The Vaynor Farm Blog

The Henge

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 17:08:51 +0100

When the Milford Haven gas pipeline was being installed, a huge archeological project was run in parallel to investigate all the historical things that were unearthed.
The pipeline runs really close to the house and, at the corner of the field, the archeologists found a class II stone henge (one with two entrances opposite each other) which has been buried under the farmland.
As you can see, it is a fairly substantial structure and there is some speculation that it was way point on route from the Preseli hills to the site of Stonehenge.
Sadly, being a few thousand years old was not enough to protect it and the gas pipeline travels straight through it.
It is expected that there would have been a stone circle but none of the stones can be found. I’d like to think that perhaps a couple of them made their way into the stones of the house.

Here Come the Pigs

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 21:20:52 +0100

Three beautiful little Berkshire pigs have arrived!
We’ve waited so long to get some nice weaners it’s really exciting to see them in the field at last. We had the arcs delivered over a year ago but found it hard to get hold of good stock.
Two of the pigs, Pork and Mindy, are destined for the freezer but one of the little beauties is a BPA registered gilt which we hope to breed from ourselves.

Shear Fun

Sun, 6 Jul 2008 10:14:53 +0100

The alpacas have been sheared. They were bundled up into the back of an animal transport and shipped over to Alpacas of Wales where the New Zealand shearer was powering through.
Each animal is brought to a shearing station, its feet are tied and then ‘stretched’ so that the animal is gently dropped to the ground. The animal’s head is gently held throughout. Mike was so efficient, it took just a couple of minutes for the animal to be completely processed. They do look a bit silly once they’ve been sheared though.
From each of the animals, we had at least 2Kg of fleece and nearly 4Kg from the larger beasts. I supposed I better start up the spinning wheel.

Mini Guinea Fowl

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 14:06:45 +0100

So what do you do when a couple of the layers decide to go broody and no amount of persuasion will get them off the nest? Well we bough ourselves a few fertile guinea fowl eggs and moved the broodies to a quiet spot in the workshop.
Four weeks later and tapping noises could be heard from the eggs and a day or so later, most of them hatched.
The Light Sussex hens are proving to be very good mothers and are saving all the worms they find for the chicks, but guineas being insectivores, they’ve taken most pleasure demolishing an ants nest.
We have one more broody and she is also sat on a clutch of guinea eggs, Next year we might try pheasants or even peacocks.

Welcoming the Geese

Sun, 8 Jun 2008 13:52:00 +0100

We picked up a family of geese at the Royal Welsh Smallholders’ show. We have one gander and three geese (which are really just goslings at the moment).
They have settled down really quickly and live in the same paddock as the alpacas. Once the boys had got over their curiosity everyone settled in fine despite the alpacas having taken to lying down in the geese’s bath and the geese eating the alpacas’ feed.
They are really nice to have around and are not bad tempered at all. This will probably change next spring when they are bringing up young though. They are chief escape artists and capable of squeezing under gaps in the gate although they don’t go far.
They do eat an enormous quantity of grass. The four birds each much more than the six alpacas and what goes in has to come out. Big green poos over the driveway are the usual tell-tales that they’ve been out for a wander.