25th May

Hi All

Hope you have all had a great week and the weather has ok. The farmer I help, Tim, has started shearing. Tim is one of the first farmers in the area to shear his sheep and one of the first to get his wool off to the British Wool Board. I love shearing because I get to jump on the wool sacks to pack the fleeces in tight. I love seeing the ewes with their fleeces off and looking neat and tidy. On Monday I will be helping Tim to shear about 200 ewes. My job will ether be pushing them up to the shearers or take the lambs off the ewes so they don't get mixed up when the ewes get shorn.

Over the next few weeks I will be giving you the latest results from the major shows.

Over the past week there have been a couple of shows. There was a great turn out of all different types of livestock. I was really pleased to know that my good friend Sandy Fraser won the sheep interbreed with his Suffolks. So here we go:

Newark and Nottingham show:
Sheep interbreed
Champion: Sandy Fraser of Scunthorpe. Sandy won with his homebred Suffolk Shearling Ram.
Reserve Champion: Frank Rushton with his Texel Shearling Ewe.

Cattle Interbreed
Champion: Smiths of Bloxham with their great Limousin bull calf.
Reserve Champion: A South Devon cow and calf outfit from A and C Farm's, of the Langham Herd.

Dairy Interbreed
Champion: A Jersey cow from Abi Sercombe.
Reserve Champion: A Holstein cow from Holdcroft and Sons, Burton on Trent.

Pig Interbreed
Champion: A Tamworth sow from Stuart Roberts.

Balmoral Show:
Sheep Interbreed
Champion: Texel ewe from Mr Alastair Gault's flock in Newtownavvey, Antrim. It was a lovely ewe.
Reserve Champion: Was a Charolais from Mrs Diane Christie's flock in Comber, Newtownards, Co Down.

Cattle Interbreed
Champion: A Limousin heifer Millbrook Ginger Spice from William Smith
Reserve Champion: A Charolais heifer Cornascriebe Flo from Mr James A Watson.

Pig Interbreed
Champion: A Large White gilt - Glenmarshal Dainty Lady - from Mr Trevor Shields.
Reserve Champion: A Middle White junior boar - Ginnington Captain 2 - from Rebecca Gregg.

I am very sorry if I do not mention your show please email me on

hanleysuffolks@gmail.com and I will mention it in the next blog.

Hope you are all ok.
Jack

Ask Jack

I have had a question from somebody asking me about one of their lambs: 'One of our lambs would appear to have her back legs longer than her front legs, and stands with her legs tucked underneath her. She doesn't jump around like the others. Have you had any problems like this?'I spoke to my grandfather who informed me that it sounds like a deformity. I have never had this problem but I am sure it is not too serious especially if it is not having trouble feeding. If you want more advice ask your vet who will give you more in-depth answer and they are much more qualified than me.

I have also had a comment from Annie and in reply, I think it must be raining all over the place! I will not be entering the Three Counties Show for two reasons. Firstly I don't consider my ewes to be good enough and secondly I am a ring steward at the show on Saturday and Sunday. This means I ensure all the corrrect sheep are in the ring and ready for the judge. I then help present the prizes and make sure all the results are recorded correctly. Over the Three Counties weekend I will be giving you a diary account of how it went, who won and why I like stewarding. Which show are you hoping to show at and what are you hoping to show?

Hope to speak to you soon.

Jack
www.hanleysuffolks.blogspot.com

A touch of gardening

14th May

Hi All

What a great weekend. These past few days have been wonderful. It has rained at night but been lovely in the day, great growing conditions.

On Thursday the Malvern Spring Gardening Show started in typical British weather ... rain!! Never mind, people still flocked to the show. BBC Gardeners World were recording their show and on Friday it was shown on BBC2. It really showed off the show well and together with the beautiful sunshine, there was a bumper weekend crowd. The mud had gone and the roads were packed. As I cycled along the road home from school on Friday I had never seen as many buses full of ladies and gentlemen heading back on to the M5.

