Butchery course

At the end of the year our friends' two Gloucester Old Spot pigs are off to the 'market'! In previous years the abattoir has done the slaughter and the butchery, but last time the butchery was not up to scratch, so this year we thought we might do that bit ourselves (home slaughter is not permitted). We have read books and done a bit of home butchery before (boning out) but wanted to learn a bit more so we enrolled ourselves on a 1 day butchery course through DASH (Devon Association of Smallholders - there is a link to this organisation on the links section of this blog). You have to be members to go on the courses they offer and they do offer quite a selection of things you can learn.

The course was held at a small mixed farm (or large smallholding) to the East of us. The day started with a good cup of coffee and chocolate biscuits, which was a very good start. After this we had a farm tour which included advice on feeding and general management of cattle and sheep. The owners of the farm have seen over time that many people take on stock without the slightest knowledge of how to look after them. It is not the case that cattle and sheep just eat grass and you can just put them out into a field and let them get on with it. They will need supplements and various other things depending on what you are breeding them for, the state of your grass and your soil. They also (and this seems so obvious but according to the farm owners it doesn't seem to be for some people) animals need fresh water!

As mentioned this was a mixed farm and is organic. They grow much of their own animal feed too. As I have said before I am rather in love with long wool sheep and this farm had the most wonderful Leicester Longwools which they breed for wool and also cross them with Texel sheep for meat production. A few of the lambs were put into a crush (a metal cage which doesn't hurt them but means that you can handle them as you may want to when giving vaccinations or worming. In this case we were able to feel the lambs to get an understanding of what a lamb for meat should feel like.

The farm also breeds Ruby Devon Cattle a breed native to this area. We saw the cows and calves and also met Daddy bull (from afar). 'Baby' bull, 3 months and built like a small housing estate was put into the cattle crush (a bit similar to the one used for sheep but MUCH bigger and stronger so that we could feel the various cuts on a live animal . Both the bulls are for breeding purposes and showing and win lots of awards, their services as bulls are very popular and the farm gets inquiries from all over the world for their 'you know what' (don't like to say it on a blog, I might get lots of strange messages!!!!).

The farm used to breed Oxford and Sandy and Black pigs but now only raise the weaners, sadly they didn't have any when we visited as they are rather beautiful. Talking of beautiful the farm sells free range organic eggs from their Welsummer hens which are just lovely.

After our tour we moved to the cutting room. The farm has its own cold room and cutting area and sells its meat locally to the general public and to pubs. We started with a lamb carcass and the farmer (who is also a butcher and stockman) jointed this and boned some joints out, some of us had a try. I quite like boning out, there is a certain sense of satisfaction of being able to get a bone out without leaving much meat on it.

After we had eaten our packed lunches and sampled some of the home made soup at the farm we made sausages and burgers. This was quite fun but we had done this before. Really what we need to do is to take a side of pork (when they are ready) to a butcher (and you can do it at this farm) and watch him joint it and help if we are allowed (which can be done in some cases). You really cannot learn butchery in a day! We also realised that there is a lot of equipment that we don't have that we would really need in order to cut up our carcasses so we are not sure now whether we can do this this year. For example, it is advisable to hang carcasses in a cool room for at least two weeks, many abattoirs can't do this as they don't have the room and we most certainly don't have the right facilities for this at the moment.

The whole day was very interesting and made us think a lot about what we might want to do. I think we both feel that before we get any stock we want to go on other courses to learn specifically about the care of the animal; sheep for example can be hard work and keeping them would need careful consideration before going down that road. Cattle need a lot of room and you probably wouldn't want to go down the route of breeding as there is milking to be considered (and that means lots of early mornings and probably more milk than you could cope with). You can buy a couple of steers (castrated bulls) and raise these for meat, but again cattle need a lot of care and time. Pigs seem simpler and we do have some experience of pig keeping, but again you should know what the potential problems are before buying a couple of weaners.

The day ended with tea on the lawn and a nice chocolate cake. We met lots of interesting people and the folks at the farm were great. It was an instructive, enjoyable and thought provoking day.

