No more wet soggy hay nets!!

Finally we have treated the sheep to a hay feeder after years of stuffing hay nets.
This hay feeder is 1200mm long and will take a full bale. Our timber gate manufacturing company is a registered dealer for IAE (the manufacturer) and supply the full range of fencing, animal feeding and handling equipment.

www.gatewrights.co.uk

Is the wet weather ever going to end!!!

The ditches are bursting there banks, the grass is now a muddy, slurry mess and the cows are miserable!!
This is our weather report for next week!
I'm in the process of building a shelter for them but until I finish I've dragged the livestock trailer into the field for the calves to get some shelter.
A little sunshine pleeeease!!!

Ps. The photo of the tractor was taken a few weeks back when the weather was nicer!!!!!!

De-spurring our cockerel

Our Roosters Spur

Despurring any Rooster (cockerel) is not recommended unless for medical reasons and in this case it was very much needed.
Our rooster Frank had severely gouged the front of his foot either fighting or doing something else. His spurs were over 3" long and unlike most roosters spurs his pointed too far over to his opposing claw hence as he walked along the spur kept catching on the wound and reopening it. Ouch!
We tried treating it and wrapping it to protect it with no avail, the spur just kept gouging it out and it started to turn septic.
After watching a couple of YouTube vids (good old YouTube) we decided the only way to help him is to remove the spur. Now a roosters spur is just like a goats horn really and has a quick running up the inside of the spur about 50-70% of the spur.
So here's how to remove it:
1) get someone to hold the rooster.
2) support the foot with your hand and with a set of pliers grip the spur close to the base.
3) gentle rotate the pliers forward and back twisting the spur and only squeezing the pliers enough to grip the spur being careful not to crush the spur.
4) as you twist the spur and gently pull it will separate from the foot and come off leaving a fairly raw looking quick (there may be a small about of blood)
5) disinfect the area and the quick will dry up and be fine. We recommend isolating him till he heals up to prevent attacks from other chickens.

A Cockerel with long and deformed spurs

Google image of someone removing a spur

The quick

Baby Bull turns into Baby Heifer!!!!!!!!!

Well, well, well we were all feeling a little fed up that all four of our dexter mums had boys (well thats what we thought!) and we'd have loved at least one girl.
So today we had the fun job of catching our last little bull to band him. (For the squeamish don't ask about banding!!)
So off we set prepared to do some running, I asked Lucy my wife to help me as I have a broken rib and don't really feel like rodeo wrestling!!
On catching him we aimlessly searched for his little bits (balls that is!).........no balls. When he/she was born we were sure it was a boy, clearly we still have a lot of learning to do!! "Lucy" I said "he's got no balls" what does this mean??? Well one of two things 1) this is a very rare case of a male calf without balls or 2) WE HAVE A GIRL!!!!
Well to say we are over the moon is an understatement.
All we need now is a name for her so its out of:
Poppy
Tula
Edith
Maggie or
Daisey

Please help us choose :)

Calf disappears part 2

1:00AM.-
Ok I'm out checking on one of our girls as she's due to give birth any day.
It's dark, really dark and I'm shining my torch around checking all the cows when I realise the calf mentioned in "calf Dissapears part 1" is nowhere to be seen.

catch me if you can!!!!

I start searching around all the reeded areas of the field and after about 15 mins see it lying in a long clump of grass. Now at this point you'd think I'd have learnt my lesson and just slowly walked away....... But no I just had to take one step closer to check it was still breathing and boom! It was off at the speed of sound!!!!
Straight out the electric fencing and this time it had no plans to stop, it kept going right up into the woods. I still can't believe I didn't learn my lesson :(
I literally spent the rest of my night searching the fields and woods for the little begger with no avail.
Morning came and by 9:00am we had a small search party out helping me look for it, by midday most of the family where also searching the farm, this little fella had literally vanished and we didn't have much time to find him before dark and at only a day old he wouldn't fare well against a fox or badger.
5:00pm - I'd pretty much lost any hope of finding the little man and 16 hrs had now past, he'd had no milk in that time and would be weak and probably either in a ditch freezing or eaten by a predator. Gutted I felt responsible and gutted.
5:30pm- the phone rings "Hi Steve its Liz (one of the ladies that keeps a horse on the farm) i've found him"
We got to the perimeter edge of the farm where Liz and a few others were standing around him, "he was fast asleep in the thick grass" said Liz "and he's just woke up"