On Sunday the mud was no where to be seen and I decided to go to the show. My mum works at the show so I cycled over and met her for lunch. You probably don't know but I love gardening as well as farming. Any time I go to a garden centre I will buy seeds or plants and start growing and planting. I bought quite a bit at the show and came home and started potting up. It was a nice suprise for Mum when she got home that night!

In farming you need to know about horticulture and agriculture because you need to know what seeds to plant, when to plant and how to do it. I've tried to learn from my relatives and I also read gardening books.

My ewes are looking great and the lambs are growing very well, not long now until they are ready to sell.

I would like to here from you and what you would like to know about.
Speak soon
Jack

8th May

Hi All

What a horrible week. I have had exams all week and to make matters worse it has not stopped raining. As a farmer I should not complain about the rain but it is horrible. I know a local farmer who has silage ready to be cut in the next few weeks but the river that runs next to the field has flooded. It needs to stop right now and if we then get some sun, there will be grass everywhere.

In the field where the ewes and lambs live, we use an electric fence which splits the field in half. The lambs get through the fence even throw it is "electric". This means that they are not with their mothers, so the ewes go to fing them and they push through the fence too. The ewes can then get tangled up in the fence and it causes mayhem. So we have now decided to put a new permanent fence up. This will separate the field properly.

I have had a comment on my blog from A. M:This is an amazing project! We're doing the same thing with a couple of orphans rearing them on the bottle and will sell them when they reach the right weight. Do you do this by yourself? It's just what I want to do, I'm helping with lambing at the Scottish Agricultural Colllege, and I'm completely obsessed. It's great to know that there are likeminded people my age out there!!! Good luck, and a brilliant blog!

Thank you Annie for your very kind comments. I am really pleased that you are another person starting up in farming. There are not many young people who want to start farming as it is a hard and time consuming job. Make sure you pick the right place to sell your lambs, and make sure you watch the trends in the prices for a couple of weeks before you plan to sell.
As usual send me some more questions and I will try my best to answer them. I will be attending the Spring Gardening Show next week at the Three Counties Showground. It is a great event that I go to every year.I will be buying some flowering plants to brighten up the garden when the rain stops! My main interest in the garden is vegetables. I grow tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers, lettuces, cabbages, beetroot, rhubarb, carrots and peas. Mum loves me growing vegetables!

Hope you are all well.
Jack

Fencing

Hi All

What a horrible week. I have had exams all week and to make matters worse it has not stopped raining. As a farmer I should not complain about the rain but it is horrible. I know a local farmer who has silage ready to be cut in the next few weeks but the river that runs next to the field has flooded.  It needs to stop right now and if we then get some sun, there will be grass everywhere.

In the field where the ewes and lambs live, we use an electric fence which splits the field in half. The lambs get through the fence even throw it is "electric". This means that they are not with their mothers, so the ewes go to fing them and they push through the fence too. The ewes can then get tangled up in the fence and it causes mayhem. So we have now decided to put a new permanent fence up. This will separate the field properly.

I have had a comment on my blog from A. M: This is an amazing project! We're doing the same thing with a couple of orphans rearing them on the bottle and will sell them when they reach the right weight. Do you do this by yourself? It's just what I want to do, I'm helping with lambing at the Scottish Agricultural Colllege, and I'm completely obsessed. It's great to know that there are likeminded people my age out there!!! Good luck, and a brilliant blog!

Thank you Annie for your very kind comments. I am really pleased that you are another person starting up in farming. There are not many young people who want to start farming as it is a hard and time consuming job. Make sure you pick the right place to sell your lambs, and make sure you watch the trends in the prices for a couple of weeks before you plan to sell.

