Farm work goes on virus or no virus

Barak in his new pen



The sheep in the first croft above the dairy.

21.3.2020

It is the time of year that we usually buy point of lay pullets.  If they come into lay in autumn, they give us a supply of winter eggs just when the older chooks are taking a rest from production. There is an empty chook shed on the old drive but the ram, Rombald, has spent the summer in the drive area and he has become quite assertive.  Last week be tupped Edd when he went in to get me some lemons, and Edd still has the bruises!

We decided that we could move Rombald into the first croft above the dairy and put the older ewes in with him to get mated.  Before we could do this Barak, our buck goat, had to be moved out of his pen into a pen entered by the old drive. Once there we would not have to drag the goats past the ram to get them mated. The young buck, Nick, was in this pen but we have sold him so he could go to the area around the yards to live until he is picked up.  This was all possible but tricky.

Luckily. a teacher who was expecting to be here this week on camp came for a to give us a hand. He happened to be a strong bloke and with his help we moved everything around and even drenched all the sheep and lambs when we separated them.  The sheep had 20 lambs this year and they have all survived thanks to Zulu, the alpaca, who has kept all the foxes at bay.  We will need to sell most of them before the winter sets in so that we are not over stocked.

The problem now is that the business we get our POL chooks from every year is experiencing panic buying and there are no chooks left to sell this week! Maybe next Friday, I am told.  I was a bit worried this might happen but there was no way I could speed up the process and get in sooner.

It has been a perfect week of weather, but the school camp was cancelled due to Covid19 rules.  All our events and camps are now cancelled, but the farm work just has to go on as usual.  The ram is very busy trying to get the ewes pregnant and we are taking selected does to the buck as they come into season.  The snag is that this year we will have lambing and kidding at the same time which will mean a lot of work.

We have sold several of the does to a neighbour and they will go once they are mated and have stopped producing milk.  Once again we need to reduce stock numbers for winter. Last year’s kids are now being weaned and today I had enough milk spare to start making a hard cheese.  I am also boiling up the last of the nashi pears for freezing.  They will go off if I leave them any longer.  As usual we have plenty to do without moving an off the farm.  We are going into lock down mode and I am going to try and make this blog a link to our farm life for anyone interested.