Peace restored

"So, what's the game plan?" we asked The Big Boss on Friday afternoon.

"We'll just pick them up and carry them down from the woods to the stalls" he replied nonchalently. For some reason the rest of us didn't think it would be quite that simple so we wasted a bit of time reviewing the options - loading piglets into trailer/loading Delila and piglets into trailer and separating them at the other end - and then agreed that we'd try the Boss's way as it seemed simpler --- if it worked.

And his ideas usually work.

Later in the afternoon we all convened in the woods.For once it was glorious weather for weaning piglets. Hot and sunny and not too quaggy underfoot in their pen. By the time I got there Linda had already bagged her first Little Tot: grabbed it whilst it was feeding and handed it over the gate to The Boss; within moments she'd done the same with the second, handing it over to Con and I caught up with the pair of them just outside the Stalls. The piglets were put down calmly on their welcoming clean bedding when there was a sudden cry of "Shut that door - Quick!" as they promptly scooted under the hurdle. They would have been out of that door like rockets and back to mum if Con hadn't followed instructions so promptly!

Delila and the remaining 5 piglets had got wise by now. It took increasingly longer to get hold of the little ones but Linda was well into her stride and totally focused on little legs.....! At one point she lunged across the mud in a manner that would have impressed the English Rugby Team selectors...... disregarding her liberal coating of muck still she got her pig! The only 'no go' area proved to be when Delila herded the final two into the ark and positioned herself in the doorway with fangs flashing! But she was tempted out with a large juicy tomato and eventually the final two piglets were reunited with their siblings in the stalls.

Mission accomplished: a few people liberally covered with muck but all pigs successfully in the right place.

Delila was a little distressed for half an hour or so but seemed truly relieved to be able to eat her tea in peace and quiet - she's 'done' her brood so well that she herself is almost sylph-like and needs a bit of feeding up. By the time I gave her some grass at dusk she'd calmed down and on Saturday morning it was :

"Piglets? What piglets?"

They too, although a little confused by their strange surroundings, seemed quite happy to sleep and sleep and eat ... and sleep...... although they are a little mistrustful of us! They'll perk up when they see their new homes later in the week........

It's official.. pigs are noisy!

"Farmers have been ordered to wear earmuffs when feeding pigs - to protect them from 'dangerous' squealing", according to an article in a national newspaper this week. '

'An Essential Guide to Health and Safety (couldn't you just guess!) in Farming' warns that "large numbers of pigs .... can create noise levels of 100 decibles or above, especially at feeding time." The leaflet advises that farmers "Make sure any work ... is done during quieter periods."

I've always said that anyone going by our place at feeding time would justifiably think that animals were being slaughtered in cold blood! But ours are all outside and in small numbers so the sound of 400+ sows altogether indoors at feeding time must be deafening. It strikes me though that a better course of action would be to not allow farmers to rear pigs so intensively - the noise level is probably the least harmful aspect of such conditions.

Meanwhile, we have discovered a situation far worse than feed time for raising decible levels...... one of Delila's piglets, and it's not just Malibu but Sherry and possibly Whiskey too, continues to exit the pen in search of ....whatever piglets go in search of... the spirit of the woods probably. The night before last it was just before bedtime again. And again the trusty spaniels proved invaluable in helping 'round up' the offender. Then yesterday the Boss greeted me in the stables at feed time with news that "another piglet is out of the pen again". So, taking Gunner we went off to find the wanderer... who this time was frantically squealing and trying to jump up over or through, or climb under, the fence in order to get to her tea. I'm now becoming quite deft at grabbing a leg or two and swinging little swinelets back over the fence.................. which is difficult enough in itself but when accompanied (as it always is) by the sound of Samson, Precious, Delila and 6 other piglets screaming, snorting, grunting and squealing (whilst running around in high agitation) as anxiously and loudly as ever they can, it is (a)definitely deafening and (b) utterly nerve-wracking. And the cacophony continues for a good few minutes after the squealing swinelet is back with mum................

Thankfully the little Tots are to be weaned this afternoon so peace will be restored................. meanwhile, I'm off to get some super-efficient ear muffs.................

It's not all about pigs...

After a couple of hours' talk, one of our visitors staying overnight yesterday remarked that:

"It all seems to be about pigs..." which pulled me up short for a moment because of course it's not all about them at all. Just that, as I keep noticing, they do rather tend to take over!

