After an unplanned year off during 2019 for Sissy with litters, she finally delivered again in the early hours of Mon 13th Jan. As usual I can’t help wanting to be there when it all happens but that always means a lot of lost sleep. This time she ended up with just 2 live piglets …
This time around I’m a lot more confident that Sissy is actually in-pig and is due to farrow in a little under 2 weeks. I’m very aware that I’ve said something similar before but all the signs are there so far. When I look back on blog updates from this time last year I’m can’t …
Continue reading ‘Farrowing preparations for January 2020’ »
Today was a special day which normally gets overlooked in the mad rush before Christmas so this year I’m quietly pleased with myself for marking the special event with a blog post It’s hard for me to believe in a way but our 2 main Tamworth breeding sows – Sissy and Esther – are 5 …
I’m trying not to take it for granted because each time we have to move pigs around and it goes really well then I could easily become over-confident. It’s probably wise to keep reminding myself that it can easily and quickly go wrong at times. This past weekend was weaning time for Esther’s latest litter …
While we’ve never really had a problem when moving pigs around our holding, with a 300kg sow there is always the possibility that she will choose to go in a different direction. Once she makes that sort of decision, there’s not a lot the hapless pig keeper can do about it other than to try …
Now that the weekend is over I can reflect with some satisfaction on the wide range of events that took place in a relatively short space of time. Each in their own way could have had a different, more troubling, outcome but in the end all have been completed fairly successfully Esther Farrowing One event …
Last weekend was yet another first for us – the departure of 3 animals from our relatively small Dexter herd. We’ve never sold live cattle before so loading them into a trailer and watching as they’re driven away was quite an odd experience. We’ve done this so often when selling pigs as weaners so perhaps …
At first I wasn’t sure that we’d made the right choice when I saw our neighbours had cut and baled their hay meadows early in July. However we wanted to wait a little longer so that the wild flowers could properly set seed before it was cut. There were a few occasions when I wished …
There’s never enough time for all the possible jobs on our smallholding so there’s an element of prioritising the available time. However, growing and eating some of our own produce will always be a high priority for me. The growing season starts a little later in the year for us as demonstrated by the last …
Now that calving has finished for 2019, our small herd of Dexter cattle has reached a total of 9 which, I’m only too well aware, is too many for the available grazing land. It’s a heart-warming sight to see them wandering around their summer grazing now but that won’t last long later in the year. …