As usual send me some more questions and I will try my best to answer them. I will be attending the Spring Gardening Show next week at the Three Counties Showground. It is a great event that I go to every year.I will be buying some flowering plants to brighten up the garden when the rain stops! My main interest in the garden is vegetables. I grow tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers, lettuces, cabbages, beetroot, rhubarb, carrots and peas. Mum loves me growing vegetables!

Hope you are all well.
Jack

Photo Shoot

On Monday I moved my ewes and lambs back to our field. The local farmer helped me but we had a problem. One of my ewes lay down and would not stand up. Sheep do this sometimes because they get scared of dogs and they do not like running. The farmer had to drive the quad back to the farm to collect the trailer to put the ewe in. Once we managed to move this ewe in the trailer we drove the rest to the pens and sorted them all. Once sorted the brilliant photographer from the Three Counties came and took some great photos of me and the sheep. These pictures you can see in this page (I like the one of me and one of the lambs!). Once the photo shoot was finished we had to clean the ewe's back ends! it is important to do this often to avoid problems with maggots. We gave them a little shave on the head to tidy them up too! The farmer said we should weigh the lambs. I got the weighing scales and caught the lambs. I was really pleased to know that they were really heavy. The top weight was 36kg which is really amazing in such a short time. I will sell these lambs soon. If there is anything you want me to talk about do not be afraid to ask. Jack

Lambing up North

These past few weeks I have been working on my uncle’s farm in Northumberland, which is where I go most holidays. This is my diary which I kept while I was up north. Tuesday 3rd April 2012 I got up at around 7am and with my Grandfather went along to the main farm to collect the feed for the cattle and sheep to take to my uncle’s other holding called Rock. Granddad checks this farm every day. By the time we returned the snow was starting to fall. It was cold!!!! L We still had get on with jobs. I lambed about 6 ewes today. 4 of them were triplets so they had three lambs inside. The other two were twins. I gave them an injection and put some iodine on the navel. I had to go in about 4 pm because it was so cold (I’ll have to harden up!). Wednesday 4th April 2012 Today I lambed about four ewes. They were all twins. One of the ewe’s lambs came out backwards but they were still alive. The shepherd and I put the big pens up in what we call the hay barn. These pens are for when the lambs have been docked (which is when you put a ring around its tail) and numbered and before they go out to the field. These pens are my responsibility which means I have to check them, fill the buckets up with water, put hay in each pen and make sure the ewes and lambs are all mothered up. I will have to do this twice a day. I put the ewes and lambs into the pens putting different breeds in separate pens and depending on whether or not they are twins or singles. Thursday 5th April 2012 On a Thursday I usually go to Acklington Mart to sell sheep but because we have nothing to sell I stayed at the farm and helped with the lambing. I did not lamb many ewes today because most of the ewes lambed themselves. The shepherd today was taking the first lot of ewes and lambs to the hill. The lambs love going out to the grass and the ewes like the grass as they have been inside for over 2 weeks. Good Friday Today we have brought the rest of the ewes that need to lamb down to the farm. There were 40 single Blackface ewes and about 120 twins. We also took another couple of ewes and lambs out to the hill from the pens that I mentioned yesterday. We took about 2 loads of Cheviot ewes with Texel cross lambs and 1 load of Blackface ewes with mule lambs. I love it when they start charging around the field; I would hate to stand in the middle of the stampede because you would get run over. We also put clean straw in with the ewes that are still to lamb because I would not like to be the lamb being born on dirty straw. Tomorrow I will be lambing some more ewes and doing all the usual jobs. Easter Sunday As it was Easter Sunday we went out for lunch. My grandparents and I were lucky to be invited to a relative’s house. But I still had to get my jobs done. I went to the farm at about 7:30 and did all the necessary work. Then my grandfather picked me up and we were off for lunch. It was brilliant. Tuesday 10th April 2012 Today the weather was terrible but we had a busy night. This meant we had to move some ewes and lambs out into some fields, even though we would have preferred to keep them in for another 24 hours we had to take them up the hill and free some space in the shed. We luckily did not find any dead lambs from doing so. I put some little bales in the big pens so the lambs can shelter behind so they do not get too wet. Wednesday 11th April 2012 I got up around 7am and went along to the farm. Last night our night lamber had quite a busy night. This meant that I had to stay at the one farm instead of going with my grandfather to the other holding. I got all my jobs done and I started to scratch the lambs for orf. We had a lot of ewes and lambs in as the weather was so horrible yesterday. We got most of the ewes and lambs out and then I bedded the big pens. Tomorrow is market day, so we went and drew 25 old season lambs which will go tomorrow. After we drew the lambs, we went back to the main farm and drew 10 ewes. Thursday 12th April I got up at 6:45 and left the house at seven. We first loaded the ewes and then went along to the store lambs and loaded them. We got to Acklington mart at 8:30. We unloaded and the drover put them into the sorting area. The lambs are sold first at about 9:15 but before that I had my breakfast. I had a bacon bun. You cannot beat bacon buns from the mart. I am used to helping at the mart when I go up north. I push the lambs into the ring. Our 25 old season lambs averaged £85.25 which was good but our top weight was 62kg which made £102. Our top price for a ewe was £160 for a very big Texel. We averaged £91.30 which is good for ewes. We went home feeling pleased with the prices. Also I have nothing but good reviews about Country Tastic at the Three counties Show today. My cousins went to the show and they thought it was fantastic especially the pigs and donkeys. Friday 13th April 2012 Through the night our night lamber had lambed over 30 ewes with about 50 to 60 lambs. This meant I had to do my jobs quickly and then go and put some ewes in the pens after they had been cut. When I say cut, I do not mean that they are having a hair cut but having their tail cut by putting a rubber ring around the tail. The tail just drops off in the field a couple of weeks later. If it is a male lamb it means also putting a rubber ring around their testicles to castrate them. Some farmers do not bother putting rubber rings around the testicles because they think they can get more meat on them leaving them uncastrated. My cousin who is a jockey had a race today and she did really well as it was her first proper race as she does a lot of point to pointing normally. This meant that my uncle went to see her leaving one of the shepherds checking the stock on the hill and the other shepherd taking the ewes and lambs up to the hill. This meant I was in charge of the lambing sheds for a couple of hours. In 2 hours I lambed over 20 ewes and about 36 lambs were delivered. I go back home in the morning. I’ll miss helping out in the North but I’m looking forward to seeing my family and seeing how my own sheep are growing. Jack