Show time part the last

Sorry, the Holsworthy show was over a week ago and no post. To be honest getting a bit bored reporting on the shows as they are much of a muchness, if we didn't go to them for work I think I would probably only go to one a year!

The weather for the show was not as good as Okehampton but better than North Devon. It had rained a lot just before the show and the ground was a bit boggy but you could have managed without wellies. The day was windy and overcast and it set in with really serious drizzle just at the end of the show (just about the time we were sampling a small beer in the beer tent!). Holsworthy Show beer tent is very well run but a local landlord who would never run out of beer unlike Okehampton and the beer tent is probably the biggest of all the ones at the 4 shows we went to. I can thoroughly recommend the beer tent at this show (hoping for a free pint for commission!).

We had a huge stand at the show and managed to fill most of it up with a fantastic 12 foot long walk banquet walk through table. It got lots of interest and really is a fab piece of garden furniture, good value too, but probably heavy so you would want to put it somewhere where you weren't likely to need to move it. We put one outside the beer tent too!.

Entertainment at the show; pretty standard stuff really. Good amount and diverse range of stock including some wonderful different sheep varieties. My favorite has to be these wooley white ones not sure if they are Devon and Cornwall Longwool or Dartmoor, but aren't they brilliant, mind you wouldn't want to keep them in a wet field, imagine the shampoo you would need to get through! This blackface is also rather nice but you wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of those horns!!!! It is troubling when you start looking at sheep and think how pretty they are mind you!

Again we were in a good position next to the main general entertainment ring and the one display that caught my eye was the falconry. Now I found this a tricky subject as the birds are kept in captivity and fly for displays and I suppose for exercise too. I have looked up falconry and feel a bit better now. It seems that in this country falconers can only work birds that are bred in captivity (I recall the falconer at the show saying that some of his birds were rescues?) and it is illegal to take feral birds for falconry (or for anything actually). It is such an ancient sport and I must say watching the birds fly and swoop past your ear at what seemed like a hundred miles an hour with their long talons and vicious looking beaks was really fantastic. The birds and the falconer put on a great display and encouraged folks from the crowd to come into the ring and hold our their (heavily) gloved hand for a bird to perch on. This Golden Eagle was looking right at me, I hope he wasn't thinking I would make a good dinner!

That is the end of show season for us now, but it not a time to rest. We need to plan our marketing for this coming winter and will need to start thinking sooner rather than later about which shows we want to do next year. No rest for the wicked!

Chicken update

Well our poor hen with the prolapse is back to normal, scratching about and looking good, thanks to a lot of TLC from us and our friends who came to stay for a few days last week. However, two things.

1. She still hasn't laid an egg now over two weeks since the incident. Whether she will again I don't know. She is a hybrid (Warren or ISA not sure which but they are very similar) and they can have a short (but intensive) laying life so we will see. If she does lay we still have the risk of another prolapse so the longer she goes without laying the better as it gives her a chance to heal inside.

2. She is now moulting! Poor thing, if its not one thing its another. I did think to start with that this was related to the other hen pecking at her but I don't think so and it is moulting season. This in some ways is also good for her healing process in that when they moult they tend not to lay. We will have to make sure we give them supplements during this time to keep their energy up as their bodies now spend a lot of goodness moulting and getting ready to grow new feathers. We don't know yet whether this is a partial moult or a full one, she had a partial one in January (the coldest time of the year!!!), so this could be a full one. In this case she is going to go very bald. They look dreadful in moult, ragged and disheveled but when the feathers grow back they look good as new again - well pretty much. As they get older they don't get quite back to normal and old hens do look a bit ragged.

