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.

Wyandotte Chicks Video & Curing update

I thought I would return to the subject I originally set the blog up for.  It's amazing how you can get carried away and write about almost anything.

I have been cleaning the chickens out today.  A mucky job the best of days, but today, although dry it was muddy!  By the time I had finished, I had mud all up my clothes and up my face!  At least I hope it was mud! :-/

I thought I would take the opportunity to let the chicks, Pinky and Perky, have a little free range time around the garden with my other hens, Custard and Pudding.

Last time I did this with Rodney the rooster there was an American Western type standoff between Pudding (the Bluebelle) and Rodney, the Rhode Island Red chick.  Treacle (mummy hen) was trying to act as referee.  To be honest she is better sticking to her day job of laying eggs!

Surprisingly it went rather well.  The chicks are only 8 weeks old, and Custard could not be bothered at all with them.  Pudding came over to them a few times, but left well along.  She had a peck at Treacle, but I think Treacle is used to it!

I took this video of them having a little meander.  You can get a feel for their size quite well.  Its not a long video only 1 minute 20 seconds.

They seem to be doing really well now.  Fingers crossed they are both hens!

I mentioned curing in the post title.  Well, I can't help myself and have to have another go.  So I defrosted some belly pork from my freezer (purchased some time ago from the supermarket).  It's curing now, and I'm sure it will be ok, but nothing compared to the Tamworth meat I have been eating.

I have also started curing a ham/Leg from the Tamworth meat.  I have used exactly the same cure as I used for the bacon.  I think it needs at least 9 days, which would take us to boxing day.  So that could be a nice treat, cooked in cider and then baked in the oven.

I will update my blog when I have made some more progress on these.

Thanks for reading & I hope you enjoy the photos and video.

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!

Smallholders Course at Humble by Nature

Slight detour from hens and eggs today.  Promise I will be back on track next entry.

Kune Kune Pigs (Photo from Wikipedia)

Saturday morning saw me travelling into Monmouthshire to The Humble by Nature farm owned by Kate Humble and Ludo Graham.
Its a fantastic place and very accessible.
They run a variety of courses that cover working with animals, rural skills and food and cookery.  I went to check out the Smallholding course "oink, cluck and baa".
I was not disappointed and would recommend it to anyone with an interest in these areas.  At the same time as learning a great deal and relaxing for the first time in a long time I met up with some brilliant like minded people who owned smallholdings, others that were interested in buying smallholdings and others like me who have chickens and fancy expanding.

Tamworth Pigs (Photo from Wikipedia)

Liz Shankland was running the course and it was a great introduction to smallholding, some of the animals you can keep and some of the regulations and issues to consider before you take the  plunge.

They didn't put me off mind you, however it made me consider some key points, the main one being, if I take on animals do I have a back up plan.  What if I am unable to tend to them due to illness for a period or what if I want to go on holiday?
I can't see a simple answer to this one.
It would be unfair or rely on friends and family constantly.



Cavapoos - Roco & Max

I am aware of a service local to me similar to an animal sitter.  They look after a variety of animals in their own surroundings for people who go on holiday and also provide walking services for dogs.

They will look after hens in your garden and have even offered to look after hens on my allotment in Morganstown
Would they even visit pigs to feed and water?
Even if they would, would it be viable financially?

I suppose if you have a dog you accept that you put them in kennels or take them with you?  Rachel would not want to share our holiday with hens however much I enjoy keeping them or pigs for that matter so I guess, unless you have a friendly farmer or smallholder neighbour, there is very little option but to pay someone.  If you are running a business I guess it's a running cost to factor in when pricing your product.  If they are a hobby or pets then its just like owning a dog!!

If anyone has any other ideas let me know.

Thanks for reading.