New Sheep

Hi All,

This week at school we have been given our exam timetable for our Year 9 Mocks. I have about ten exams beginning on the 30^th April. I need to start to revise as I am hoping to get some good grades. I need to do well at my GCSEs and A levels as I want to go to Agricultural college. However right now I’m looking forward to breaking up for the Easter holidays, I bet the weather changes just as the holidays start!.

                                                

This week, my business partner and I have been talking and we have decided to buy another ewe and lamb. When we first started the business we had 4 ewes but a few months ago we sold one at Hereford Market. We had always planned to replace it and this week I have found a good ewe and a very strong lamb to buy. The ewe is a Texel, a breed that we like and have researched.  One slight problem is that the lamb is younger than our other lambs and will take longer to finish than the others.

I am going to move my ewes and lambs to another field for a couple of weeks to allow the original paddock time to grow. It is looking a little brown. This is because of the lack of rain as I mentioned on my last farming blog. The local farmer thinks my lambs are about 24kg now and in another month or so they will be ready to sell. We are thinking of keeping one lamb to breed from.

I’ve got a few plans for the holidays including visiting my grandparents in Northumberland and visiting Country Tastic on the 12^th April at the Three Counties Show Ground (www.threecounties.co.uk). I’ve been to this event for the last few years and love seeing others learning about farming. It’s really popular with younger children and they get the chance to speak to the farmers and see the animals.

Happy Easter!

Jack