After disappointing results with the litters from Dora in January and Beryl in February, I was keeping my fingers crossed for Betty with our final litter of Spring 2024 Initially everything seemed to be positive and I was able to monitor Betty via our camera so that I could leap into action when she started to farrow. Betty on Pig Cam 2024 It was fairly clear that she was building up to something and she eventually started to farrow around 3am on Mon 25 March. We don’t get too many farrowings that happen at a reasonable hour but I’m used to the situation now Over the course of the next few hou ..read more

As always, the arrival of spring here in the North Pennines is a little later than the areas further south of us. Of course, that also means we’re slightly ahead of those areas that are even further north of us but it’s hard to imagine an even shorter growing season than we get here. The area that I set aside for raised veg beds back in 2014 has had a chequered time over the years with a constant running battle with our local rabbit population. At the last count, I now have 3 layers of protection ranging from some old wire garden fencing with some added chicken wire and finally some leftover w ..read more

We really enjoy keeping the pygmy goats and learning about their care. One of our original goals was to experience goat keeping in a manageable way and, given their size, this approach has been ideal for us. Goats aren’t particularly difficult to keep but they do have distinctly different requirements from our pigs. We’d previously not had any livestock that needed such regularly care – for example, hoof trimming every 5-6 weeks! However, more recently it became clear that there just wasn’t enough time for everything we’ve taken on. This was particularly troubling when considering the differen ..read more

Beryl proved yet again that she is a good mother by delivering a litter of 10 piglets this time. She even managed to cleverly keep the numbers even with 5 boars and 5 gilts. It’s quite a sight to see them all jostling for position under the heat lamp but they’re all doing really well which is a great sight to see ..read more

This time around we moved Beryl into the farrowing shed a few days ahead of the expected date but as it turned out she didn’t want to wait that long. More likely my calendar calculations could have been better I guess Either way I didn’t check on her overnight into Friday because I expected another days wait but as it turned out she had a large litter and she lost most of them. When I checked her first thing in the morning she just had 2 live piglets and one of those wasn’t looking too good The weakest piglet was immediately placed in a box of straw with a hot water bottle to raise the body te ..read more

As with previous first time mothers I’ve had, I wasn’t sure what to expect when Dora moved into the farrowing shed ready for her time. She’s a very friendly pig and easy to move as she happily follows a bucket full of feed. However maybe she wouldn’t like being confined in the shed even though that meant being out of the winter weather. A small litter of 2 for Dora In the end she delivered a small litter of which only 2 survived – a boar and a gilt – but she showed excellent mothering instincts. The piglets did well right from the start which can be a concern in case a first time mother doesn ..read more

This was our first time taking pigs to the Wolsingham Show but I’d heard good things about it and wanted to make sure that the Tamworth breed was represented at the show. We’d only ever been to one day shows before and this was a 2 day show over a weekend so I wasn’t sure how the pigs (or myself) would cope. As it turned out I needn’t have worried because we all coped very well Allendale Tamworths setup and ready Thankfully the weekend did not involve any showing or judging of the pigs so there was a lot less to worry about than our trips to the Northumberland show. Betty and Wilma meeting the ..read more

This time around we took Elsie as the most senior sow, Beryl who is Elsie’s daughter and also our most recent addition Dora that we kept on from Doris’s litter last year Settling in before the judging They all behaved impeccably although Elsie did get very grubby because she enjoyed digging up the fresh grass in her show pen. She still got a second place rosette for her class though! As usual, it was an excellent day out for all concerned plus a great way for the public to meet our Tamworth pigs and find out more about them Rosettes for each pig ..read more

We had planned to have four litters of piglets from November onwards but when they actually arrive it can be a little overwhelming with the numbers of animals. Tina was the first to farrow on 6 November with a litter of 7 piglets – 5 boys and 2 girls. This was her first litter but she handled everything really well. She is from the Maple female line and is a descendant of Esther, one of our original 2 breeding sows. Doris (a Princess sow) was not far behind Tina and farrowed on 8 November piglets – 7 girls and 2 boys. This was the first time that we’d had 2 litters within a couple of days of e ..read more

We took 3 of our Tamworth pigs to the Northumberland show with each one entered into a different class by age. The main reasoning being that if we entered enough classes then surely we’d at least win something for our efforts Elsie, Doris and Beryl all behaved impeccably especially during the judging. It was 1st place rosettes for all of them And to top it all off, the youngest (Beryl) was named as the Reserve Traditional Breed Champion which isn’t bad for less than 5 months old After our unexpected success at the last show in 2019 I wasn’t sure that we would do quite so well this time ar ..read more