Lambing season and piglets comming home

We had a very successful and happy lambing season this year. 49 sheep lambs and goat kids were born, 49 were healthy and lived (happily hereafter?). We sold all sheep lambs after a good start of two months with their mothers and to our big surprise we also managed to sell all billy goats. 8 promising goat kids stayed on our farm.

 Two months old, just arrived....

A week later, going outside!

And meeting the other family members.

Snow snow snow and no grass

But we are very lucky that we got a new load of hay! Snow at the end of March is not normal and we almost ran out of feed.

Kids

It's a boy! Two boys.

First offspring of Driekus and Bep: two healthy billy goats.

Hungry

Deer now enter our stables in search of food. This winter is lasting too long!

Terminal sire

We got Bob, a young good looking Suffolk ram, to become father of our Lacaune x East Friesian sheep, we don't want to get more then 50% Friesian blood in our ewes. The Friesians have proven to be too demanding for our low input farming system. The Lacaunes however have shown to be excellent hardy animals. We are looking forward to see how the EFxLC cross ewes will perform, so far we are really satisfied, they are healthy and all which where 6 months or older got in gestation - on grass only since we do not feed any concentrated feed to them. The first offspring of Bob is expected around 25th of February and all of them will be for sale since we want to continue with dairy sheep.

Re-integration

Finally our billy goat Driekus has joined the herd again. We managed to reintegrate him in the group. Having grown up alone he is a some what anti-social goat.

Birth explosion

26 lambs in less then three weeks! Now ten days without anybody on the calendar - we might try to get some sleep before the last 12 ewes are due.

Start of lambing season 2013

All but two of our twenty two year old ewes have lambed within a short (an cold)period. We now wait for the last two and ten yearling ewes.

Pests and plagues

With a lot of cold, ice and more than half a meter of frozen snow, dear don't find a lot to eat. Therefore they have started to attack our stock winter feed. Even a two meter electric fence don't keep them away from our hay. They are beautiful animals but this is becomming a serious problem. We hope that the snow will soon disappear.

Surprise

Our first goat is due at end of February so big was my surprise when I found this guy standing alone in our goat stable. It took me a few minutes to realise that a young yearling, gotten from a friend last Autumn, must have been in kid when we got her.

Na predaj - for sale

Rezervácia mladých baranov, matka Lacaune a otec Východofrízsky plemenný baran línie Wild, z dvojčat dovezených z Čiech. Tieto plemenné barany budú výborným dodatkom vášho ovčieho stáda. Jahňatá sa narodia v januári a februári 2013 a na predaj budú mať minimálnu hmotnosť 15kg. Rezervujte si ich ešte dnes! Moznosť rezervovať si aj krížence oviec Suffolk a Lacaune, ktoré sa narodia v marci. Cena: 3E/kg Bazos inzerát So far the Slovak text of our advertisment. And only a few reactions, very frustating. We got very nice sheep and I am trying to sell our (unborn) lambs. The rams would be perfect to upgrade local sheep herds, but it seems that most will end op as meat. And even as mutton we get too low prices for them.....

Feeding rack - latest fashion

We believe that it is healthy to get exercise when you are pregnant. This includes other mamals as sheep and goats. Therefore our animals sleep, get feed and water on different places so they have to walk. Arnold just made some new hay racks for our sheep. The ones in the stables are in use by our goats and our last year sheep rack has been taken over by our horses. It is a nice iron one but the smallest sheep try (and sometimes manage) to get inside. So now we have two wooden ones which we can adjust if the sizes don't fit.

Two more weeks

Just two weeks left before the start of our lambing season. Our sheep look like hippos. I am getting slightly nervous. Just keeping my fingers crossed that all our animals will stay healthty and wont have problems giving birth.

We got feed

We rely on others for our winter feed. We do know very reliable others... but it took some time before our winter feed finally was delivered. It was already winter and we were already feeding our animals hay and silage. But now we got it all, or almost all, depending on the lenght of this winter.

Not too cold

It is rather cold for a slovakian December month. However our animals don't seem to be cold. We woried a bit about our horse Iris, being old and having lots of Arabic blood in her veins but she is even looking better than this summer (when we just bought her). Our Shetland pony Pjotr is lying at her feet on the picture below.

Pork processing day 2 and 3

Mangalitsa: a new pork horizon?

We have just prepared the first pork chops from Mr.Pig our Mangalitsa pork slaughtered yesterday. I am not a great fan of pork meat but this was different! Hard to discribe, did we ate beef or pork? Blogger 'Mad Meat Genius' wrote this about a Mangalitsa roast: This was one special taste treat. I have never experienced such a pork flavor. The meat was very rich with a intense, pleasing pork flavor. If my eyes were closed, I might even say it tastes of a mild beef. The meat was a little darker than the usual pork we purchase. The flavor was accented with a buttery pork fat that made us swoon. The gravy made from these drippings was some of the best gravy that might have ever been made. I took a cup of gravy and just sipped it with a straw. Mangalitsa pork, where have you been all my life? This was a special treat that has opened our taste buds to a new pork horizon.

Weather has changed

Two days ago our sheep were still grazing green grass. Now all is white and we had to bring them home to feed them hay. Feeding hay in the fields is not possible, to many hungry deer around which walk through electric fences to get their feed. We have already tried this last year; all sheep missing and a deer traped in our electric netting. We have made the stable in such a way that they can walk in and out and room around in the orchard. Exercise is good for pregnant ladies.

Recycling

He ate all our organic waste, surplus apples and pears, stole serious amounts of vegetables and potatoes and now he will become dried sausages (Klobassa).