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.

Saturday, 30 November 2013

Late autumn

Saturday, 23 November 2013

Passing stranger...

Saturday, 16 November 2013

bees

Saturday, 9 November 2013

Talking at the Duchy College, Cornwall

This week I spoke at the Duchy College in Cornwall about Nuffield Scholarships and their value in growing as a person.

Grapes

Saturday, 2 November 2013

Perry pears

Saturday, 26 October 2013

Wheat is growing

What a difference a year makes.... we have never planted winter wheat twice in the same calendar year before ... This time it has established well.

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.