Welcome to our November newsletter 

Carbon foot print

Last week I took part in a webinar hosted by the National Farmers Union about ways poultry farmers can achieve net zero. It featured a large broiler (meat chicken) farmer who rears tens of thousands of birds a year, a large free range hen farmer producing millions of eggs, the Tesco’s head of poultry and eggs – and me, representing the seasonal turkey sector. We each had to speak for ten minutes about the challenges we face and what we are doing and plan to do to combat them in order to reach a carbon neutral result.

I was up last and as soon as the other farmers started talking about their hydro electric or solar powered farms that were adopting cutting edge expensive technology to produce tonnes of intensively produced food with a very low carbon footprint I knew I was out of my depth – in fact I wasn’t sure why I was invited on!

So I opened by admitting that my turkeys per kilo would have a higher carbon foot print than a kilo of chicken meat from an intensive shed. A lot of what I do to produce a top quality turkey actually adds to its carbon foot print, with the main culprit being the age at which our birds are slaughtered – 23 weeks. An intensively grown chicken can reach weight in as little as 35-45 days, an indoor reared turkey would be more like 10 weeks so my birds are eating a lot more food than run of the mill turkeys.

This however I see as an opportunity. My birds don’t need the rocket fuel soya filled feed of conventional poultry, our ration is made up of mainly wheat and barley in a pellet but I’m also trying to include an increasing amount of locally grown protein into the diet with the birds enjoying oats and whole peas grown by a local farmer who farms regeneratively (improving his soils and minimising fertiliser and chemical inputs). My target is to eventually source all of the turkey’s feed locally, this will be far more work but a very satisfying achievement.

I think the soya that feeds the 900 million chickens that we eat every year in the UK is unsustainable in many ways so small producers like me should be pushing ourselves to feed the most sustainable diet we can and lead the way for change. 

Turkey sales

From the moment we opened the online shop on the 1st of October it all went a little bit mad! The media news (and I think it’ll be proved correct) that there will be a shortage of turkeys this year resulted in sales on the first day equalling what we would expect to sell in the whole of October. Now, by the end of the first month selling, we are three quarters sold even with a hundred extra this year! Reports are similar amongst other producers as well. Please don’t delay in getting your order in!

Keeping the cows out

At this time of year we’re poised to get the cattle in from the fields and into the sheds for the long winter. The aim is to keep them out grazing for as long as possible as once they’re in the workload increases. They have to be fed, strawed-up and have the dung scraped out. The fuel, straw, silage, time and machinery all have significant cost associated to them so every few extra days they stay out in the fields saves pounds. To keep the cows out we need the weather on our side, mainly so the ground doesn’t get churned up. From the middle of the summer we’ll be planning where the cows will graze in the autumn. We aim to end the season with plenty of grass in the fields that the sheep won’t graze over winter and then hope October and November are dry enough to keep the cows out on those fields. Moving the cows onto a fresh paddock each day prevents them gathering in the same spot which they’ll do if the wind or rain bothers them and means I can keep them on long grass which prevents damage to the soil surface.

In general, on all but the most ghastly days, the animals are better outside. The cows develop shaggy coats and use the hedges and each other for shelter from rain and the air is fresher and cleaner than inside.

Amazingly the billions of microbes inside a cow’s stomach generate a huge amount of heat so the cow never gets cold as long as it has got plenty to eat.  In some areas of North America cows will stay out in deep snow even when temperatures get below -20c because at these temperatures it’s dry snow rather than wet. I don’t want it that cold, but frosty and dry for the next month would be perfect.

Pop-up shop - Saturday 6th November 10am - noon

The next pop-up shop is this Saturday (6th of November). Please come along, we’ll have our fresh 100% grass fed beef on sale along with all the normal goodies - veg, milk, bread, crisps and lardy cakes.. We have knitting kits (with our own wool) jams, chutneys, honey and salami which would all make great Christmas presents!

Autumn on the farm 

It’s been quiet for wildlife in the last few weeks, I can’t have been looking hard enough! We did have a great view of a barn owl the other day, we were walking the dog and as we passed the old ash tree with a spooky dark hollow in the trunk an owl took flight. It silently cruised in a loop settling on a gate post where it was bothered by a gang of magpies. We hurried away in the hope it would soon retreat back to its shelter. Barn owls didn’t breed here last year like they normally do, squirrels occupied one owl box and jackdaws took up residence in the other.

We’ve got great numbers of meadow pipits around at the moment, they’re small brown unassuming birds and I love the cheerful tweet they make as they rise out of the grass in front of you, sometimes settling on the power line from where they observe me as I move the cows. It is impossible to count them as they only take off as you approach and then vanish down into the grass. We probably have several hundred. I think they’d be birds that have bred further north and I suspect they’ll pause here until the weather deteriorates.

Also nice to still be seeing butterflies on the wing, I spotted the above red admiral on the 1st November. 

Mushrooms & other interesting fungi have been appearing every where on the farm. We have to be quick to pick the edible ones before the cows and sheep trample them in.