Feeding.

More snow...

Some unhappy animals around as they stand folornly chewing on poor quality silage. The chickens are eating spare dog food as unlike the outside animals, the inside ones have lost their appetite. Moss, who would eat for the realm given the chance, has just started eating dry biscuit, rejecting the tasty morsels of pork crackling and fat.

Three weeks ago we had two pigs slaughtered. They were mixed GOS and Lanrace, hoping for the taste of the rare breed but the lack of fat from a more commercial breed. It has worked. They were big, healthy, happy pigs.

Some people ask how we can eat our own animals but I only need to ask if they eat meat or diary and do they know what conditions their animals lived with. It is always sad to take an animal to slaughter and it is a task not relished but when we see the commercial pigs squealing with fear and dying in transit for no apparent reason, while ours trot out into their holding pen, I know who is doing it the right way.

We are so lucky to be able to do this. It is a wonderfully engrossing hobby, even when it snows and snows!!