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Shane & Emma's Smallholding

 

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July update

Y

eah I know…monthly updates late again…what ya gonna do...we're just too busy!

 

Only one week after her arrival Cassandra produced this lovely little lot!

This is her first litter and the first Large Black pigs born on our smallholding, as you can see they are settling in nicely, they were born on the 26th May.

This is what they look like after only 8 weeks…not bad eh!

The piglets were not the only thing delivered on Saturday 26th May the rest of my barn uprights were erected!!!

Johnny, Tony and myself managed to put up all of the barn support posts in one day!...and managed to attend a birthday bash at a fellow smallholders in the evening!

We have been referring to the current barn phase as Woodhenge!

Other new arrivals are these little guy’s

These little fella’s are Sasso meat chickens more specifically they are referred to as 431 and 731 the 431 breed will look reddish in colour while 731 will be white…both should taste bloody fantastic…this is a little experiment entered into with our friends Mike and Paula who like us are unsatisfied with the mass produced chickens so readily available…Oops that sounded like I was about to go down the “where our food comes from” lecture…In fairness, we produce all our own pork, ham, bacon, sausages, lamb and we are working on beef, it only seemed right for us to move into our own chickens.

These guys will mature to around 4-5 lbs at 10 to12 weeks, I know this doesn’t sound like a long time but when you think that a standard supermarket chicken takes around 4 week to mature…well you get the picture, we have done enough for us to sample, with a few extras…if you would like to try one of these free range delights let us know via e-mail, if there are enough we’ll include you when they are ready…around the middle of September…The rest of you will have to wait for the September update…which I guess will be another late update!

This is the same chicks after only two weeks!!!

You can see their colourings already coming through.

As Emma and I belong to a local smallholder club we attend several shows a year to promote our lifestyle and help advice others who are looking to tread the same path…to this end we are often asked for stock in the form of chickens mostly…sometimes thought we get to raise ducks like this little cute one from a set of Indian runner ducks we have raised for someone who like us enjoys the taste of fresh duck eggs.

Thought you might like to see an updated picture of our cows…as you can see Dee Dee is starting to turn a nice black colour now…and a growth spurt that is amazing for not quite three months old.  We have decided to keep all three cows for now as we are in the process of buying an additional 7 acres of pasture.

We have to tell you a little bit of sad news…Willow unfortunately lost her pups, we don’t know why…”one of them things” I guess, good news is that she is coming through OK, we were worried for a time but things are looking good.

Here she is mothering some of the new chicks...

As bugsy used to say "That’s all folks"…well for now anyway!

See ya all next update.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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