Archive for March, 2011
Snug as a ... pig
The pigs arrived this weekend. The breeder arrived with them in the back of his van, with them cuddled together in an old log basket. Clearly the journey hadn’t bothered them too much, as they looked quite content.
Before taking them to their new home, we had to give them a wormer injection. So the first meeting with their new owners was via a sharp needle. However, they didn’t flinch at all, just did what pigs do and provided us with a little present over our coats! Read the rest of this entry »
Free bedding
From what I’ve read, bracken was once popular as animal bedding instead of straw. It is only in recent decades that straw has become relatively cheap to buy, and comes in convenient-shaped bales for use around the farm. However, the price of straw is reported to be on the up, given the poor grain harvests at home and abroad. With pig arrival day nearing, and reading about the cost of pig feed and bedding going through the roof, we’re trying to think of ways to keep the costs down. We’ve got quite a lot of bracken growing on the banks in one of our fields, so we thought we would try to utilise it. It’s died down and dried out over winter, becoming very straw-like, and so should work nicely. Armed with a large tarpaulin and some shears (no sickle this time!) we went up the field to see what we could harvest. Read the rest of this entry »