As much as I miss the presence of the pigs on our plot, there’s still a fair amount of excitement at the Smallholdings on receiving those vast boxes of porcine delights – joints, sausages, tenderloin… James headed to the farm shop-cum-butchers on Saturday morning to load up the car with this sizeable feast. Alison, CL’s Food and Drink Editor, came over with her husband Keith to pick up their half pig’s-worth and seemed delighted with it – arranging the vacuum-packed cuts on our kitchen table and Tweeting the picture below.
I enjoyed playing shop on Monday when I headed up to CL HQ with the vast amount of sausages my colleagues had ordered in tow, temporarily taking over the office fridge. James and I had great fun weighing and pricing them all on Sunday. It seems to fulfil a fundamental human need to produce and sell. Everyone is so appreciative of the fact they can partake in our piggy offerings, which is also rather rewarding. And, at the same time, we are delighted to have our hobby subsidised. Next week, I’ll be delivering the bacon, which we’re collecting tomorrow, though we’ve also one piece of belly that we’ve layered with sea salt and sugar in a box – our first attempt at streaky rashers for home consumption (following Alison’s advice in her fantastic book A Country Cook’s Kitchen).
Perhaps just as pleasing is the fact that our other Araucanas seem to have joined Margot in resuming egg production this week, too. James found a beautiful pale-khaki egg in the large flock’s nesting box, which must be the handiwork of one of our previously non-laying (presumed lazy) black Araucanas (pictured below). And even Audrey, who we thought had retired altogether, has delivered two pale-blue beauties.
So it’s definitely a cooked breakfast for us this Sunday – bring on the homegrown bangers, rashers and eggs.
You can hardly tell our porkers apart now, which is a real triumph for James who’s been taking the time every morning and evening before and after work to feed them separately. While Porky pig’s been on a diet in a bid to lose a few pounds (he was looking distinctly flabby a few weeks back), Skinny and Naughty are siphoned off into a corrugated-iron enclosure to have slightly more than their recommended daily portion so they can play catch up and eat in peace, without their greedier brother pushing them out of the way for extras. Devoted to the cause – no doubt inspired by the bacon and sausages he’s going to enjoy as a result – James spends a good 15 minutes each time watching over them to ensure that Skinny and Naughty are playing fair and don’t chance their trotters and escape into the garden.
So, now they’ve more or less equalised, we’re expecting to take them to the abattoir the week after next. Alison, Country Living’s Food and Drink Editor, and her husband Keith will be coming to collect their half pig the following weekend and we’ll enjoy delivering a fair amount of meat to friends and family, too.
Still, there will also be a tinge of sadness when we head down the garden and see the empty arks and all is quiet – no enthusiastic grunting or waiting at the fence for a fuss. It’s been a pleasure keeping Oxford Sandy & Blacks and we can see why many other smallholders are so smitten with the breed. So no doubt we’ll be collecting another miniature herd of these ‘plum pudding’ pigs in the not-too-distant future, but only once we feel able to tackle more fencing as the next ones will need to be kept on fresh land. With the nitrogen-rich run going spare, we’re tempted to grow a crop such as fodder beet and store it as extra sustenance for porcine residents. But we’ll see… We’re good at coming up with these plans and trying to fit too much into our precious spare time, like a lot of people! Happy weekends all.
The pigs had their way with the elder tree in the end. On Sunday morning, we discovered that it had been well and truly felled. Apart from the quite remarkable strength that must have been used to perform the feat (if only we had a pig cam – we could have witnessed the event), what was most surprising about this strange vision was how shallow the victim’s roots were, though I’ve since discovered this is a common feature of the species. We’d been determined to preserve the tree due to it being an attractive feature in the garden, the shelter it provided to porcine residents and their feeders, and that we had always intended to pick its flowers to make cordial and bubbly. Our attempts to safeguard it included electric fencing and posts strung with strands of barbed wire, but the porkers simply stepped through any defence that came in their way.