There are other things going on. For instance, last Friday or Saturday the first swallows hatched in Ritz's stable - every morning I find him covered in white blobs from the parents' interminable journeying to supply their brood with sufficient food! He doesn't mind - it's a good excuse for having a quick brush before going out to the field for the day! Any excuse for attention, that horse!

Then this morning I noticed the big pond at the bottom of the Rectory Field is teeming with frogspawn. It's a good job they don't all survive otherwise the whole field would be heaving with frogs hopping everywhere. (Where do they all go to?) The Rabbits have been over-active too: we have more baby bunnies this year than for many a year: hardly a day goes by without The Bestest Gundog in all the World gleefully bringing me another young fluffy and we're getting quite a lot of practice 'sitting' when he flushes the big ones - as long as I'm within sight when he does so........

Then there's the cuckoo which we finally heard for the first time this year on May 20th - a whole month later than in previous years!

Apart from the wild life, we have a few more little chicks from our broody hens. The black bantam hen hatched two chicks about a fortnight ago. 'Nothing odd in that' you might think - except when she arrived here with the other bantams she was so bolshy, even taking on Louis the cockerel, that I decided she must be a 'he' and took her away from the bantams and put her in the Poultry Palace with the big birds! So I was rather surprised when she turned broody! Even more amazed when she actually hatched two chicks.... which she protects as if her life depends on it, even attacking me if I get close!

Then there's Daffodil, my oldest hen who manages to raise two small broods each year. Since the black hen was occupying the broody coop at the time she needed it, she decided to sit on her eggs in the nest box. Needless to say when the first chick hatched and hopped out last week, Daffodil was after her and deserted the remaining 5 eggs she's been sitting on! Fortunately Daffodil commands a lot of respect in the Poultry Palace, being the 'mother' of chief Rooster, Solo, and the little one has managed to hold her own against all the other birds and even at this early age shows an unusual amount of independence! So much so that this morning I 'lost' her and got quite worried that she was nowhere around Daffodil --- then I saw her having a drink down by the pond on her own....... that level of confidence probably means she is a he!

P.S. to the previous

....And then yesterday evening, having shut all the chickens and ducks away for the night, my trusty spaniels and I were doing the usual 'constitutional' walk up the drive before going to bed ---- when suddenly Gunner darted into the copse and sparked an almighty cacophony of squealing.... like a diver coming up for air, he darted out of the wood, looked expectantly at me and then darted back in again ... provoking a repeat of the squealing, only this time accompanied by a whole orchestra of similarly agitated noises.
Going to investigate, I found a very disturbed piglet running round and round the perimeter of the pen - again - with everyone on the inside - including Samson and Precious next door, making increasingly urgent noises.
"More than I can cope with alone" I decided, going in search of The Boss....
who duly emerged in the encroaching dark with a large torch.
Not only did this illuminate the situation in the woods but it also attracted the errant piglet so eventually, with Boss holding the torch and Gundog and I cornering piglet --- and all the onlookers making as much loud noise as they could.... we caught the little blighter and returned her over the fence to her family...... who, by now were all absolutely starving following the unaccustomed evening exercise....... food was the only answer.... For all of them, of course.
I have an idea that it is Malibu who keeps getting out of the pen.... pigs being inquisitive things, she's probably off in search of her 'namesake'.........................
With sanity returned, the dogs and I resumed our constitutional and, checking piglets on our return, found JD fast asleep in the food bowl!

Precocious or what?

We thought Delila's brood were fast developers but it seems Ginger's been tapping into the grapevine and is determined to keep her end up!

I was absolutely stunned to see her little ones - well, 5 of them, gamboling around in the sunshine late yesterday afternoon....... that makes it just 5 days after they were born......the other three were curled up in the straw in the doorway to the ark, fast asleep.....

Today it's been very warm and I found Ginger this afternoon submerged in a wallow with 6 of the little ones playing over and around her. When I looked, the other two were submerged in the straw indoors, oblivious to the world!

What was really funny was, when it was time to go 'home' for tea, instead of going through the gate into the pen where the ark is (and how should piglets know about things like gates and gaps???), the piglets went via the shorter route ---- straight through the fence.... except some parts of the fence proved easier to get through than others, so there was a bit of a panic whilst they trotted to and fro looking for the right sized 'hole' to climb through..... one of them was left well behind and got quite agitated at being separated from his mates..... until he finally managed to squeeze through and dart into the ark........ Aaaaahhhhhh.

