Tag: farm

Full Steam Ahead Post Covid-19 Lockdown.

Posted on by holly
Good To Go
Covid-19 Good To Go accreditation

Staycations in Devon are certainly in demand! Since getting the announcement that we could re-open on the 4th July things have been a little hectic around here! July 2020 is going to go down as one to be remembered (and 2020 all round to be honest). As soon as it became clear that certain hospitality sectors (including us) would be allowed to re-open their doors enquiries and bookings began to come in. We were busy making sure that we were fully up to speed on the (ever changing) Covid-19 guidelines, purchasing the approved cleaners and anti-viral products and making sure we had our Visit Britain ‘Good To Go’ certificate

. Being ‘green’ it felt important to make sure whatever we used not only met the requirements but would also neutralise quickly and be friendly to our environment. This in itself took quite a lot of homework! Anyway, we are now fully back into swing of things and delighted to have guests back with us enjoying some much-needed respite after the last few months.

July is National picnic month, so I am told. We are lucky to have a few corners and spots our guests can wander to if they feel inclined to take the meals a little further to enjoy a picnic here. Even more though, Devon as a whole has an abundance of wonderful places to visit and enjoy a picnic with a view. You can choose from beach, moors or rivers, National Trust gardens and any number of other locations for the perfect spot. Maybe you’ll fancy one of the local national trust properties for a picnic. https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/days-out/regionsouthwest/devon

Highland lady.
Arrival of our Highland cows.

We have also just passed cow appreciation day last week. It happened to coincide with our long held plan for a couple of hairy bovine friends finally coming together. We have found a pair of little Highland cows who have today become residents of the sheep fields. They are unlikely to interact with guests much as they are 7 year old ladies who are not used to being petted but they are rather lovely and their woolly calves are also fun to watch. We hope that our lovely guests will enjoy this latest addition when they have settled in. Before they were able to move home it is compulsory to have them ‘pre-movement tested’ to make sure the are clear of bovine Tuberculosis (TB) so we had a lull waiting for the all clear from the vets before we could get them. See when you can visit them on the booking calendars at https://www.hollywaterholidays.co.uk/availability-booking/

In other business, we are weather watching this week as the plan is to cut the far meadow for hay imminently. This will all change if it does not look like we will have a good dry spell to allow it to dry out properly before baling. It is important to us to get a cut at some point in order to have winter hay for the sheep. They will get through a lot of it while they are housed for lambing in October and November. It is also important to know that in the event of a bad winter and heavy snow we have plenty to take to them in the fields. It doesn’t happen every year here but the risk of having no hay ready is not worth taking so fingers are crossed for some lovely sunshine this week. We usually do our hay in June but it was not a very settled month this year and we didn’t want to chance it.

Another year, another lambing cycle.

Posted on by holly

Lambing time is on our minds. As we are quite focused on our sheep at the moment, I thought I’d tell you a little about their year.

Polled Dorset ewes
Polled Dorset ewes

We are not typical sheep farmers. The family farm is actually predominantly a diary farm but Iain and I have a flock of 150 pedigree Dorset breeding ewes. We have some Polled Dorsets and also some Dorset Horns. Unlike most sheep farmers we don’t have our main lambing time in the Spring but we lamb our main flock in October and November. This works well for us as it fits in nicely with the cows for winter grazing when the milking ladies are housed. We sometimes also lamb a few youngsters that we have kept on to join our breeding flock in January. Least said about the ‘inadvertent’ summer lambing the better but suffice to say that the ram/s do manage to get out for a day visit occasionally, hence having 15 just lambed now with beautiful summer babies!

To lamb in October, we are already starting our breeding year now. We try to condense our lambing period into about 4 weeks so we want to know that our ewes are ready for breeding when the rams arrive. To do this we send in some harmless testosterone for at least a fortnight before introducing the rams as this helps them to begin ‘cycling’. Obviously, we don’t actually want them to get in lamb at this stage so the visiting testosterone is in the form of our Lucky ram who has had a vasectomy, commonly know as a ‘Teaser’ ram.  A ewe’s gestation period is approximately 145 days which I tend to think of it as 5 months less 1 week. This year our rams went in on 19th May so we will be expecting lambs from the 12th October (although you often get one or two a little early).

Dorset Horn ewe
Dorset Horn ewe.

When the rams go in with the ewes we put a special harness on them which carries a coloured crayon (you can also use a paste painted directly on to the rams chest). This is called raddle and when the ram serves a ewe the crayon will mark her back so when we check the sheep we can see which ewes have been mated. We change the colour part way through so we then know whether the ewe was mated early or late and have a rough idea when she should lamb. On arrival in the field the rams quickly have a swarm of ewes checking them out!

After their month with the rams the ladies will have a quiet time when we will only do essential management and we’ll keep our fingers crossed. After the rams have been out for at least 6 weeks we will have the scanner come to visit. He will see how many lambs each ewe is carrying so we can make sure they get the right feeding rations to stay fit and healthy in the run up to lambing when the fun really starts! I’ll tell you all about that another day. 😊

Having a Wild Time!

Posted on by holly

Wildlife on the farm is bathed in sunshine here in Devon. The Sun continues to shine this week and although the farm could really do with some rain, I do love the sunshine.

In recognition of World Environment Day which is on Friday 5th June, so just a few days away, I thought I’d tell you about some of the local wildlife we are lucky enough to have seen just recently.

A curious cub examining the camera.
Curious fox cub examining the camera.

Shortly after the start of lockdown Iain stumbled across a family of fox cubs and after some time sitting and also deploying my basic motion sensitive camera, we managed to get some video footage and a few nice stills of these little characters which I have shared on our facebook page https://www.facebook.com/hollywaterholidays. They are now virtually impossible to get a glimpse of.

Silage season is always a good time to spot some of our wild inhabitants and as well as the unusual visits from the red kites I mentioned before we usually get a sighting or two of hares. I love hares and as we are a livestock farm and they prefer crops we don’t have a lot of them. Unfortunately, I never caught the one we saw late one evening on camera but it always makes me happy to know there are still a few about. Rabbits, on the other hand are plentiful on the farm and seeing them is very common indeed. At the moment there are many about of assorted sizes as breeding will have started some time ago now and subsequent litters are also out and about.

Our bird feeders outside the huts are emptied at super speed by their visitors. Having set my camera there on day last week I had confirmation of what we already thought that the squirrels probably consume most of the contents but it was also nice to see both the male and female Greater Spotted Woodpecker paying a visit. We know they raise at least 2 young last year. Also an assortment of small birds.

Grey Heron on the river bank.
Grey Heron

Holly Water river, at the bottom of the field is a lovely spot and a couple of years ago Iain caught a glimpse of a kingfisher on it.  I set the camera and (amongst hundreds of shots when the camera was set off by moving leaves!) I managed to get a snippet of electric blue and orange diving! We also have a pair of grey herons who live by the river and have obliged with a photo now and again. Guests have also spotted their nest high in a tree on the river bank below the huts.

We are really so lucky to live here and have the opportunity to watch, enjoy and learn from all of these other residents. Wildlife on the farm offers us and our guests a real opportunity to connect with nature and for this I am truly grateful.

 

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