Time is flying

Well, time flies when your having fun, that's for sure. We're in the middle of March, my chicks are 2 weeks old feathering up nicely and growing by the day. The quail have regained all feathers and are looking really healthy. My broad beans sown on 17 February are looking great and I have just sown Tomatoes and Peas. It's getting lighter too, at 6pm tonight it was still light, so I'm looking forward to taking advantage of the lighter nights down at the allotment soon to start all the jobs I have been saying I need to do over the past month.

The jobs are stacking up unfortunately, its not just my asparagus bed that needs fertiliser and compost (which should have been completed months ago) or the rhubarb that needs feeding or the ground that needs digging over, but it's the planned chicken enclosure that I last worked on in February that needs attention.

In ten days my next batch of chicks should hatch, 2 cream legbar and 2 vorwork. It has not been the smoothest of incubation periods, with fluctuating humidity, the incubator running out of water and dropping to 10% whilst I was away at a lambing course at Kate's country school in Abergavenny and water droplets forming in the roof of the incubator (high humidity).

Nonetheless in 10 days I will have more chicks to add to the 6 already camping out in the spare bedroom.

Being honest, it's unlikely I will stop there, I would love some ducks. I just have to decide if I want to hatch them or buy a pair or trio for breeding.



I also want to buy a few turkeys this year to raise for Christmas, but without a secure enclosure this is going to be impossible to achieve.


So with the planned expansion I really need to crack on with the enclosure.
The Easter break will hopefully bring some dry weather so that I can camp out for a day or two at the allotment and really gets on top of the jobs.

Jumping ahead of myself here but I have finally found the breed of sheep I would keep.

This little lady below gave me the inspiration and thanks to Twitter friends I managed to establish she was a Balwen Welsh Mountain cross.  So its the Balwen for me with their white socks and white head! :-) If I ever managed to buy or rent land!

Thanks for reading!

Curing Tamworth Ham

My Cured Ham

Well, it was not exactly timed to perfection.  I hoped for a ready cured ham of lovely Tamworth by 26th December 2012.  I did not start it in time unfortunately, so today the 4th January 2013 is the day.

I mentioned recently that I cured some belly pork to make streaky bacon.  This was a huge success and majority of the credit has to go down to the fantastic pork supplied by Liz Shankland at Tudful Tamworths.

I can vouch for the quality of the Tamworth as I have recently cured some supermarket belly pork using the same cure mix bought from www.sausagemaking.org.

Now the cure is great, but the supermarket pork is not nice!  I don't think I have been spoilt, I think I have been shown just what poor taste the fast maturing intensely bred pigs produce. Its no fault of the pigs, it is what we have done due to demand for the cheapest meat ever available.

As you can tell, I am converted to eating quality pork, in fact any quality meat.

I genuinely do not want eat supermarket pork again and would only eat rare breed pork monthly to ensure I am eating a tasty meat and helping in the survival of a rare breed animal.  

So, back to the ham.  I decided to use the bacon cure on a join to try and produce a ham.  It is looking rather good and will be boiled in cider and then baked in the oven in the next day or so. 

I'm sure I will be eating like a king for a while!

Thanks for reading.

Royal Welsh Winter Fair 2012

Two Saddleback's having a cuddle!

I have to be honest, this entry is not 100% poultry related but I hope you enjoy!

I had a great day on Tuesday at the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society's Winter Fair!  Its a two day event, and this year ran from 26th November to 27th November 2012.

I decided to make the effort and go, firstly because the drive up from Cardiff over the Brecon Beacons is beautiful and secondly, there was a poultry show and pig show on the Tuesday.  Two areas I have become very interested in!
As Liz Shankland recently put it, I'm on that slipperly slope into Smallholding!

It really got serious for me when I attended Liz's Smallholding Course at the Humble by Nature farm.  So really I could blame Liz!!! :-)

A great course, and one I would thoroughly recommend.  I have one slight problem in that my back garden can only just cope with 3 young boys under 5 years old along with 5 hens.  So I'm a little stuck until I find land.

Anyway, back to the Winter Fair!  I was fortunate with the weather, dry but cold.  There was ample parking and it seemed very well organised.  I arrived at 11am and had a stroll around the Christmas stalls selling mulled cider, welsh honey and wax candles, cheese, meats, dog treats, everything and anything you could think of and majority if not all stalls were Welsh.  It was to be fair, a fantastic offering and shows how diverse many of small and medium size business's are in Wales.  Its great to see so many still going.

I was keen to get to the animals, if fact as excited as a child, although I seem to get more excited about animals than my 3 boys do. 
I visited the pig's first of all. 

Gloucestershire Old Spot having a snooze

Now I'm not a Welsh speaker, but the first thing I noticed was that Welsh for pig is "Moch".  I made a mental note and thought I can remember that!  That was until I arrived home and discussed this fact with my wife.  My pride at remembering some welsh did in fact take a little dent when Rachel advised me that Pig in welsh can be Moch, Mochyn or Mochin.
I had enough trouble with the English language, but having 3 spellings for pig suggested I may have no chance with Welsh.

Back to the Fair, and there was a variety of pigs on show and on sale, from Gloucester Old Spot's to Middle Whites, and Saddlebacks.  There was also a guess the weight competition for two Tamworths (see below).

They were owned by Barbara Warren who was chair of the Wales and Border Counties Pig Breeders Association.  I had a great time chatting with Barbara, Liz Shankland and Wendy Scudamore who breeds Kune Kune pigs.

All in all, it strengthened my desire and drive to keep and rare breed pigs.  The shortlist is Tamworths, Berkshires and I can't help but like the idea of a couple of Kune Kune's! 

From the pigs I moved onto the poultry show.  There were some lovely birds there, chickens, geese, turkeys, ducks.  Some for sale but majority for show.  I took some photos of a few that caught my eye.

To the left were light sussex bantams I believe.  They were beautiful, and took first place in the any Bantam category!


Below was a cockerel that caught my eye and ear as I got a little to close without ear defenders!!
I'm not sure of the breed to be honest.  I will have to look it up!

This chap on the left  reminded me Christmas coming all to fast.  Gobble Gobble!

Talking of Christmas, every Christmas Fair should have them................................ drum roll please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The reindeer!!

A great way to finish the day and I would recommend that you go along and have a look for yourself.  They hold Spring, Summer and Christmas gatherings, so plenty of opportunity.

Thanks for reading!