The Farm YearJanuary & Febuary
Our Limousin Farm year starts with our worst weather, as you can see. Our sheep are wintered outside because they do not start lambing until late March. Although they eat a lot when the weather is severe, their wool gives them great protection against the cold and they stay fitter and healthier outside.
At the end of January we have the sheep examined with an ultrasonic scanner to tell us how many lambs each ewe is carrying. This helps us feed the sheep more accurately. A sheep carrying just one lamb will need hardly any extra feed, whereas a sheep carrying twins or triplets, will need 1 kilogram of concentrate feed each day by the time she gives birth.
The cows do not enjoy the severe weather. They require double the food if they are kept out, using all those calories just to keep warm. There are other problems that arise caused by heavy cows all standing around feeding areas. The tractor causes further damage by taking the food to the cows. This in turn can result in welfare problems, especially once baby calves arrive.
For all these reasons, during our second year here, we constructed a new loose housed cow shed. The cows love it , the baby calves love it, and we love it. Now, we can protect the animals from the weather, monitor them properly at calving, and ensure the best start for our calves.
March & April
March and April are when all our lambs and calves are born. We work long hours to watch the safe delivery of all the babies. These babies, after all, will provide the bulk of our income for the coming farm year. The sheep come into the lambing shed to give birth. Once the lambs are strong and feeding well, they go back outside. The best food for good milk production is fresh spring grass.
May & June
Everyone associates chicks with spring, but with the help of an incubator and a heat lamp we can produce chicks all year round.
We rear them in small batches of about 15 to provide us with a year round chicken supply.
Work on the farm turns to making hay and silage for the winter, the weather has warmed up, and all the animals are outside. Our visitors for the campsite start to arrive. Work in the vegetable garden increases. July & August
Summer, children everywhere, all the livestock outside eating grass, the farm is calm. Of course our work turns to the campsite and feeding people instead of animals!
We start to sell our first spring lambs in July.
September & October
This is a fantastic time ofthe farm year, the weather is still hot, but not as intense as in the summer. The light and colours are clear and bright. We make a second harvest of silage.
Our rabbits produce year round. We keep 4 does who produce between 6 and 10 babies each litter. Each doe only goes to the buck once her babies are about 12 weeks old. Rabbits only suckle their babies for 4-5 weeks, so by 12 weeks they are happy to be separated. November & December
As in the rest of northern europe the weather turns wetter, the rams go back with the sheep, and the cows come in. We start to sell the biggest of our calves. The calves we do not sell straight away, we house and grow on a bit longer, for selling in January.
Now that the cows are inside, it is a good chance to mend or renew fences, tidy up fields and spread manure. The tipis are taken down and put into storrage. The yurt can stay up with its jacket on, for the occasional kids sleep over.
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