New Pig Preparation

The day is fast approaching. Both of our Saddleback gilts were served by Carl the boar back in November. After three months, three weeks and three days we should be proud parents!

So, what exactly do we need to do? I thought it best to prepare a timeline leading up to and after the piglets arriving. I read Tony York's 'Get Started in Pig Keeping' book some time ago. As Tony has set matters out in a straightforward fashion I decided to dig his work out and review it.

One essential point that Tony and our two of our neighbours have stressed is that we leave each pig to farrow, 'it'll know what to do'. There is a risk that piglets could be squashed by their mother however so we need to prepare for that.

Preparation Jobs:

1. Separate the gilts two weeks before (so they can come outside and see each other)
2. Two weeks before the stomach and mammary glands will increase in size
3. Buy a wormer from vet
4. Buy iron sulphate paste from vet
5. Create farrowing areas (refuges for the piglets to stay clear of their mum)
6. Source a creep feed for piglets
7. Rig up infra red heat lamps in each sty
8. Clean the farrowing areas
9. One week before apply a worming treatment
10. Just before farrowing disinfectant the udders
11. Look out for restlessness, even escape attempts - is the area secure?
12. The day before, provide straw for each gilt to build a nest
13. Be prepared to shut the gilts inside
14. Three days before (or closer) the gilts release milk. Gently squeeze their teats to check
15. Check the shape/redness of the vulva; the larger and redder the closer the piglets are
16. Rub iron sulphate on the gilts teats every other day for the piglets to ingest.

Outstanding tasks:

1. Need to identify the best creep feed
2. Find water troughs for piglets
3. Inform vet that the pigs are in pig!

Help the Whitefaced Woodland

The Whitefaced Woodland is one of the largest of the UK’s hill sheep breeds. This handsome, long-lived and prolific breed is hardy and able to thrive on poor quality grazing but pedigree registrations are declining and the unique genetics of the breed are under threat.

Together the Rare Breed Survival Trust (RBST) and the Whitefaced Woodland Sheep Society are taking part in a programme to a) encourage registrations and b) buy a genetically diverse breeding flock.

Any donations would be appreciated; please donate between 6 and 8 December from 10am until 5pm and your donation will be doubled (see below).


To donate go to: http://new.thebiggive.org.uk/project/RBST2012

With fewer than 900 registered breeding ewes remaining the Whitefaced Woodland is in the Vulnerable Category of the RBST 2012 Watchlist. It is suitable for meat and its wool is finer than other hill breeds, taking coloured dyes well.

The Big Give Christmas Challenge is the UK’s largest matched-funding event.

How the Challenge works: the RBST had to identify a project and find £1,000 in pledges. Fortunately RBST Vice-President Lord Iliffe generously donated £1,000. Then an anonymous Big Give Charity Champion – a company, foundation or individual – backed the project to allow funds from the Charity Champion Fund to match the pledges.

The Charity Champion Fund is released in stages over the 3 days 6 to 8 December and the RBST is competing with other charities to secure matched donations from this limited Fund. If the Charity Champion Fund is exhausted, donations continue to be matched 100% from our pledges until our Pledge Fund is exhausted.

Thank you.

Click here to visit the Whitefaced Woodland Sheep Society website.

Click here to visit the RBST website.

Red Sky

A beautiful sunny morning has followed last nights red sky.  The shepherds delight saying comes true more often than not.

Red sunsets are associated with dry, settled weather and high pressure, indicating good weather. The key is in the red sky around the sun and not the colour of the cloud itself.

As the sun rises at a low angle in the east, it may light up the impending clouds associated with a weather front coming in from the west indicating that rain is on its way later in the day, hence the shepherd's warning.

Any sun is welcome now, not just for moral, but the drying/warming effect it has on the land and stock. It's not long before the dark comes around of course and the pigs evening feed now takes place under artificial light.

Relief and Perseverance

Checking the sheep twice daily provides the opportunity to see them going about their normal business. That routine is then more obvious for being broken by a cough, scratching or, in this case, a limp. Number 28 (I really must memorise their names) showed signs of being lame and 'lame sheep are suffering pain' to quote Agnes Winter and Clare Phythian, authors of Sheep Health, Husbandry and Disease.

It's with great relief that, following treatment, Crest (Number 28) has returned to normal and is one of the first to reach a barley treat.