We started to close in on him to catch him when Boom! He was off but I wasn't gonna let him go this time we had two 4x4,s in the field and about 5 of us...... The chase was on!!!!!!!
As we roared off down the field with runners and off roaders we managed to get in front of him and and make him make a sharp right straight down, through the ditch and trap himself in a corner of the sheep paddock, nows our chance. Mark, Elins partner took a running jump and just like that.. We had him.

Well he certainly wasn't weak or tired !!
12 hours of searching, worrying, and no sleep and he'd been asleep in the grass as usual.

What lessons have I learnt?
1/ calves like to sleep in the long grass. Their not dead so LEAVE THEM ALONE
2/ DON'T have calves on 2 strands of electric fencing.
Cows + electric fence = :)
Calves + electric fence = :(((((

Mike took this photo of Trevor the tractor!!!!!

Calf disappears part 1

Woke @ 7:00am to go and check in on our new calf . Couldn't see him anywhere in field so in a panic I started searching and found him in some long grass, face down and appearing lifeless so I ran over to him. I knelt down I stroked him thinking it obviously was rejected last night and maybe hadn't got its colostrum, but instead of being cold he was really warm but still wouldn't lift it's head. I put my hands under his shoulders to lift him up expecting the worst and without any warning he opened its eyes, took one look at me and bolted like a race horse across the field closely followed by mum (man it was fast) and straight out of the two strands of electric fencing. it took me a year to learn to walk from birth and this thing is galloping at 4hrs old!!!. To say I was surprised is some what of an understatement.. All along the flippin thing was sound asleep and I'd scared the living daylights out of it by trying to pick it up!!! So panic over it appears our baby calf is healthy and will be disguised as a horse and entered at Ascott next year!!! Happy days

The arrival of calves

After reading a book on calving and watching a few YouTube videos I sort of feel semi prepared for my next experience in animal husbandry......calving!!!
I've never really imagined myself as a midwife for cows and there's so much to remember, like all books on medical subjects, the book I read informs you of all the things that can go wrong and ended worrying me silly! It said I needed one of these incase the cow gets stuck!!!

Ok now I'm nervous!!

Our first cow due started to segregate herself just as the book said so I knew we had to start keeping a close eye on her, and kept checking in on her "this is it, we're gonna have a baby" I said to Lucy!!! 

I went to check on her again early morning and had to do a second take..... Lying in the field next to her was what looked like a huge cow dung and as I stood there it stood up and moved closer to her. 

Amazing all that worrying and she'd had it all on her own. 

The next 2 mums had theirs the same way, even though I checked them in the night I kept missing the births and upon morning there stood another life - "this calving business is a synch" I thought, that is until they started to escape!!

To be continued!!!!!

Tractor boys come to the farm!!

Some of the local chaps that enjoy ploughing with older farm machinery for a hobby came to the farm on Sunday to do some ploughing. It was really fun to see old quality tools working the land, and I must say they certainly know how to plough.

About us

We are fortunate enough to live on a small farm in the Ryes valley, Suffolk. We have 2 small children Tommy and Rubi, and a few sheep, ducks, geese, dexter cows and a goat with a waffy leg!!! 

Since starting on our smallholding journey about 5 years ago we have (through trial and error) and watching a lot of YouTube videos managed to learn how to care for, breed, deliver, medicate, catch and generally keep livestock. This is a blog of our experiences, some good, some not so but in the long run we hope it will help others if starting out as smallholders and if not then hopefully you'll just find it an enjoyable read!!

Steve

Buying our first 4 cows

23/08/12 - we finally after 2 years of talking about it learning and searching found our Dexters. Four black non shorts, Blackberry, Grouse, kimmie and Rose all pregnant and 2 of them were due in 4 weeks :0/
We drove them into the field that we had fenced off with 2 strands of electric fence as our permanent stock fencing is still being put up.
Finally we were cattle farmers, all we now have to do is get on YouTube and learn all about calving!!!!!