Livestock
A small holding needs some livestock and we have the following:
Hens.
We decided that rescued hens were the way forward. If you want to rescue a battery hen contact Jane and the rest of the team at the Battery Hen Welfare Trust. We also have William our Maran cockerel and a couple of miscellaneous Buff Orpingtons, Marans and a Rhode Island Red we have hatched ourselves.
Ducks & Geese.
Somehow we were convinced to rescue Nigel a depressed Muscovy from the RSPCA and obviously he needed a couple of females to cheer him up so now we have a collection of Muscovies, Indian runners and geese.
Turkeys.
For the past couple of years we have fattened a dozen turkeys for Christmas to give as presents (organic turkeys are expensive so we rear our own). The last batch came from Heritage Turkeys and they were great. We had a mixture of traditional breeds that proved extremely tasty!
Pigs.
We get a great deal of enjoyment from our pigs and the freezer is currently full of joints, bacon and ham from our last pair of Cornish Blacks. You will be able to see our butchery skills(?) on programme 3 of the latest series. To add value to the meat we make a lot of air dried ham, chorizo and salami. It takes a bit of effort but is a real treat. We are currently eating a smoked air dried ham that we had hanging for 18months – awesomely tasty even if we had some doubters that thought it must have gone off – they were very wrong!
Bees.
Okay maybe they are not livestock, but without bees we are in trouble, in fact, programme 2 of the series looks at the problem we are having at Newhouse Farm and across the UK.