It could have been different. Her lameness was diagnosed (thanks Dave) as Scald, or Interdigital Dermatitis. This infection is caused 'by a common bacterium, Fusobacterium necrophorum, widely present in the environment.' It can infect the sheep when grazing on long wet grass, a scenario made more prevalent with the dew we've woken up to recently let alone the rain showers and there is a risk that the infection can progress to footrot. Treatment was essential and spraying the foot with a blue coloured antibiotic, Terramycin, is a recognised solution among local shepherds.

Now, on a less successful note, bread making... Attempt one, following a simple Delia Smith white loaf recipe, produced something a little doughy in the middle. I diagnosed that as me selecting the wrong oven shelf and cooking the crust too quickly. I'll keep trying...

1.7 and a New Calculation to Ponder

Back in February this year I found myself asking how the equation for quantifying the amount of gravel required for an area had been discovered. And did it work? So far so good; a 14 tonne load was dropped by lorry last week and has been steadily moved by wheel barrow to lie on top of a special mat that allows rainwater to drain away, while preventing any weed growth.

One of our neighbours is selling his Moor Sheep. He was considering their value and mulling over an equation he had heard of.

As opposed to sheep grazing his fields Moor Sheep, which you'd be hard tasked to tell apart from his others, acquire special significance based on a little observed, yet traditional shepherding technique. Hefting has been carried out for generations in various parts of the country, especially in the Lake District. Over decades sheep from certain farms with common grazing rights would always be led to a defined area of land off the farm. Over time the ewes would pass on the area to their lambs and this knowledge would pass through generations of offspring.

The technique and the knowledge bank of the hefted flock was badly damaged by the foot and mouth outbreak in 2001. A DEFRA report (http://tinyurl.com/ckrsudn) also details market pressures which have meant the decline of the practice. Still, locally, sheep that run on the Moor acquire a unique value:

market value + £8 + 10% of market value

But the question that needs answering first is: what is market value? And which market, Malton, Ruswarp..? Just a small amount of latitude for disagreement there. 

September Heat

It's been ages since I collected my thoughts and recorded them here. I blame the end of the football season; my usual routine was to listen to games on the radio and get on with research and writing on-line. Tonight's England demolition of Moldova certainly isn't captivating but it forms the sound track to me getting back (hopefully) into the blog habit.

A lot has and hasn't happened since my last post in March. We haven't had a summer for a start... Thankfully more recently we've had a dry spell of weather and that's enabled a good run of work, including a program of major earthworks.

I often say I have a list of 27 things to do, but I actually had a list of 27 jobs for the three tonne digger and three tonne dumper I hired last month. Some tasks were easily crossed off the list, for example collecting up broken stone gateposts from gateways across the farm. Not only does that remove a hazard for stock (and us), but grass couldn't grow where they lay. Not a major loss, but an attention to detail matter that was easily dealt with, with the equipment we had.

Plenty of drainage jobs were done, but the most time consuming tasks were to landscape the veg plot, spread the soil produced previously by work on our house and filling depressions in fields left by sheds long since demolished. The latter was essential prior to our Front field being ploughed at some point in the future. The picture shows the second terrace taking shape.



We've gathered together a number of railway sleepers and we'll recycle these as raised beds, using a good heap of top soil set aside for that purpose. The first retaining wall, visible running up from the bottom right corner of the above picture, is set on concrete and is constructed from modern blocks and stone. This will prevent the land shifting toward the house had it had done in the past, to the point where at points along its length the earth was five feet high against the building. The next wall will be a traditional dry stone construction, subject no doubt to local comment/sarcasm as we build it!

The Weight of a Pig

Pigs produce pork and bacon cuts at different weights as they grow. A pork pig might weigh around 60 to 75 kilograms and left to gain weight for bacon it would reach around 90 to 120 kilograms. But how do you know when your pigs reach these weight ranges? In our case we don't have an expensive set of livestock scales and that challenge would be familiar to many smallholders today.

The answer lies in the following equation, courtesy of thepigsite.com:

• Measure the Heart Girth in metres (around the body of the pig behind its front legs
• Measure the Length of the pig in metres (from its ears to its tail)
• Square the Heart Girth to get the Girth Result
• Multiply the Girth Result by the Length and multiply that by 69.3
• The result is the weight of the pig in kilograms.

The largest of our three British Saddleback pigs weighs 100 kilograms and I think its ready to go to the butcher. We have a choice of three to pick from, but one, Glaves and Sons, stands out for two reasons, for one, they package and label the cuts individually and two a pig farmer we know heartily recommended them. The next step is to revise the DEFRA procedure for taking stock off the farm.