Spring at the Farm!
Spring is here! This is such an exciting time here on The Farm as we welcome lots of new arrivals. Even though we witness birth regularly it never gets tiring and it’s always a privilege to care for our animals as they bring new life into the world.
Equines
The donkeys are so busy at the minute as our lovely volunteers take them out regularly to practise their long reining. Our goal is to do some little harrowing demonstrations with them for the visitors this season so watch this space… Unfortunately all the training doesn’t seem to be having much impact on their waistlines!
Our Shire horse mare Tabitha is due to have her third foal on 9th May and there is high anticipation as we haven’t had a foal here on the farm for 8 years. Her last foal was Sensation who, along with Friar (Tabitha’s brother), is going to have a shock when the new foal starts stealing the limelight. Good thing Sen and Friar have the Cheshire Show to look forward to in June…
Pigs
Bonnie and Susie are both due a litter of piglets at the start of April. Meanwhile we have a new addition to the piggery in the form of Lola, a Large White gilt (young female pig), who we have bred from Luna. She is certainly turning out to be her mother’s daughter with all the sass and character we love about Luna. We also have a new Large White boar and we are excited to see him sire lots of litters of piglets over the next few years… fingers crossed.
Sheep
This is the time of year when the sheep get to be the stars of the show during our lambing week (5th-13th April). They come inside to lamb and lots of our visitors have been lucky enough to see live births and to learn all about lambing on the farm. We are expecting 46 lambs this year from 20 ewes, including 7 sets of triplets and a set of quads! So it’s going to be a very busy couple of weeks but we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Cows
This year we are expecting two dairy calves from Gracie our Guernsey cow and Jasmine our Jersey/Norwegian Red. We are also expecting 4 more calves from our Red Polls and also from Hetty our Hereford cross. Calving kicks off with Gracie at the end of May and then runs through June. We are hoping to show Mabel, Gracie’s heifer calf from last year, at the Cheshire Show in June so we have been busy halter training her.
Goats
Our three Golden Guernseys – Amber, Emily and little Rose and Betty our Angora cross are all doing really well. Did you know that King Charles has bequeathed the title of ‘Royal’ onto all Golden Guernsey goats? Emily and her daughter Rose are going to be joining in the Knutsford Mayday Parade this year and we have started taking them out and about to practise their walking. Betty has just been sheared of her matted winter fleece and had a lovely Spring bath. Angoras don’t moult like the Golden Guernseys so we have to shear her once or sometimes even twice a year.
Poultry
Unfortunately we have once again been under Avian Flu restrictions which means that our poultry are not allowed to be out and about at the minute. They get very upset as they are used to being free range but we are hoping that restrictions will lift soon so they can return to being the picnic stealing little characters that we love! We have got eggs in the incubator and will be opening the hatchery for the start of the Easter holidays but we won’t be able to do our Meet the Chicks activity until restrictions have lifted.
This season we also have our eggstra special Mr Men/Little Miss Easter trail running from 5th April – 21st April, Knutsford Mayday Parade on 3rd May and our Fun Dog Show on 5th May… Please check out the events section of the website for more details. See you all soon!
Newsletter compiled by the Farm Team.
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