The mightiness of the pigs is the theme of the week as Skinny pig (formerly misnamed Bully) continues to flex his muscles by turning his ark a full 180 degrees on a regular basis. James is baffled as to how he achieves this in the knee-deep mud that surrounds it.
Skinny pig communes with the flock
We think both instances of brute force are probably down to boredom, sadly – the trio have well and truly cleared their run of vegetation and seem to be looking for other forms of amusement. It won’t be long before they head off to the abattoir, but James is worried that their next project might be trying to escape – not only had Naughty and Porky knocked over the elder, but they’d burrowed under part of the fence. So, in a belt and braces approach, he might be running a strand of electric wire around the bottom of the boundary this Sunday, just in case!
No doubt, smallholders up and down the country have similar chores in mind for the day of the rest. Whatever your plans for the weekend – enjoy!
James and I enjoyed the considerably less arduous task of clearing and tidying the potting shed at the weekend
Bully, who should really be known as Skinny pig, is shaping up nicely in his separate bachelor-style pad for one. The fact that he has a meal to himself twice a day – and an extra helping to build him up – means that Porky pig can’t muscle in and eat more than his fair share, denying Bully his rightful ration. In fact, our slimmer Oxford Sandy & Black seems to have come into his own in general. Not only does he appear to be perfectly happy in his own company and is merrily piling on the pounds, but he has even mustered the strength to turn his ark around 180 degrees, so the opening is directly opposite that of Naughty and Porky. Presumably, so he can keep an eye on their comings and goings. James discovered this on his day off yesterday and filled the newly appointed accommodation with straw, as the previous lot ended up dragged through the mud.
We took another delivery of fresh straw at the weekend – this winter being so wet, we’ve got through quite a bit
He’s filling out well, while Porky is losing a few extra pounds and Naughty is catching up, so it will be just a couple of weeks before the trio are ready for the abattoir. The Oxford Sandy & Blacks have been a joy to keep and we’re very tempted to recruit more for our next miniature herd, but there are so many kinds of pigs out there to try! Still, it seems a little tasteless to discuss such matters just yet, while we still have our lovely trio charging about, so I’ll save that topic for another time. Happy weekends all!
Porky (left) and Naughty are getting on nicely in their plot for two
Our hybrid flock in the considerably colder winter of 2012-3
During a great few days of holiday over Christmas, in between the bursts of festivities, James cracked on with the Henmobile – the new home for our main laying flock, who currently reside at the end of the garden. Since losing three of our birds to an illness called Marek’s due to, what we think must be, diseased ground (we’ve kept chickens on the same patch for eight years and the mild autumn meant bugs weren’t killed off but incubated), we decided that a moveable coop was the answer. And it’s coming along nicely. First, James made a chassis having ordered four wheels and bought the right lengths and widths of wood to make a frame for the base. Then we put together the various panels of an ordinary pent-style shed he’d pre-painted in a pleasing mix of sage green and cream. It went up on Saturday surprisingly quickly and now all that’s required is a felt roof, a nesting box, perches and a shelter where the hens can feed and keep dry, which we’ll produce over the next couple of weekends. We’ve rather enjoyed simply wheeling it around the garden and when he had completed the chassis, James climbed aboard and used it like a skateboard to glide past the kitchen window and amuse me. At first we thought we could simply roll it up and down along the same lines of the garden, but by applying a little pressure either side of the rear when pushing we can place it anywhere we like. It’s going to be rather good fun – I only hope that Jeffrey, the Araucana cockerel, and the girls take to it as much as we have.
Another task for this weekend is to create a separate area in the pig run, where we can feed Porky Pig, our largest Oxford Sandy & Black, a smaller ration than his considerably slimmer counterparts. We decided against putting him in the old-fashioned pigsty by the house in case he became distressed at being parted from his brothers, so hit on the idea of luring him into a fenced-off section of the plot during mealtimes, which should do the trick of evening out our porkers before they go to the abattoir at the end of this month. So, plenty of smallholding activity to be getting on with! Anyone planning new accommodation, livestock or anything else for 2015? In the meantime, a Happy New Henkeeping Year all.
