Successful end of Season & New beginnings
Marilyn Keymer • 30 October 2018
We ended the summer show season with a huge success at the Newbury Show in September. Our young stock did us proud with us winning the Interbreed boar with the February boar, Bill, and the Interbreed Pairs with the other February boar, Ben, and the sister, Lyndie - all three from the same litter. They have moved on for breeding to new herds and in exchange I have Brian, running with my gilts, and Fudge who produced a litter for me.
Fudge's litter produced a lovely boar and gilt for showing next season. Wena also produced a litter, small for her, of four. These have the same breeding as the successful team at Newbury. I also have a granddaughter of Wena's, hoping to breed from har later next year.
I am refreshing my breeding herd with youngstock as the older girls are failing to produce at the moment.
Tentrees Namatjira - Ash , qualifier for Pig of the Year and reserve male in Champion of Champions. Tentrees Stonebow - Luna , reserve female in Champion of Champions, as well as taking a number of first prizes. A successful year with our show team, with the members either stopping in the herd for breeding or moving on to new homes as breeding stock.
We have selected four boars and four gilts as part of the Show Team for this year. These will be the core of the team, two sows and some commercial pigs can also be added, space in the trailer allowing. The shows we will attend are South Suffolk, Nottingham, Suffolk, Norfolk , Wayland and possibly Gransden. Pig of the Year will be at Yorkshire, Young Pig of the Year will be in Malvern, Berkshire Champion of Champions will be at Penistone for this year, it would be great to be at any of these championships.
I had a litter of cross breeds in May this year, as I bought in a new breed line to add to my herd. They are really chunky little chaps and very demanding, but mum is very patient. They are gloucester x berkshire, and this seems to be the colouration with this cross.
Another wet winter, so the breeding herd is in to rest the runs and allow a bit of drying out. Three of the girls seem to be in pig, and hopefully being on solid ground will make sure we have a complete set of litters. They came in just after christmas and seem to be enjoying the change so far. It entails alot of cleaning out, but better than trying to struggle through the mud.
Very excited that we are seeing alot of our three young owls on the owl cam. Thought there was only two to start with, the youngest seems to have fallen or was pushed out of the box. Mum contiued to feed it on the floor and now it has made it back to the box.
Clover farrowed yesterday, with no problems. All got through the night OK, a feisty bunch. There are few gilts this time which is good news, I'll be looking for some breeding stock as they grow.
The autumn 2019 show team have now been dispersed to their new homes to produce some litters of their own. Looking forward to this years September litters for next years show team.
Spotted this chap sunbathing on a log in the yard. I wonder if this is the same one I had in the garden eating a frog a couple of years ago, if it is then it is so much bigger.
It looks as if we have Barn Owls instead of pigeons nesting in our owl box. I had a wildlife camera for my birthday so will be able to track the progress. It started with a battle between the pigeons and owls which the owls won, displacing a squab from the box, it was about ready to fledge anyway. Very exciting.
My girls produced 3 litters during March and April, all really nice looking piglets, but nearly all boars! They arrived just as the conditions improved, which I appreciated, though the ground is really hard now and the reseeding of outside runs is struggling. The show season has been cancelled, so I have some super breeding stock for sale earlier than usual, these are some of best stock I have bred. There is another litter due towards the end of May, and possibly a second if my prize winning older lady holds her litter.
