Farming Friends

Here is my beautiful Christmas cactus. A very fitting plant with only a few days to go until Christmas day.

This is the plant that I always remember from childhood. My birthday is in December and my mum and dad have had a Christmas cactus flowering in their house since I was born.

Which plant do you have first recollections of and earliest memories about?

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Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As The Garden Grows for more information.

The piggy photograph I received via email for my December photograph of the month competition really made me laugh - what a great entry from Rebecca @ Irish Sally Garden.

These are Rebecca’s two gloucestershire old spot pigs. They are 5 months old and very heavy! Rebecca knows that because one of them stood on her foot yesterday. She told me that she is going to ask santa for steel toe cap boots! These pigs are two organically reared, rare breed lads free ranging in part of their oak woods. They are big softies, they love to roll over to have their tummies rubbed.

If you like taking photographs then why not enter our Farming Friends ‘Foto’ Of The Month Competition.The photographs need to have a farming theme and can include the farming landscape, farm animals, farm machinery, farming life or nature and wildlife on and around a farm.Send your photographs by email keeping the photograph attachment to a size of about 600 x 400 pixels. Please supply some details about the photograph - the name of the person who took the photograph, when and where it was taken and what is happening in the photograph. The winning ‘Foto’ will be posted at the beginning of the following month, so you have up to the end of the month to enter. Go check out the other entries now and also don’t forget the photograph caption competition which can be found on the Photograph Competitions page.

Hens need a certain amount of light in order to lay their eggs and this is why you generally find that hens lay their eggs in the Spring and Summer months.

Here is Hatty the hen laying her eggs.

I was lucky enough to walk by Hatty’s nest as she was about to lay an egg and the egg laying moment was captured on camera.

Hens are also very aware of the light fading as night falls.

My poultry often gather at the door of the poultry hut waiting to be let in as the light fades. If I get my timing wrong and I miss judge the amount of light outside, I can find Hatty and the guinea fowl roosting in the trees, on the roof trusses or on the hay bales.

As you can see light plays an important part in the life of the poultry.

If you would like to join Photo Hunters then click on the image below for more information.

Piglets love to chew on things and when they are bored they sometimes start to nibble on the other piglets curly tails. This can often end in serous injury for the piglet whose tail is being nibbled.

It is therefore important to keep your piglets entertained and to divert their attention away from the other piglets.

Toys suitable for the pigstye include:

• Strong plastic containers that have been thoroughly cleaned and disinfected.
• Old tyres.
• Chains hung from the ceiling.

I have placed some empty plastic containers into the pig pen and the pigs love to nibble on them and push them around the pigstye. Hopefully this will deter them from nibbling on my wellies!

Farming Friends Pig Penpal is a penpal scheme that enables the penpal recipient to learn about pigs in an interesting way.

At a cost of only £12 the Farming Friends Pig Penpal will receive;

• An introductory letter from the pig penpal.
• A photograph of the pig penpal.
• A birthday card from the pig penpal.
• A Christmas card from the pig penpal

Buy the Farming Friends Pig Penpal for yourself or as a gift for a friend, family member, a child, a group or class of children. This is an ideal gift for a child or group of children as it not only enables the children to learn about pigs and life on a farm but it can also help the children to develop their reading and letter writing skills if they want to write back to their pig penpal. The pig penpal will of course find time to send a reply.

This gift will provide the recipient penpal with;

• Facts about pigs - what type of animal they are, what breed they are, what they eat and what they produce.
• An insight into farming life.
• A link between food and farming.
• Personal information about the pig.

Buy now for only £12.

When purchasing this gift please fill out the contact form below with the following information:

• Name of penpal recipient.
• Address of penpal recipient.
• Date of birthday of penpal recipient.
• Age of recipient if a child.
• Date when you would like the introductory letter if different from birthday.

Our bull is a relatively new one and when he was introduced to the cows not all of the cows got in calf straight away and this has resulted in calves being born throughout the year.

The bull has a very  gentle nature and doesn’t seem to mind being separated from his herd of cows.

I will post a photo of our bull when I can get the main computer to work as it seems to have stopped working at the moment and all the photos are on the main computer! so watch this space for a photo of the bull.

Click on the image below to visit Amazon.co.uk to find out more about this book or visit one of the Farming Friends Bookshops.

The first entry for this months photograph competition arrived in my email box this week and I am thrilled with the photograph. Jane from Urban Extension has sent the photograph, so thanks Jane.