The plan is to get more and I am thinking about Black Rocks as although they too are hybrids they don't lay quite so many eggs in a year and therefore have a longer life (both laying and overall). They are also very hardy birds and don't mind the weather. Our girls have been huddled in the outbuilding a lot recently sheltering from the rain, wind etc. When it snowed earlier this year they refused to come out at all. There is a lady who raises Black Rocks about 45 minutes away; there are only a few registered Black Rock growers in the country and only one approved breeder, not sure why but it means that there are only a few places you can get them. She also has some other interesting breeds, Marans (the picture on the right is of a Cookoo Maran), Blues and this rather nice Magpie (picture below). I am interested to talk to her to find out if Black Rocks are the way to go or whether we should have a mixture or try something else. Will keep you posted and will have piccies of whatever we get. (pictures posted here are taken from www.organicpullets.co.uk, the website of the breeder I have mentioned)

Chickens

We have had a bit of a weekend with the girls again but (fingers crossed) it looks like things will be OK.

Over the last week or so someone had been laying very very big eggs with very thin rough shells (very difficult to tell which one of course) and then on Friday evening just as I was about to cook dinner M noticed that one of the hens was pecking at the others' bottom area a lot. We had a look and noticed blood pouring from her vent (where the eggs and poo comes out of, they only have one hole). We quickly picked her up and had a proper look and there was a nasty bloody prolapse (bit like piles for chickens). With very clean hands and dilute iodine we cleaned the area and then very gently pushed the prolapse back in. Over the weekend we have had to keep the hens separated as the healthy one just pecks at the others bum and they can kill doing this as eventually they pull out the others innards (sorry not nice but true). It could be that the prolapse was caused by the other hen pecking or that the prolapse occured and then the pecking started, they are carnivorous and some nice fresh blood might have been too much of a temptation. We have cleaned the affected area and having read up about this put pile cream around the vent 4 times a day (this is nice and cooling, has a mild topical anaesthetic and a mile antiseptic in it).

At night we blocked off one of the nest boxes and kept the sick one in there with a little food and water. Yesterday she really wasn't eating and we feared that we would have to start hand feeding today (with a syringe) and if that had happened I think we would have had to seriously think about culling her; from previous experience once they stop eating it is only a matter of time.

Well this morning M went to let them out and found healthy hen had laid an egg (this had been an issue too as she had been distressed with all the goings on and appeared to be eating her own eggs which can be another big issue). M rescued the egg and lured the healthy hen to another run (to keep them apart). He went to open up the blocked up nest box and sick hen pretty much leaped out. She is eating and drinking and is currently roaming the garden finding nice baby slugs and all sorts to eat. She is making little noises (had been very quiet for the last few days), is preening and scratching, so looks a lot better. We will still clean her and apply the cream for a few days and I am going to get some stuff to put around her bum to stop the other hen pecking her feathers out.

We are not quite out of the woods yet though as when she lays another egg the prolapse could recur so will need to keep and eye on this and for the time being will keep them separated so that if she does do it again she won't get attacked by the other hen.

Prolapse can occur particularly in hens who are the best layers and those who lay large eggs. I am not sure why she was laying eggs with such rough shells and there is a lot of discussion on forums about the use of oyster shell (or other forms of calcium). Chickens need this to form the egg shells and commercially produced layers mash or pellets (this is their feed) should contain all the things they need. Some people seem to feel that this is not enough and you should give them more, but then again other people say that giving them extra calcium if they don't need it can result in rough paper thin shells and can cause other problems including death, so not sure if somehow maybe she was getting too much. As there seems to be so much confusion on the subject I am going to talk to someone at work who has a large egg business so does all this commercially and I am sure she will know the answer.

The problem with keeping stock is that you really have to know what you are doing (of course) and there are courses for keeping most kinds of stock. A lot of people are now keeping hens thanks to TV Chef celebs and there is a lot of concern that people don't have the knowledge and experience to keep them in the right ways. I have seen people ask if hens need perches and nest boxes (which is actually quite fundamental). We learned from our friends who we lived with who had hens and read up on the subject widely before we got them, but even then the advice you can get can be confusing and conflicting. I would strongly recommend that anyone who wants to keep hens (or any stock for that matter) reads up on it and if possible go along to one of the many day workshops there are on the subject. Get the right information first and hopefully you will have fewer problems and if they do occur you will know how to manage them.