The pigs have done very nicely out of the hundreds of apples friends and family members have donated to us over the past few months. The trio have benefitted from at least two each every day (and, ultimately, we believe this also gives their pork a sweet flavour) until the last couple of weeks when supplies have started to dry up and the lower parts of trees are bare of fruit. So when we used James’ work pick-up truck to collect straw from a local farm the other day, he seized the opportunity to drive down a nearby lane and stand on top of the bales to access those otherwise out-of-reach loaded branches. We gathered a fantastic haul – and attracted some startled looks from passers by.
The act of scrumping is rather moreish once you start, isn’t it? I suppose it gives us a sense of self-sufficiency and connects us to our ancestors to whom it was common practice. James and I picked up some lovely lengths of holly complete with berries on Sunday for use in our Christmas wreath this weekend and felt a similar enjoyment in the simple activity.
Odd how some years are great for certain fruits and terrible for others. There was barely a single acorn to give the pigs this autumn, but last year they feasted on them. Curiouser and curiouser. Has anyone else been foraging on behalf of their livestock? Would love to know what other wild foods pigs and chickens enjoy. In the meantime, happy weekends all.
The plan to move our chickens onto healthier ground is progressing nicely. James and I have settled on the idea of a coop on wheels, so we can move it around the garden, which has the additional benefit of outwitting the rodents that keep plaguing us and our flock. We put chicken food away every night yet they continue to tunnel into the undercover runs. James set a hen-safe trap the other day and claimed that his quarry was the size of a small dog (although I’m taking that with a pinch of salt). So, we’re hoping that a mobile henhouse will solve a variety of problems. We loved the look of the readymade ones available but didn’t want to fork out what was looking like £1,000-plus on poultry accommodation. So, DIY is the way forward, and we have ordered a 5′ x 7′ shed. This weekend we’ll be selecting wheels and tyres and James will be seeking out a suitable axle to fit them. It’ll come to around half the cost of buying one off the peg.
Audrey and Margot are thick as thieves, so will they mix?
We’re even considering consolidating our flocks – it seems like madness that we’ve Margot and Audrey in a coop and run by themselves. They’d be on healthier ground free of rodents if we invited them to join the others, though I’m slightly concerned they could feel stressed in a big group. Audrey’s only ever had one friend to live with – Margot now and Mabel before her. Something to mull over, anyway. We also plan to have fewer hens overall. As our older girls pass on, we’ve decided not to replace every one as a smaller flock will mean it’s easier to keep an eye on each chicken’s health and treat them for worms and parasites.
Over in the porcine world, our attempts to prevent the trio of Oxford Sandy & Blacks destroying the elder tree in their run have failed. They scoffed at the barbed wire barricade, which we considered to be very off-putting, and – naturally – it was naughty pig that I spotted stepping through the gap between the strands to carry on digging and chewing through the roots. So, sadly, electric fencing is the next option and James is setting that up today. The elder is not only precious for its flowers and fruits, but also for the shelter it affords the pigs. The ground under its branches is often the driest spot for sprinkling their feed or apples. Silly things. My sister pointed out very wisely that they may be nibbling at the bark for good reason – perhaps it has a health benefit. I’d be really interested to hear if anyone knows if this is the case…? In the meantime, happy smallholding all.
Ever the gentleman, Jeffrey steps back from the corn, even though he loves being fed from the scoop itself. Such a star. Note our chocolate Labrador Megan sniffing around for eggs in the background
It’s time for an overhaul at the Smallholdings. We’ve been keeping our main flock in the same, albeit large, run for what we realise is seven years. A combination of all the rain we’ve been having and the mild weather this autumn means it must have become the perfect breeding ground for all kinds of ailments and pests. We’re also battling very persistent rats. When we first installed the coop and fenced the area, it seemed more than large enough for our layers, but we were soon proved wrong when the grass was scratched and pecked away and the pen became pure mud. And, of course, our flock grew as demand for eggs increased among friends, family and colleagues, adding to the wear and tear.
