With all the Christmas festivities over, January hit us hard, with temperatures falling to an all time low. With some parts of the country experiencing temperatures as low as -21.6 c, this made getting out and about a dangerous occupation, and we had one market cancelled in Gloucester and the ones that we did attend were very quiet. We did however manage to fulfil all of our deliveries to restaurants, pubs, nurseries and shops.
The sheep managed to survive through the snow and cold weather, and actually tend to thrive in such conditions although they eat twice as much. It also makes life easier to take food to them when the ground is hard through frost. Cattle also seem to stay much healthier during colder weather and the fattening animals are doing unbelievably well and with no concentrates being fed they are thriving purely on our excellent silage.
January also sees the start of our calving season and the first chance to get a glimpse of the calves produced by our new stock bull – Grove Wellington 49. The results are staggering and the calves are big and strong and healthy, and seem to just arrive with no assistance from us. There are always jobs to be done where calves are concerned and each one needs to be registered online with DEFRA so that they receive a passport which stays with them and identifies them for life. All time consuming work, but it ties in quite nicely with the whole traceability aspect of our meat – giving you absolute confidence in our produce.
We also had our annual bovine Tuberculosis test in Jan and we were all clear, and that job is now out of the way for another year.
John, our senior partner was proved right about the harsh winter weather, I guess you get to know these things when you are so close to nature. Let’s hope that the snow and cold have gone and warmer drier weather is on its
Sunday, January 3, 2010
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