Hopefully our girl will make a full recovery but I do worry that it was something we did or didn't do that caused the problems, hopefully we will have learned something from all this and can make sure our girls are happy and healthy.

Show time - Part 3

So third Show done and what a show, so far my favorite but maybe that was because it was sunny and no mud.

Okehampton Showground maybe doesn't' quite have the position of the Woolsery Show but it nestles below Dartmoor and is a lovely spot. It also has a perimeter track running round the outside so even if it had been wet a lot of the access would have been dry. As it was we had had a bit of rain in the days preceding but the ground had dried out and setting up the stand on the Wednesday wasn't too much of a pain (although it was a misty foggy day and the Camleford show took which took place on the Wednesday apparently took place in thick cloud).

We got to the ground early and didn't get too bunged up in traffic this time and managed to do the final setting up bits in good time. Then the sun came out. Well we had thought we were well prepared, wellies, waterproofs, warm jumper (lessons learned from previous shows) and the forecast had been mixed so we didn't take sun cream; we wish we had, we all ended up with pink noses and pink cheeks and I think I got a bit of sunstroke as felt rather under the weather for a few days after. Next show we will take wet weather gear AND suncream, you just never know.

The Show ground is well laid out with a central ring for much of the entertainment involving horses and the trade stands mostly surrounded this ring. We had great views of the ring where the horses came in to wait for their slot and although we are not really horsey people it gave us something to look at in our quiet moments. It was quite fun seeing the noisy braying donkeys, (once one started they all started and made everyone laugh; the tiny sheltlands; the majestic and shiny hunters; the noble and beautiful Heavy Horses in all their regalia. There were also pie and skewbald gypsy horses which were really lovely. At the end of the day there were races which although we couldn't see the main event we could see the horses and riders going at break neck speed back into the holding ring after their race; it was something called barrel racing which apparently started in America (or so the commentator said) when the men were doing the rodeo riding the women set up their own fun and raced one by one round barrels, it was very fast and great fun to watch, not least because the commentator was enjoying himself and was entertainment on his own - rather think he might have had something to wet his throat before the races but he just might have been an enthusiastic type!

The rest of the trade stands were in rows (similar to the North Devon). Then at the top of the ground there were the cattle and sheep show rings. In a large field or enclosure on the east side of the show ground were the stock pens, so here were most of the cattle, sheep, piggies, poultry, rabbits, alpacas and there was also a sheering stand, doing sheering competitions and I suppose workshops. So the way the ground was set out, it meant that you could easily find things, I thought it was great. The show also seemed more agricultural than the other shows, I don't know why, maybe because of the way it was set out or maybe there were more stock here.

Some people complain about the trade stands and the fact that these shows have become more commercialised but sadly without them I am not sure the shows would survive, the stands help pay for the shows to take place.

We had a great day on the stand with lots of visitors and lots of enquiries. we almost ran out of price lists. Each show we do we learn something new and everytime they get better and better. We even had enquiries from other parts of the country some very far away indeed.

The only downside to the shows is catering really. There are plenty of food places and a food tent where you can buy local produce (not hot) but it was so busy that we really couldn't face queuing (also it wasn't fair to leave the others on the stand for too long) so ended up with lunch that was a bit disappointing, next show we will take our own I think. Also the biggest disappointment of the whole show was that the beer tent ran out of beer by about 3pm!!!! Shocking! I think they hadn't realised that so many people would come, (the last two years the show had been cancelled because of weather) but you would have thought they would have had a contingency plan. There was a sort of contingency in the end and the man on the tannoy announced that the beer tent had restocked. We always feel at the end of the show we deserve half a pint of something cold so went along only to find that all they had were warm cans of lager and beer, nothing cold. Even these stocks were pretty thin. Okehampton Show, next year, more beer!

So almost at the end now, one more to go this year (next week). Looking forward to it and slightly sad that it is at the end now, I have enjoyed them. They are hard work, long days and early mornings (which I am not good at at all, would be a rubbish farmer!). We calculate that for one show it takes at least 3 days out of the week with preparation, setting up and taking the stand down. Will see how next week goes and then I guess it will be time to start thinking about which ones to book in for for next year.

