Spring at the Farm!

Farm spring collage (1)

Yay for Spring! We love Spring on the farm because of all the new arrivals it brings. It’s always so exciting to get the hatchery back open, welcome the newborn lambs, enjoy the longer days and be thankful for the new grass growth and hopefully some sunshine!

Equines

We have to be careful with the new grass growth as our donkeys have a tendency to carry a bit too much weight already! Thankfully we have lots of volunteers who help to keep them moving and keep some of the weight off. We are hoping to do some harrowing demos with the donkeys in the fields this year so watch this space… The horses will be hacked out more regularly as the parkland dries out in preparation for the Cheshire Show in June. We are currently deciding whether to send Sensation back to the stallion this year or not. She didn’t get in foal last year so we may give it another go but we miss her so much when she’s away!

Pigs

Susie our Saddleback had a lovely winter litter of piglets for all our visitors at February half term. Our next pig to farrow is the awesome Luna who is due the Easter weekend. Followed by Bonnie early May and then hopefully Martha at the end of May… We have managed to get the pigs out most days even through the winter months but now they can enjoy some sunshine and they may even revisit the wallow once we get some hotter days!

Sheep

The scan results were in and we were shocked to be told we’re expecting 7 sets of triplets this year! That is a really high percentage in our small flock, we normally only get one or two sets. So we are anticipating lots of pet lambs to hand rear as the ewes only have two teats so often struggle to rear three lambs. Lambing weeks kicks off on 5^th April. Visitors can enjoy regular talks and the possibility of seeing a live lambing. It’s an exhausting but totally rewarding couple of weeks and what says Spring more than skipping lambs?

Cows

Our dairy heifer Gracie and her best friend Hetty are both in calf for next year which is very exciting. Gracie will be the star of the show in our milking demos during high season. We also had a great result for our Red Poll cows with 7 out of 9 of them in calf. They are all due in June and July. We were extremely relieved to get a negative annual TB test recently plus all the cows had a visit from the foot trimmer… pedicures all round!

Goats

After borrowing Oliver the billy goat from another farm we are hoping Honey and Emily will be having some little kids later in the year. The goats will start going out in the field again as the weather improves, they love browsing on all the new leaf growth and regularly escaping of course!

Poultry

The eggs are in the incubator and due to hatch the Easter weekend! We can’t wait to open the hatchery again, Meet The Chicks is one of our most popular activities. We never hatch out chicks until Easter as it’s not fair on them when the weather is cold so it’s always so exciting to welcome our first chicks in Spring.

We are open weekends only 11am - 4pm (last entry 3pm) until 23 March. Please check the website for details.

Newsletter compiled by the Farm Team.