Quail
I know you are all waiting to hear about the recent quail hatch. We have had a successful hatch of 200 quail from 360 eggs which is about a 60% hatch rate. They all doubled in size in the first 3 days and were fully feathered in the first week. They will start laying eggs when they are 6 weeks old and will be in full lay at 8 weeks.
Caesareans
We have done 2 caesareans recently. One was on a sheep who had a massive ram lamb. Dad took her to the vets in Hadleigh and they performed a caesarean on her there. The other was a commercial cow with a very big calf. The cow had been eating a lot of straw and one of her stomachs (the rumen) was so big that the uterus was partially concealed behind it. This made the operation quite difficult because the vet could not make the incision in the usual place. This also made stitching up very difficult. Both mother and calf are doing very well.
Lambing
So far 65 ewes have lambed, Mum and Dad have been doing shifts checking and lambing the ewes. It is coming to the end of lambing now, there are only about 15 ewes left to lamb. When the lambs are born they are put into pens with their mothers to help them bond. Whilst in their pens we earmark them and record pedigree details. Then after a couple of days they are released into the yard with all the other lambs and mothers. Dad is very pleased with the quality of the lambs and is looking forward to some spring grass to turn them out onto.
Calving
Calving was going quite well until quite recently when we have had a couple of stillborn calves. Although we have been very pleased to get 3 pedigree British Blue calves born as a result of the embryo transfer done last year.
Fertiliser
After a very wet February the dry weather has enabled us to drill all of the spring barley and spring beans. We also fertilised the winter cereals which have had 37kg/ha of nitrogen, 68kg/ha of phosphate and 56kg/ha of potash.
Spring Beans
We have applied phosphate and potash to the spring beans. We did not apply any nitrogen because they are a leguminous plant which produces its own nitrogen from nodules in its roots. The beans have also been sprayed with a pre-emergence herbicide to control weeds.
Good Friday at Bridges Farm
We are hosting a Spring Farm Walk on Good Friday (2nd April) from 2 till 5pm. Come & see all the animals and enjoy tea & cake. Cost is £4 per person or £15 per family. All money raised goes to the Friends of Kersey School.