Tag: market

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Starting from number one there are five new photographs on…

Starting from number one there are five new photographs on the Photo Page from Judy. There is only one photograph left to put on the Photo page.

Some more Norfolk photos;

Three Views of Hunstanton Esplanade Gardens

Sandringham Estate Woodlands

Bircham Windmill From Judy.

The Sheep seemed to have settled themselves into the main Horse Field for the past few weeks. A good chance for Ewy to join them. But she hasn’t been near them, she only wants to be with the Horses. When we feed Willow and Gypsy in the Field Ewy eats with Gypsy out her bucket, but if any of the other Sheep try to eat with the Horses they get a sharp kick. They have learnt their lesson and keep well away. Watching the webcam whist I am writing tonights diary Ewy is grazing with the Horses. A little earlier on when Ewy realised that Willow and Gypsy had gone to the gate she ran rather quickly to join them. Most time when we let the Hoses back out in to the Field Ewy is waiting by the gate for Breeze.

Next week we will need to wean the Lambs off of the Ewes. They are still feeding from the Ewes when the really don’t need the milk. When we take the Lambs to Market we will look for a Ram. We want a Jacob Ram but when I use to go to Market it was not very often that we saw any. Jacobs are not a commercial Sheep although we had a number of Jacob Ewes some years back and we crossed them with a Texel Ram and the Lambs were top grade. As most of the six Ewes that we now have are Texel the Jacob cross should be good.

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I went and got three decoy Ducks today to try…

I went and got three decoy Ducks today to try to make my own remote controlled model Duck, so that I can put a camera on it. I phoned some suppliers in the USA, but what they can supply me will still need me doing some work on to get it as I want. I will cut a hole in one of the decoys to see how much room there is inside it, so that I can decide what I will use to get it working. I have a friend coming to stay tomorrow who I believe knows a little about remote model. He will be captured.

Elsie, the Sheep are on their way tomorrow. The five that are going are already loaded in the Horse trailer so that we can get them to market early. By chance there is a Rare Breeds sale on tomorrow, with a bit of luck some one may want some Portlands. What ever I wont get very much money for them I am not sending any of the Sheep that are around the lake. Taunton Market is only about twenty minutes from Denbury. Unfortunately it is closing at the end of the month after many years. A new market is opening, but it is a good way from us. Taunton Market is in the centre of the Town and is sited on a large area of land. No doubt the land is earmarked for housing. If it is, Taunton will have a few problems accommodating all the extra people.

As long a nothing out of the ordinary happens, we will be showing Bliss working on Sunday, I am not to sure if we will be able to let you see Misty, we have not been able to do any work with her at all today, her foot is really giving her a lot of pain. I think that I have found out where the problem is, we have put a poultice on the foot tonight, it may draw the poison out overnight, if it doesn’t the Farrier is coming tomorrow afternoon and he will find the problem, if the poultice doesn’t work. Once the poison is drawn out, with a dressing on it, Misty will be able to work straight away. With a bit of luck you may see her. We will be showing the Horses from about 10.30am but it may be a little later. Because of the age of Bliss and Misty they cannot be ridden for more than fifteen minutes

Karen I come from the East End of London, Canning Town. The roughest, toughest area of the East End, but a great place. Not so good now. The London Dockland Development Corporation, redeveloped the area, for the better as far as the infrastructure, it really is fantastic. Linda my friend who died last week, got the Riding Centre through the development. But it brought in a different type of people in to the area, that changed the area in to a place that I did not want to live in any more. But it was a good excuse to pursue my life long ambition to have a Farm.

We have friends here tomorrow, so if there is a Diary it will be short. What ever I will remind you of Bliss and Misty. Check the Diary and Forum as I have just realised that it is Remembrance Sunday this week and we may work around that.

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PM I went and checked the Sheep and they were…

PM, I went and checked the Sheep and they were all there. One had managed to get to the other side of the fence. I should think that was the one you may have seen. The bank is the side of the stream that runs through the farm, and is about six feet down. If one of the sheep had fallen it would have been wet.

