Farm

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                          Come and discover life on the farm

Our main farming enterprise is a herd of dairy goats, however we have a number of other animals too.

We have about 100 goats, mostly British Toggenbergs – a soft brown colour with white stripes on their faces and white ‘socks’. We also have a few  Saanens (the white ones) and boer (the meat breed). The Toggenbergs  produce slightly less milk than the Saanens but their milk is creamier so ideal for cheese and the other products we make from the farms milk.
We milk the goats twice a day May to October and visitors are welcome to come and watch this (8.30am and 5pm on the dot). March to May they are milked mornings only and Christmas to March they don’t give milk. Goats are naturally very curious creatures so they love the attention from visitors and particularly like to nibble long hair, coat toggles or any loose string!

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We also have a few sheep. The lambs go for meat after a happy life maturing naturally on grass. We don’t force feed nuts to fatten them in time for the ‘spring lamb’ premium price market but let them develop a slower more natural flavour.

 

We usually have a few rare breed pigs which we fatten up for sausages and meat for the farm shop. Bubbles is a Gloucester Old Spot (our favourite, pictured left – calm, friendly with personality)  We have had various breeds in the past, Oxford Sandy and Blacks (very calm and chilled out, but a nightmare to load into the trailer); Berkshires (completely over excited, but very playful); Middle Whites (messy things but very chatty) and a few others. They eat grass, pig nuts and whey from the cheese-making. They adore it!

 
Our happy hens!We currently don’t have any hens at the moment (sadly Mr Fox got very hungry one day) but we hope to get some more again when we’ve got a more secure enclosure for them. 

And of course we can’t forget our two donkeys – Teddy and Choco. We’ve recently trained them so we can take them for walks and maybe even campers will be able to take them for walks one day. At the moment its a bit more like we’re being taken for a walk! They are sweet and gentle animals and both like attention. Please don’t feed them as they can easily get over weight.

You can see more about the farm on this channel 5 documentary. City Life to Country Life.

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