Quite a bit has happened since my last blog! We have moved the pigs, won a trophy, and bought more pigs!!! The butchery unit is coming on too but I will update you on that in a separate blog post.
But first an update on the flock.
Well it took three days for the ewe lambs to stop bleating after weaning day, which to be fair is pretty average going off previous years.
I think the longest was 5 days when one particular lamb ended up with such a squeaky voice we could barely hear her!
The ewes were incredibly happy to be free of the lambs and their udders dried up in a matter of days…..clearly they were ready to be done with their offspring for this year!
As for the ram lambs, well as usual they really weren’t bothered about being separated from mums, they were more than happy to be hanging around with the big boys.
Were the big boys as happy……erm possibly not but it was about time they did their bit in the upbringing of their children!
Anyhoo, all is peaceful and calm now. The ewes are regaining their condition and the lambs are flying on our newly sown clover fields.
In the next couple of weeks all the females will be put back together again and the strip grazing system will be fully up and running to continue to improve our grassland still further.
Moving the OSBs onto fresh pasture
The next job was to get the four oxford sandy and black (OSB) boars out onto the grassland to clear all the thistles, docks, nettles and grasses.
Kick, Ryecroft, Curly, and Patch were moved into Bay 4 of the back barn and the bob hole into the paddock was opened.
I couldn’t wait to see them barging out and enjoying the lovely sunshine and tasty treats.
I had to wait almost a week for that!!! They just didn’t want to venture through the bob hole!!!
We tried every trick in the book……we moved their trough outside, they went hungry and groaned; we lay trails of food from the bob hole up to their trough, they stretched their necks but still weren’t brave enough; we tried brute force, they were stronger!!
In the end we made the bob hole (which was more than sufficient for last year’s piggies that were far bigger) much wider, and spent an hour every morning enticing them with their food.
Eventually after 4 more days, they got the idea and out they came!! Just in time for the hottest day of the year and a wonderful wallow in the mud bath! Brilliant!
So now they are enjoying best of both worlds, inside and outside. And I still think they prefer inside!!!
Bury Agricultural Show
Once the pigs were sorted it was onto show prep for the next show, Bury Agricultural society.
This was a new show to us, they contacted me and a few other Coloured Ryeland breeders in the area to see if we would be interested in going if they put on a new class for us.
We were over the moon that such a local show would want to support our breed in this way and so we entered as big a show team as we could.
Preparing a sheep for a show is quite time consuming depending on the breed.
Some sheep are shown in their ‘working clothes’ as in you don’t need to do too much to them between getting them in from the field and presenting them in the ring before the judge.
Unfortunately Coloured Ryelands are NOT shown in their ‘working clothes’ they are shown in their ‘I’m going to the palace to meet the Queen’ clothes!!!!
At the beginning of the season, to get a sheep ready for its first show can take between 2 and 5 hours depending on the length of its fleece.
A ewe which has only just been shorn, so has little fleece, will take about 90 mins, a shearling which was shorn in February will take about 2 to 2.5 hours to get ready; a lamb with full fleece, who has never even seen a halter before, can take 5 hours in total to look presentable.
How many was I taking to Bury……9!!!!!
Luckily 6 of them had been prepped for a show before so only needed about an hour each, but 3 of them were lambs.
And I had two days to get them all ready.
In the end, I couldn’t take poor Charles as I just ran out of time. But we got to the show and had a wonderful day! Blooming marvellous in fact!!! Here’s why….
FIRST with Ryecroft Axle in the AGED RAM CLASS (that’s any Ram that is over 2 years old)
SECOND with Ryecroft Bowie in the SHEARLNG RAM CLASS ( a ram that is over 12 months but under 2 years)
THIRD with Ryecroft Cole in the TUP LAMB CLASS (a ram lamb born this year)
FIRST with Ryecroft Zamira in the BREEDING EWE CLASS ( a ewe that has lambed and milked this year)
FIRST with Ryecroft Bobbie in the SHEARLING EWE CLASS (a ewe that is over 12 months but under2)
SECOND with Ryecroft Cruz AND THIRD with Ryecroft Claire in the GIMMER LAMB CLASS (a ewe lamb that was born this year)
FIRST with Ryecroft Axle, Bobbie, and Cruz in the GROUP OF THREE CLASS (three animals picked from the above classes, one male two females)
Lucy came SECOND with her shearling Ram Ryecroft Bowie in the YOUNG HANDLER COMPETITION (11-16 Year olds judged on handling skills and knowledge)
FIRST with Ryecroft Cruz and Claire in the INTERBREED PAIR OF GIMMER LAMBS(a pair of lambs competing against all breeds within the show) AND FOR THIS WE WON A BLOOMING TROPHY!!!
That’s our best haul at a show yet! And just in case the people at the back didn’t hear me the first time….WE HAVE SOME SILVERWARE!!!!! Next on our wish list is a SASH!
We also met some other lovely breeders too, that we hadn’t met before! We were on cloud nine for about a week!!
Our next batch of OSB weaners arrived.
So what happened the week after?
Well next on the list was to source our next batch of OSB weaners and for those we travelled up to Kirkby Steven to meet Christopher and Fi Moss. What a lovely place they have, it was great to meet them.
We came away with four very muddy, very beautiful boars who slept the whole way home in the trailer. In fact when we got home and manoeuvred the trailer into position, they continued to sleep.
We dropped the tail gate and set up the hurdles to guide them into their new pen which is next to the house where all our weaners go to get trained on our electric fence…they slept.
We went into the house for a brew thinking they would wander out on their own, in their own time…..they slept!!! Were they ever gonna wake up???
Well yes they did, and made their own way into their new area quite happily….about 2 hours later!
Now usually, or in our experience anyway, the weaners take a couple of days to get used to their new surroundings and to us, and so often they don’t eat their breakfast or supper, well not a lot of it anyway.
So we have learned to give them half rations to begin with.
Hahahahahah not these boys!!! They were absolutely disgusted at half rations and so I had to top them up on the first night! Good lads!
The following day the children decided on their names so we have Monkey, Donaldson, Derek and Foursquare as the newest members of team Ryecroft.
This weekend we have another show on the agenda, this time Newport show in Shropshire. Its another show that needs our support and so a big team is heading down again. You know what that means……more show prep required! That is what I will be doing this coming Thursday and Friday. Fluff fluff fluff, trim trim trim. Wish us luck!!!
Much love
Team Ryecroft
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