The Sheep have made themselves a nuisance all day. Three times they have got out of the fenced area. The last time, the three Sheep that have been out for the past few weeks got together with the rest of the flock. Two of them are Ram Lambs that we could not keep in. Within an hour of putting them back with the rest of the Sheep they would be out again. We tried to catch them to put in with the youngsters, that we put into one of the stables. After a lot of chasing about we caught one of the two. With that one now in the stable the other one may stay in the fenced area. It will have to be caught in the next week, as the Livestock Markets are now open and the youngsters will be going off next week.

When I first came to live in Somerset, we rented a property whilst we were looking for a farm to purchase. We also rented twenty acres or so, to be able to purchase a few sheep to start getting my Lads interested in farming. They were only seven at the time. Every thing was new to them, just one big adventure. Breeding Ewes were very expensive at the time, around a

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Every time that I see the Swallow chicks in their…

Every time that I see the Swallow chicks in their nest it looks as if they are dying. Their mouths are open as if gasping for air. It can only be that they are so hot in the top of the roof. The last nest was the same and I don’t really like showing them on the webcam. The Dove chick is growing very quickly, it surely has got to be in the top ten for being the ugliest Bird chick. There were two but one disappeared very shortly after they hatched.

My luck seems to be holding out with the Sheep. I had forgot that it was a bank holiday today, for I had hoped to have moved them into a barn or stable to make sure that they don’t go free range again, before I send them off to market. I will send them to market this week. I am still undecided if I should to keep the Portland. The intention was to keep the friendly Texels, but after they escaped they lost their chance.

As we drive down our driveway on our way into the farm, the whole of the main Horse field comes into view. Just by habit we look to make sure that the Horses are all OK. Woody being grey stood out more than the rest when she was out, it is very strange her not being there now. We are looking to get another broodmare now that Woody has gone. It would be good to get one that is in Foal, but being realistic I should think that we will get a mare not in Foal that we will send to stud early next year. But you never know what may come on offer. The Bloodstock sales are coming up so I will see what is on sale there. Some of the sales can be seen on webcams. I will let you know when the next one is on.

When we went to feed the Horses this evening the Barn door was open. After Branston was opening the catch we tied the catch so that he could not open it. We don’t make mistake and it is never forgotten. This evening he was in the barn eating the Horse feed. Before we jumped to conclusions of who had left the gate untied I checked the hay-tie that it was tied with. It was wet where Branston had had it in his mouth. We thought that we had beaten Branston by tying the door, I don’t know how he untied it but he obviously had. There are three knots in the tie now.

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I have purposely left camera 2 viewing the branch in…

I have purposely left camera 2 viewing the branch in the lake for a good part of today, as I have seen on my monitor the Kingfisher’s darting across the screen, so fast that if you blink you will miss them, and on quite a few occasions one has been landing on the branch. I say them, as I am convinced that there is a pair nesting in a bank behind the trees that you can see a small amount of on the left hand top corner of the screen. If they are where I think they are, they will nest there as many as three times in a season, laying up to seven egg each time. Their nest is normally a hole in the bank, that can be as much as two feet back from the entrance.

There are not many people who have been lucky to see a Kingfisher in the wild. I have only seen one twice on the farm, in the fourteen years that I have lived at Denbury. I have also seen them on a very quite stretch of the River Tone some years back. They are very territorial Birds. On pair would be the most you would see on a lake of our size, or on a river bank for us much as a mile. They will breed up to three times in a season, nesting in a hole in the bank, that will go back as far as two feet from the entrance. They will produce six to seven eggs in each clutch.

I really shouldn’t want them on the lake, as they will catch as many as twenty fish, as long as three inches in a day, between two of them, that is a large amount in the course of a year. They are another Bird that was persecuted, one because of the fish they caught, and fishermen would use their brightly coloured feathers for artificial flies, for fly fishing.

We sent five Ewe’s and Eighteen Lambs to market yesterday. It should have been eleven Ewes, but changed my mind about sending the six friendly Texel’s off. On getting back on the farm I realised that I had made a mistake. I will take them next Saturday. There are three Lambs unaccounted for. They may have got washed away in the flood. Tomorrow I will have to phone about and make sure that one of my neighbours has not seen them. After the outbreak of foot and mouth disease a few years back, there is an awful amount of paper work to do before you can send animals to market. I didn’t pursue it for long, for by all account’s the lady booking the sheep into the market, told us that we should not have used the vehicle we that we took them to market in. Cattle Markets are a depressing place. All of what we took to market looked lost, as did all the others that were there. After I sell this lot of Sheep, I wont be having any more.

