside management and farm wildlife or pig, sheep or poultry keeping (with a farm walk and hands-on practice where appropriate).
The poultry hatched on the farm last Summer is now beginning to lay. The eggs we sell from the farm gate include dark brown eggs from the Barnevelders, tinted (buff) from Speckled Sussex and blue from Cream Legbars. This year we shall be breeding Gold, Silver, Blue and Buff Laced Wyandottes, Lavender Araucanas, Cream Legbars, Buff and Speckled Sussex and Dorkings. We hope to build up numbers of all these rare breeds before offering surplus stock for sale later in the year. The Narragansett turkeys we hatched in July are growing away well. These rare birds will be kept for breeding -the stags (males) weigh in at 15kg which is more than most ovens can take!
The Story of Doris:
Many of our Barn guests have met Doris, our Beulah Welsh Mountain ewe shown in the photograph on the right, and enjoyed hearing her story, so here it is for web browsers: Our neighbour across the valley was leaning on a stock pen at market, waiting for his sheep to be sold, when he felt a nose nudging his hand. He looked down to see a couple of mountain ewes looking up at him. One nudged his hand again and he looked them over to check they were sound in teeth, feet and udder and bought them.
After a few years on his farm they became too old to lamb outdoors again and to be gathered by the sheepdogs but the farmer's wife had become quite fond of them so Alice (then seven years old) asked if she could buy Doris and Speckles (as they'd acquired names) and began saving all her pocket money. She regularly asked our neighbour when she could buy them but he always came up with a good excuse as to why it was inconvenient just then. On Christmas Day that year, though, the trailer rattled up the road and out came Doris and Speckles as presents for Guy and Alice!
They each had a ram lamb that Spring, although Doris subsequently got mastitis and required a lot of care before she recovered. She's now living out her life here at Hareley Farm and has her own job as head of the little flock of weaned ewe lambs each summer, as she's trained to come to call or to the feed bucket and will bring them up the field with her.
Speckles died peacefully in her sleep a couple of years ago, but Doris proved her worth by alerting us to a ewe cast (stuck on its back - always fatal for a sheep) in her field. We rescued the ewe and next day she had twins, so Doris had saved the lives of three sheep.
She has no teeth so we have to put her in a field with fairly long grass, or feed her hay. We've no idea how old she is - probably at least 17 - but she's still fit enough to pick up a good turn of speed when trotting up the field for her evening treat of a handful of sheep mix!
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Last updated: 26/01/2012
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