The Vaynor Farm Blog

Chorizo Time

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 12:30:27 +0000

We have been astonishingly busy over the last few months. The young pigs have gone — all but one we’ve called Pearl who has joined Jade and Mindy. Some were sold as porkers and five we kept back for ourselves for meat.
John did all of the butchery himself over a very long weekend. He had managed to hurt his back too so it was terribly uncomfortable for him. I took to the lugging and vac-packing the cuts of meat has they came off.
By the end of the cutting, we were getting very tired and some very big joints of meat were coming off. I hope we can get them in the oven.
We decided to use the best part of 1/2 pig to make chorizo. First the meat had to be cut up and balanced with the right amount of fat before being minced. Here we thank the Kenwood Chef as the single greatest invention ever — we use it for so much
After seasoning and adding the starter culture, it was minced again through a finer screen.This does take a long time.
Then the mincer attachment is swapped for the sausage stuffer and the sausages made. Each end is tied off tightly with string.
Here, the Kenwood is only just about good enough. We really ought to get a proper machine.
Then they are all hung for a few weeks to mature. They must not touch so the dining room is filled with a wonderful paprika scent.

Cold Winds

Thu, 7 Jan 2010 12:50:25 +0000

We’ve been cut off for what seems like a long time. Just before Christmas the cold, wet snap blanketed the farm in ice about a centimetre thick. There was simply no way to get out and people coming to collect their Christmas geese had to walk up the hill and then ice-skate the 1/2 mile down the farm track.
Since then the snow has come. At least in snow there is the possibility of walking out and perhaps getting the truck up the lane. It must be bad because we’ve not had any post for three weeks (although the village pigeon-post passed around some mail just before the holiday). The postman is fairly intrepid and doesn’t surrender easily.
We have been joined by a new arrival, Tiggy the rescued border collie. If you’re a dog, the new snow is incredibly exciting and she’s having a whale of a time.

The First Farrowing

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 09:20:06 +0100

Poor Mindy. She’s been so full of piglets that she’s been shuffling around unable to get comfortable. After a week of farrowing watch, making and unmaking nests, she’s finally given us eleven piglets, all alive. I wasn’t expecting a large litter: I expected the first litter to be quite small especially since we used AI so I’m quite chuffed.
She’s a very good mum and is being very delicate with them. It’s particularly impressive to watch her building up the nest around them before she leaves the arc to stretch her legs. This keeps them nice and snug for the few minutes before they start to run around exploring the arc again.
The farrowing itself went very smoothly. The piglets appeared and found their way to a teat without any intervention (the runty one did a bit of encouragement though). Like proper Berkshires, she farrowed in an outside arc and with no problems.
We have always spent a lot of time making sure the pigs are happy having us around (they’ll do anything for a belly-rub), especially so over the last few weeks. This has paid dividends since Mindy is trusting us to be very close to the piglets and will leave us near them as she goes for a wander. We can use this time to check them over and make sure they are all ok.
Jade, our other gilt, is also due in the next few days but she is nowhere near the size Mindy was.

The Big Gosling

Mon, 6 Jul 2009 18:27:55 +0100

The little gosling, the first we hatched this year, is all grown up but still thinks he’s a big baby. Perhaps it is because we hand-reared him: all the goslings raised by a mother goose have become quite independent (we call them the ‘hoodies’ because the hang out on corners looking menacing). This chap loves (and insists) on having cuddles especially before bed time.
He is also happy to be big-brother to the other hatchlings we start in a brooder.
I think I’m about one step away from reading him a bedtime story.

Gosling

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 11:25:06 +0100

We’ve been hatching out some goose eggs in our small incubator. Because geese imprint on the first thing they see, we decided we needed a surrogate mum, hence Fluffy Mummy Ducky perched over them.
Two successfully hatched, choosing the middle of dinner party to do so, but only one was strong enough to survive. This poor little bird was suffering from ‘spraddle’ which is when the legs are weak and held outwards from the body rather than being able to support it. A quickly improvised hobble had him up and walking properly within a day or so and the hobble came off.
The little fellow is thriving in a brooder under a heat lamp with surrogate mum.