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.

Wednesday, 8 September 2010

Autumn is coming!

Sunday, 5 September 2010

Winter bird table

The plots are ready in waiting to provide a source of seeds for seed eating birds to help them through the winter - mustard, fodder radish and sunflowers.

Saturday, 28 August 2010

Floristically enhanced plot

The daisies are long gone now, but the plot is still a source of activity for insects both crawling and flying and still beautiful to the eye.

Can you see the spider's nests in the flower head - full of baby spiders when you get up close!

Sweet clover

The sweet clover has also been providing nectar for the bees all summer.

The flowers have nearly all gone now and much of the aroma, but it has kept the bees happy for months!

Red clover plot

The red clover has been magnificent this year - check out the activity on the trial plot.

Butterflies galore on the trial plots

This month the butterflies have been breath-taking - I hope my photos do them justice!

Not sure about the blue one is it a holly blue - any ideas??

Bees in august

Bees come in all shapes and varieties.

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.