The catalyst for making changes now is that it turns out that our black Araucana had Marek’s disease – and we now realise that Rhodie, who James had to dispatch a fortnight ago, had the same complaint. We’d misdiagnosed water on the brain, but her symptoms – which included disorientation, weak legs that eventually gave way and a dropped wing – all point to the same illness. Unfortunately, there is no cure, so we decided the kindest thing to do was put our young black Araucana out of her misery last weekend, too. So Sunday evening was rather gloomy for both James and I – we loved that friendly little hen. Still, the silver lining was that we had discovered a very helpful forum through which we found out what the complaint was. Despite my misgivings about the helpfulness of such online groups, we joined Backyard Chickens and posted our question. Just a couple of hours later, we received a reply from two knowledgeable users. This will prove very handy in the future, too.
As far as the Smallholdings’ makeover is concerned, we’re considering a range of options, from moving the flock up to our spare henhouse and just letting them free-range around the garden every day to buying a shed and putting it on wheels to move it around our plot (helpfully, James runs a garage so has access to the right tools for dealing with axels and such). Of course, both ideas have the disadvantage of not having a secure fencing-dug-under run, but with that you can also end up in the mess in which we find ourselves now. I know there are ways to get round this problem, such as digging over the soil with a disinfectant but, realistically, I can see that job remaining regularly undone on the weekend list of chores. We like to think that – while touching all things wooden, of course – the scent of our three dogs and the secure fencing around our perimeter will mean foxes and other predators aren’t a problem. If anyone has some views about this, I’d love to hear them.
On the bright side of things, Jeffrey continues to crow beautifully but remains friendly and fond of a stroke or two. His porcine neighbours seem to be evening up a bit weight-wise, too. Bully pig is looking almost as large as Porky pig, while Naughty pig still has a little way to go (held back by his brief illness, no doubt). So, no need to isolate Porky in a kind of health farm setup after all. We managed to fence in the elder tree they were uprooting last weekend. It wasn’t the most pleasant job in the rain but was a fairly simple case of driving four fence posts in the ground and tacking three strands of barbed wire to them. It seems to have done the trick and hopefully saved the tree.
A couple of dry days have improved life on the Smallholdings no end – not so much slipping around in the boggy ground for the porkers, chickens or us – and tomorrow James and I will be hatching plans for moving the hens. Onwards and upwards, as they say. Happy weekends all.
Off to a cottage on the west Wales coast this Saturday with James and the three dogs for a much-anticipated holiday, but still a little anxious about leaving our miniature herd of Oxford Sandy & Blacks behind (though I think it would be stretching the cottage owner’s goodwill a little to take them with us). James’ sister Mandy is kindly coming to house-sit and look after the chickens, porkers and cat for us. So, we spent all day on Sunday heightening security in the run, lowering the strand of barbed wire we have running around the bottom of the stock fence and adding two more lines higher up to deter the weaners from pushing their snouts against the fence and rootling around at the bottom (which is how one broke for freedom the other day).
Unfortunately, even though we’d distracted them with an earlier-than-usual feed, one of the trio sidled up to James and bit his thigh at which he leapt up and shouted in shock. Thankfully, even though the sharp teeth drew blood and left a distinctly porcine tooth mark on his leg, his jeans weren’t actually torn and so there was no need for a tetanus jab or anything of that kind. We also visited a local farm to buy some more drinkers. The owner once ran a pig farm and so has a whole shed full of proper old cast-iron Mexican hat-style designs.
There was also a trough that looked ideal for sheep, which James snapped up for its proper farm look – we’re hoping to keep a small flock at some stage in the future.
