Poultry Discussion

Why poultry discussion? Well we are chicken farmers and all too often when we talk with family and friends we start with talking about chickens then end up talking about anything from food and food safety, climate change, wildlife, birds, our farm. We started this blog to communicate what we are finding out about the world around us and how we try to farm in a sustainable way so that our farm is here not only for ourselves and our neighbours but for the future too.

Sunday, 28 April 2013

Spring flowers

Wood anenomes, dandylions, dog violets, primroses, cuckoo flower all out in the woods - a bit behind compared to the same time in 2010 (below) but looking beautiful.

Wednesday, 24 April 2013

Family photo

Tuesday, 23 April 2013

Springing lambs

Lambs are happy ...

Monday, 22 April 2013

Spring oats are coming through

Only three weeks after planting the rows of spring oats are visible - winter wheat planted in February still very sluggish ....

Wednesday, 17 April 2013

Spring is only a little late ...

Spring is actually only a couple of weeks behind - flowers were out 3rd April in 2009 and 7th April 2010

Friday, 12 April 2013

New hedge - surviving the weather

Saturday, 6 April 2013

More sheep photos!

One of the quads! The children have done a good job to keep all 4 alive.

Cute!! They are going out in the field if it stays dry over the weekend.

Hill Farm, Castle Frome, Herefordshire

Hill Farm is about 300 acres in size - an acre is about the area of a football pitch. This year we are growing feed wheat; winter beans, spring beans and oats. We also have 50 acres of woodland.

The wheat was planted in the autumn and will be harvested in August. We will feed the wheat to our chickens and sell some of the straw to other farmers who will probably use it for bedding for their livestock. We will bale some up for ourselves and chop the rest and incorporate (put it back) into the soil to improve soil structure. Beans were planted in the spring along with spring oats.

The woodland areas are traditional mixed woodland with conifers and areas of deciduous trees. There is a myriad of wildlife on the farm - mammals, birds, insects ... we will tell their story in this blog. They live in the woodland, fields, lakes, and streams. We hope that you will enjoy the story of our farm.