It’s been a busy few months at Standalone Farm as we opened for the new season earlier than ever before, but even in the winter while we were closed the team were still busy behind the scenes.
Maintenance work takes place during our closed period and across the winter this included replacing half of the aviary as well as improvements to the wildfowl area; cleaning up the hides and renewing the fencing, as well as clearing the undergrowth in the wildflower meadow.
Our Jersey cow, Jane, gave birth to Pickles, an Aberdeen Angus cross heifer calf, in early March. Unfortunately Jane developed milk fever, hypocalcaemia, while calving and was very poorly. While this has caused her to be thinner than she would normally be at this time, she is now eating well and producing lots of milk. Pickles comes out every afternoon to meet our visitors. Alice, our Hereford cow and Merry, a British Blue cross, also calved in March.
Lambing took place mid-March to early April and was made trickier by the continued wet weather. Despite of this, around 150 lambs were born over this period.
Other new faces include a small flock of guinea fowl that were reared over winter and released at the start of the season, a Saddleback sow called Sally who arrived with 10 Large White cross piglets, and chicken and guinea fowl chicks.
Our small herd of suckler cows has just started to calve with three calves born during the last week. The improvement in the weather has also allowed us to turn out all cattle into the fields to graze.
But it’s not just the animals that have kept us busy over recent weeks, as so far this season we have provided 14 weeks of work experience to local school, college and university students. We also hosted the start and finish point of the recent Greenway Challenge, which saw a record number of entrants take on the 13.1 mile route, raising money for Garden House Hospice in the process.
On top of all that, we have a busy few months ahead, with the May half term seeing AmeyZoo joining us again for our Creepy Critters week. Following that, we have a number of different events running throughout the school holidays, including a falconry display and donkey rides.
