Robert Neill’s chickens have something to crow about

June has been a bit of a catchy month. The plan was to have the silage finished before the Royal Highland Show, but unfortunately the weather didn’t allow this to happen. The sun did shine the week after the show and, two weeks later than planned, the first cut of silage is now complete. The clamp is now fuller with first cut than it was with two cuts last year. Now we just need to wait for another good spell of weather to try to make some hay.

We have sold the first steer calves from our 2010 newcomers. The first three that were sold averaged £1,242 a head with an average weight of 620kg. Daily liveweight gain from birth to sale day was 1.41kg. Hopefully, the price of fat cattle will continue to stay at current prices.

A thief has been caught red-handed, or rather beaked, on the farm. It was puzzling us that some days we were hardly getting any eggs at all from our hens until granny caught a crow flying out of the hen house with a hen’s egg in its mouth.

We have sold our two youngest Kune Kune pigs to a local caravan park. They caused amusement during their first day when they escaped and decided to go for a walk with a lady and her dog that were staying at the park. We are now looking for someone who would like to use our lovely Kune Kune boar to sire some piglets. He has a great nature but is rather lonely at the moment.

Farmer Focus Livestock:  Robert Neill