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The Lock of the Lowe s visitors centre managed to…

The Lock of the Lowe’s visitors centre managed to get one of the new camera working today. I had hoped that the main PTZ camera would be working, so that we could see the last of the Osprey chicks before they migrate. They are going to try to get it going next week. We are sending another camera to them next week to get a closer view of what you can see on the new camera. It is positioned on a feeder that is visited by both Pine Martins and Red Squirrels.

We have been sorting the Sheep and Lambs out today, to take to market in the morning. The lambs being free range had to be got into the pen before we were able to catch them. There were only six to catch, but it finished up taking the best part of two hours. The time it took us, any decent sheep farmer could have done it in half an hour Taking livestock to a Market is not the way that I like to sell animals. I would much prefer to sell them privately, to save them the stress that they obviously go through when being sold in a busy market, and going from one vehicle to another. I did advertises them a number of times since I have had them penned in. We had a couple of phone calls, but no one came to look at them. We are taking all of the sheep to market except for the Portland’s, as there is a rare breeds auction on the 11th of August, that would be a better option for them.

When you take animals to market, it is better to pen them so that the sheep are of the same type and size, it is then easier for the buyer to price them. So it is an early start tomorrow. When they are in the pens the potential buyers, touch, prod, and feel to see what condition they are in. The cattle part of the market is the worse place. Where the Auctioneer walks around the the sheep pens to sell the sheep, the cattle are put into a ring, where they are moved around by the market workers, by prodding them with sticks. Very often the cattle are whacked harder than they need to be. As much as I have a lot of respect for the RSPCA in what they do, at cattle markets they do not seem as diligent as they are in their other good work, and allow in my opinion unneccassry use of sticks on cattle.

As we were sorting the Sheep, I had second thought about sending the Texel’s Ewes, Dolly and her gang off. There are five of them that were orphaned when they were Lambs, and bottled fed by a young girl. They are very friendly but unfortunately I really cant keep them. We can only hope that they get a good home.

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I spoke to the SWT today and they have told…

I spoke to the SWT today and they have told me that one of the Osprey chicks is fifty days old today. They normally fledge at about forty nine days. It looks as if it will be any time now.

Although I penned the Sheep in some while back, I have not had time to sort them out to send them off to market to be sold. If I had sold them when I first got them in I would have needed to sort the Ewes with their Lambs by number marking them with a coloured marker. There would have been to many Ewes and Lambs to put into one pen at market. The chances of the Lambs going into the same pen as their mother is pretty remote, so it was important to have sorted them before they went off.

As it was, the lambs were able to go in and out of the pen as they wanted. Because of their size they could easily get through the pens bars, as and when they pleased. Now there are only six or so that are going in, the rest disappeared about six days ago. I was not on the farm when they went, and was only told the next day. By all accounts someone came through the farm with a dog as the Lambs were walking around free range, down the drive, from the pen area to a field, as they have done since the Ewes were first penned in. The dog was not on a lead and chased the lambs up the drive to the farm entrance. They have not been seen since, until today when I got a phone call from the Animal Health and Welfare, asking if was missing any sheep. Yes they were mine and had been put into a neighbours field, two farms up the valley. This is the second time that I have had to apologise to him in the past few weeks, because of the Sheep.

It is going to be a bit of a job trying to get them back home. As they are Lambs they will be pretty wild and will not be easy herd along the roads back to the farm, they will have a mind of their own and go every where other than the place we want them. The Farmer has got to move his sheep tomorrow, so he is going take them first into the field where my Lambs are, hopefully they will go back to his yard where we can sort them out and return them in a van we have back to Denbury. Being away from their mother for the past week they have weaned themselves, so I will be able to send them to market on Saturday.

The Fox I had on camera on this afternoon, by the Bird feeder, was a bit lucky. The feeder is very close to the farm house. At the time it was feeding, Tass and kye were within a few yards from it, it was only the lie of the path that made it out of sight from the Dogs, who for sure would have chased it if they had seen the Fox.