After a good scrub, they were good to go. The idea is that Mandy won’t have to go into the run and risk getting hurt or knocked over – the trio love nothing better than batting us between them lately as we attempt to get from one side of their pen to the other. With three to contend with, it’s a job to stay on your feet, especially when they’re hungry. If we space out the five big drinkers so the pigs don’t muddy them, it should be possible to fill one at a time during the week using the hose on the garden side of the fence – that way they won’t need cleaning out, but the porkers will always have fresh water. Equally, food can be poured into the feeder from the outside. All should be well, but we’ll be leaving contact details for Rachel, the vet who came out to tend to the poorly pig the other day, just in case there is a porcine emergency. Do hope that the cheeky young scamps will behave themselves beautifully and Mandy won’t have any dramas to deal with and we don’t receive any alarming middle-of-the-night phone calls… Trotters crossed. Happy weekends all.
One of our old brown hens clearly thought it was worth following the food, too
I’m happy to say that poorly pig has made a full recovery – in fact, he’s in such fine fettle that he celebrated his return to health by breaking out of his run and heading all the way up the garden on Sunday night. Just as we were winding down that evening and getting ready for the week ahead, James sped indoors while I was washing up at the kitchen sink and coolly asked me to look out of the window towards our five-bar gate. There rootling around was our not-so-poorly pig, free-ranging like it’s never done before. The reason James hadn’t panicked as soon as he saw the porcine runaway is that, having experienced the same phenomenon with our Gloucestershire Old Spots last Boxing Day, we know full well that you can shake a little of their food in a container and they’ll follow you anywhere. Needless to say, however, we decided that the household chores could wait, and nipped outside to coax the little fella back to join the other two Oxford Sandy & Blacks who we’re watching with interest by the time we reached the run.
The two fellow OSBs enjoyed spectating as we walked their brother back
He more or less obliged, with a few diversions along the way, including a trot around the chicken run. Once he was back in the enclosure we set to work examining the boundaries for the area from which he broke out. It turned out that he’d dug under the lower strands of barbed wire near the feeder, where it is slightly higher than the rest, and seemingly miraculously slid out under the spikes and stock fencing to freedom. Surprisingly, his brothers didn’t attempt to do the same, but that could well be down to the fact he’s a fraction slimmer. James headed up to the barn to pick up the necessary tools to lower the barbed wire and stick metal pegs into the bottom of the stock fencing in a belt-and-braces approach. I returned to the kitchen and headed down with a mug of tea after around half an hour to yet again find the same cheeky porker at large in the garden. We figured that in the few minutes while James had collected the necessary paraphernalia, not-so-poorly pig had chanced his trotters again and made his escape. A lure of more pellets and he was back in through the gate. We watched as he tested out James’s handiwork and were satisfied to see him fail in his attempts to elude us and the fence. But since then he’s pulled out the pegs and is clearly still interested in breaking out, so we’re feeling a little anxious as next weekend we’re heading to Pembrokeshire for a week’s holiday and James’s sister has kindly agreed to small-hold the fort. We don’t want any escapee porcine characters causing her any undue stress – we’re hoping for pleasant weeks in the countryside for us all. So James and I are having a security summit on Sunday to guarantee there’ll be no gaps our miniature herd can wend their way through. Any tips for outwitting these clever creatures would be appreciated!
Meanwhile, Star Animal of the Week is lavender Araucana Margot, whose industrious nature continues to delight us. Not only has she not stopped laying (as so many of her breed do from September to February), but she is producing her stunning pale-blue eggs on a daily basis, brightening up the boxes we give friends and family no end. I think we’ll be recruiting more of her type into our flock – being a ‘cuckoo’ number, which describes her stripey plumage, she’s not considered to meet the breed standard, but we wonder whether that also means she hasn’t been overbred and can therefore knock out so many prettily-shelled beauties. Whatever the reason, we’re all for her in these lean-yield times!
As much as I miss the presence of the pigs on our plot, there’s still a fair amount of excitement at the Smallholdings on receiving those vast boxes of porcine delights – joints, sausages, tenderloin… James headed to the farm shop-cum-butchers on Saturday morning to load up the car with this sizeable feast. Alison, CL’s Food and Drink Editor, came over with her husband Keith to pick up their half pig’s-worth and seemed delighted with it – arranging the vacuum-packed cuts on our kitchen table and Tweeting the picture below.
THE GARDEN FARMERS 