Out And About On The Farm

Meet the farm family ......

The cows:

At the moment we have 5 cows and two calves.  They are all in the barn for the moment as the weather is so bad, but we hope they will be back out in the fields very soon.  One of our cows is expecting a calf in a few months and another two were artificially inseminated last week, so fingers crossed they should have calves at the end of the year.  We farm our cows for meat for the freezer and we sometimes milk them as well.  I would like to get better at milking them as the children all love fresh milk.

 

Honey

Doucette

 

Trudy

Amelie

Hanna (we call her Red)

Our calves

These two were born last autumn and we have never got round to naming them .......... the dark calf is a girl and the white calf is a boy .......... the names should start with a 'J' ~ any ideas?????

The sheep:

We have 5 ewes and 8 lambs at the moment.  Sadly we lost our ram, Bertie, this winter.  We all miss him very much, but luckily he left us with 3 male lamb this winter so we will be able to keep one of them to take his place.  We farm our sheep for meat for the freezer.  Lambs born this winter will be butchered at the end of the autumn this year.  As well as keeping a young ram we may well keep a young female (or two) to increase our flock.

Our ewes are called Ava, Clem, Ivy, Jasmine and Jessie.  We don't name our lambs unless we are sure we are going to keep them.

The rabbits:

We have 6 rabbits at the moment.  Although one escaped last week and is at present living 'wild' around the farmyard!  All attempts to catch him have so far failed, much to the upset of our neighbour who wants to start sowing his vegetables... Our rabbits live inside in cages, but I would really love to construct an area where they can run around in some outside space.  Our rabbits are supposedly kept for meat, although we have kept rabbits for several years and have never managed to eat any of them.  I'm not so keen on the idea of eating rabbit, but the children love it, they often eat it at school.

The chicken:

We have lots of chicken at the farm, some enclosed in a run and some free range.  We keep our chicken for meat and eggs.  On occasion we also trade them with our friends and neighbours.

The ducks:

We have 5 ducks at the farm.  They live in the chicken run with the chicken. There are 3 Kahki Campbells and 2 'Black and White' ducks (I don't know what race they are).  At the moment we get at least two duck eggs each day (if we can find them!).  These ducks were all incubated artificially.

We also often have owls at the farm, they like to get into the attic of the old farm house.  The children are also convinced that there is a wild rabbit living in the barn!

Thank you for visiting :o)