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.

Monday, 25 August 2008

Wet Harvest

We have been able to harvest the oil seed rape, but we are still waiting for better weather to harvest the wheat. Fingers crossed we might see a change in the next week or so. More news soon.

Tuesday, 5 August 2008

Cornwall

We have just been on holiday to Cornwall for a week. Check out the photos of the beaches - just beautiful. Now we are home and thoughts are turning to harvest - the wheat will soon be ready.

Wednesday, 16 July 2008

Food safety e-books

I have been very busy writing some e-books on food safety and quality to support people working in the food industry. If you would like to find out more about the e-books then follow the link and preview the contents at the e-books storefront.

Tuesday, 8 July 2008

Morris Dancing

You can't have a village fete without morris dancing - fantastic rural tradition!

Wednesday, 25 June 2008

Sensory Garden

Last Friday I visited the Staffordshire Wildlife Trust for a meeting about my Nuffield Scholarship. I was captivated by the pioneering work of the trust. I was also fascinated by their sensory garden and how much it could engage people. I have included some photographs so you can see what it was like. The benches all had different animal footprints.

Thursday, 19 June 2008

June photos

Here is a picture post from the farm - everything is growing and spring has moved into summer.

The wheat is growing!

Special sunset - the sun caught the clouds beautifully

The trees have all filled out now and are majestic.

Sunday, 1 June 2008

Open Farm Sunday

We had a great morning with a farm walk for the parish. We had about twenty-five people who came and walked around some of the fields on the farm looking at the wheat, potatoes and the oil seed rape. Thank you to everyone who helped with the refreshments and the cakes and the ploughman's lunch.

What did we talk about - many of the common themes, food security, farm subsidies, biofuel vs food, environmental management, food production, water footprint - a really excellent morning.

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.