There has been some good progress with many parts of my original plan for 2015 but as always there is much more that I would like to get done. Mostly it is time that is the issue but increasingly there is also the question of money as well unfortunately.
Pigs
Now that we’ve made the decision to have a go at pig breeding, it made sense to get all the required equipment in place. This became much more important after the recent wet weather when we saw exactly how much mess 4 pigs can make.
Even though their current enclosure is far too big for just the 4 of them, some parts of it are becoming very well-worn and are desperately in need of a rest.
I thought about covering up the bare patches with something but when I tried that the other day with grass cuttings from the lawn the pigs just turned it into an afternoon snack!
The newly fenced pens are all ready to go so we will be assembling a shiny new pig ark in one of them and then moving the pigs over as soon as possible. More on this in a separate post because it turned into a major undertaking!
We still need to decide which 2 gilts will be kept for breeding over the longer term and that won’t be easy. It’s hard to tell them apart now without trying to differentiate based on particular aspects of their conformation which are better for breeding purposes.
Cattle
We’re still waiting for our first foray with cattle but have at least made the decision on what we will be getting. In the end we chose to get two 3-year-old Dexters that have calved before which should mean future calving will be less problematic.
They have also been running with the bull over the last few months and should be in-calf but this means a slight delay while the pregnancy is tested to determine a predicted calving date.
There will no doubt be a flurry of bovine pictures to replace the excess of porcine pictures in due course!