PS. Sorry few photos camera very much on last legs.
PPS. The heat wave forecast for today hasn't hit us here, cold, damp, cloudy and windy!

Minor panic

Had a bit of a panic last night. M and I had noticed that it seems to have gone a bit quiet here over the last couple of days. Up till then we had been woken most mornings by the House Sparrows who had been nesting in the roof just above our bedroom window (bless them!) but all is quiet now. Also since about Friday the noisy swallows seem to have gone quiet, surely it can't be the end of summer just yet.

No swallows at all this morning and the Sparrows have definitely got fed up with the rain and cold, but it isn't quite over yet. Have seen two Swallows today but the numbers are definitely depleted. I reckon that some of them may have already gone ahead to warmer climes but there are a few left. It only seems like yesterday they arrived and it is quite sad to think they will soon be gone, they have been so entertaining.

Have to say that we never really noticed this kind of the change in the seasons before, I suppose we wouldn't have done when we didn't have such summer tenants in our old house.

There is a definite early Autumn feel around though (and only mid August). Mr Robin has started singing loudly again, a sound which I always associate with Autumn and Winter. The crows are back too, instead of small black bodies clinging onto the telephone wires (the Swallows) we have large black bodies clinging to the telephone wires making harsh Autumn noises!

According to the forecast we might get a barbecue summer day on Wednesday but last time I looked it had changed to rain again, hey ho, here's to living in the West Country (and don't get me wrong, I wouldn't live anywhere else even with the rain).

Okehampton Show report on its way, camera is playing up, but will be posted soon.

Summertime

Well it seems to be here (after a bit of a damp day yesterday). Gearing up for the show on Thursday and the forecast doesn't look brilliant but it depends which forecast you look at!

I have been out with the camera (which I am afraid seems to be on its last legs; it will be a real pain in the neck if it packs up now).

A couple of lovely ones.

Garden jewels: If you only ever grow one type of tomato, grow this one, Sungold, it is beautiful and tastes even better. Those red ones seem insipid compared to the burst of sunlight and warmth and summer time you get when you bite into one of these little golden globes.

The bog garden: Slowly, slowly licking it into shape (but still a lot of weeds and docks and there is only a little produce growing now as a lot have been eaten!!!!!!). This winter we will put down black plastic (old silage covers) where we want the plots to be and leave the grass paths between, might even manage a few more raised beds, but have to watch this as even though this is very wet plot the raised bed dries out quickly. The blue stuff is netting to keep the hens off the carrots I have just planted out (a little late!)

In our old garden we had a grape vine, something called strawberry grape. It goes mad and grows everywhere, the English winters don't bother it at all. The grapes are dark reddish in colour and have the most amazing berry flavour, sort of a mixture of strawberries, blackberries and other yummy fruits but are not 'grape like' at all. We took cuttings several years ago and gave them to friends who are growing them up a trellis in front of their oil tank (not sure the trellis will be able to cope eventually but we will cross that bridge!). This winter I took about 40 cuttings and have 37 plants growing. Our friend has a nice sheltered, well drained south facing, gently sloping field so is thinking about trying to grow them on a larger scale (he also took about 40 cuttings last year, so we have almost 80 plants!). They will take time to mature and produce fruit and maybe ultimately some wine! This picture shows the cuttings together with an odd selection of marigolds and other flowers (no idea what they are or why I planted the seeds). The marigolds are there because they have been watered and will go back shortly to sit with the tomatoes to help ward off nasty bugs (marigolds encourage nice bugs that eat the nasty bugs, clever eh?)

Finally this is one of the old apple trees that last year produced a total amount of nothing. I gave it some TLC over the winter and a decent hair cut and now we have apples; hooray. Just have to get the other one producing now.

Must go out and stop working and enjoy some of this rare break in the clouds before the weather turns again tomorrow!