It may be a cliché, a British farmer discussing the weather, but it has been strangely hot this week. Actually it’s been beautiful – high 20s celsius, often with a breeze and not too humid. But now it’s October, the leaves are turning, it’s dark by 7pm and we’re still wearing T-shirts – strange […]
There’s a great deal of cow stuff going on at the moment. We’re moving most of the herd, very slowly around the farm in an anti-clockwise direction so that by tomorrow afternoon they will be in the field with a barn from which we can easily get a steer into a trailer. He’ll go to the abattoir […]
We are very pleased to be able to offer you the chance to buy some of our beef. It’s taken a while longer than planned after such a dry spring but two animals will go off to Evans at Marston Moretaine on 11 July. We hope you will want to buy some so please read on […]
Nearing the end of the guided walk last Wednesday, we stopped the group of 30 cpre members and gave them a parting round up, thank you and another plug for beef sales, as suggested by all the best training manuals. And I realised that this was very genuine. Of course it’s always a pleasure to talk about yourself, but […]
After two months spent with some lovely looking cows on the Shuttleworth Estate near Biggleswade, Admiral arrived home on Friday and seemed pretty pleased about it. Like any youngster one hasn’t seen for a while he seems to have filled out in those few weeks away. He may be a bit disappointed with the relatively sparse grass we have […]
Red Poll heifer We have decided to sell four of our young female animals. They were born in April/May 2009 so are ready to breed now. Two are registered pedigree with the Red Poll Cattle Development Society and two as A Grade with the Red Poll Cattle Society. We would be happy to run them with […]
The last few days have been filled with cattle. Thursday morning last week was our first chance to get ear tags into the three calves born the previous Saturday. We try to get tags in within 48 hours because after that time, calves are quick, agile and strong and rather tricky to catch. And so it […]
The waiting’s over and we have five lovely Red Poll calves. Four heifers and one bull so far; three to come. Pepper was the first last Sunday, followed by her half-sister, Copper on Wednesday. Just to add excitement to an already packed Saturday schedule two were born in the early hours and a third, to ace mum […]
At this time of year, when we finally reach the first due date (9 months after the day Admiral, our Red Poll bull, walked off the trailer to meet his heifers and cows for the first time) we start to fret and discuss and examine and try to remember exactly what a cow that will […]