Talking about gaps in fences, when we were doing the tea-trolley bit later on this afternoon we found one of Delila's brood on the 'wrong' side of the fence, unable to get back in...... she'd clearly managed to crawl under the fence from the inside out, but with the bank and slope and all that, couldn't find her way back in....and, from the way she was anxiously running round the perimeter and the surrounding woods, she had been out for a little while.....so there was a bit of a panic until we (The Boss, The Bestest Gundog and I managed to catch the little thing and lift her back over the fence for her tea ---- a feat which was accompanied by much grunting and squealing from the rest of the 'family' on the other side......!

Never a dull moment in the countryside.....

Meet the media stars

Ginger is such a star!

Whilst we were busy delivering Nigella to The Butterfly Park on Monday, Ginger was busying herself with a Very Important Delivery of her own!

We left in the morning giving Linda specific instructions to ring that nice young film-man (we'll get round to him soon) if Ginger showed any signs of farrowing..... none of us actually believed that she really would but since her habit is to give birth when we are not around we thought we'd better just cover that eventuality.

Imagine our incredulity when, arriving back home, we walked into the kitchen and found a concise note from Linda on the table: "Ginger delivered 8 piglets this afternoon: all captured on film". We half thought it was a leg-pull----- but Linda wouldn't joke about such a serious matter....... The Big Boss stopped by Ginger's pen after putting the car away and confirmed that such a cacophony could mean only one thing; Piglets had definitely arrived!

So what's the nice young film man got to do with anything? Well, he is involved with making a film starring two or three of Ginger's latest brood, which will chart their lives from tummy to table. In the next few weeks a well known star of TV and Radio will come and select her piglets and, when they are weaned, they will move up to her farm in Yorkshire where they will be filmed at intervals throughout their lives. When the fateful day finally arrives the little media magnets will be prepared and served up by one of the most famous chefs in the country. The resultant film is to be broadcast on national TV !

The film obviously starts with the birth of the piglets. And that was the trickiest part to schedule. Since our pigs are free range it is very difficult to predict precisely when the sows will farrow. In order not to miss the Big Day, therefore, the nice young film man had, last Thursday, billeted himself at a local (and very nice) B&B which we recommended to him. It's only about 10 minutes drive away from here. He was prepared to stay there for as long as it took and The Big Boss warned him that it could be anything from 4 to 14 days! (keeping fingers crossed that it wouldn't be the latter - or later! )

"Not to worry" said the NYFM "I've brought plenty of work to keep me busy".......

On Tuesday when the Big Boss spoke to him, though, he was really thrilled that it had all happened so soon and so smoothly and that he had captured the whole one and a half hours on film.

Meanwhile, the little stars are blissfully unaware of the spotlight that has been cast their way.....

What's going on now??

It was 'Open Day' again on Sunday..... not so many people but then it was raining and cold and there was a show taking place at Woodhall Spa... However, we had plenty of food to eat and sell - including, for the first time, bacon, chops and joints of pork - and when all that was done and everyone gone home we settled down for a chat with the film-man (of whom more later) before going out to load up Nigella for her move to join Delia and Ainsley at the Butterfly Park.


Needless to say, the horses all came galloping over to watch:

"Gosh what's going on here now?" they all seemed to be saying: horses are big on nosey.

Whilst Ritz cozed up to the Film-man (more of whom later) Rocco busied himself sticking his nose in the back of the trailer and then examined it closely from the front.... Eventually we had to banish them all to the Rectory Field so that we could get on.......

It took just a little while to persuade Nigella that she really did want to leave her mates and go into the trailer but she couldn't contain her curiosity for ever and soon followed Linda (and maybe the bucket) into the trailer where she slept overnight. After breakfast this morning we took a leisurely drive down to her summer home. We wondered if she'd remember, or be remembered by, Delia and Ainsley. We'd hardly drawn up alongside their pen when the most tremendous snorting and grunting assured us that everyone remembered everyone and all were dying to catch up on the gossip ...... don't know why we ever questioned it.

No sooner was she unloaded than Nigella was given a guided tour of the whole pen; up and down and round and round and then again.... Then they all posed for one final photo before we left them to get on with it with that nice Mr Crosse saying how lovely it was to have another curly coat to amuse the children and grown ups...

The piglets seem to thrive on the attention and, by all accounts, provide great entertainment value........ "OOOhs" and "AAAAhhs" really get them going....... they don't realise how lucky they are to have such a wonderful summer home.....! Bet they think all pigs live this way.....