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May 2026
Posted Friday 1st May, 2026
A very busy spring continues here at Fordhall, with lambing complete and a record number of 285 lambs born over the last month. We also had a record number of triplets this year. In fact, a large proportion of them decided to have triplets! Three is too many for a ewe to feed as sheep only have two teats, so the team encouraged mothers with just one lamb to adopt one of the triplets. It all worked really well.
Mother ewes and lambs will all spend the next couple of months growing and learning the ins and outs of what being a sheep here at Fordhall means. The recent hot weather and sun has meant that low-lying fields, especially around the river, have seen the grass, plants and wildlife thrive. Fields that were ‘out of bounds’ due to rainfall and floods in the early part of this year now have lush grass growing. This is great timing as we’re getting close to using up all our hay reservers from last years’ crops.
We recently lost the breeding Gloucester Old Spot boar we introduced into the herd back in September of 2025, so we’ve had to replace him with a new man about town. This new boar has come from a prize winning bloodline, of which his mother was Three Counties champion a few years ago. This was a great win for the Gloucester Old Spot breed! Purchased from another local farm, we’re hoping the boar will already be accustomed to the climate here in sunny Shropshire. We’d like to see him get used to his surroundings quickly and hit the ground running. We’re also hoping he’ll provide us with some healthy litters in the coming months.
Our herd of cattle grows by the day as this years’ calves keep on on arriving! We’re half way through the number of calves we're expecting. So far the cattle have been quite hands-off without the need for any human assistance. The use of ‘Moo Call’, a temporary device fitted to the cows tails to indicate movement, has been notifitying Ben when and where a cow is in labour which means that we can be on the scene pretty sharpish. Even in the middle of the night!
We’ve had one set of twins which is very unlikely in cows. Producing and supporting a calf for one of our breeding cows is very energy dependant, so giving birth to two calves can take a lot. Thankfully all is well and progressing as we’d expect.
Beekeeper Andrew is slowly gearing up for a busy few months. He reports that the recent mixed weather and fluxuations in temperature have confused the bees slightly which were coming out of clustering. This is their form of hibernation, protecting the queen and keeping the temperature stable. As a result he expects their foraging patterns to be disrupted slightly going into the start of summer.
We’re looking forward to the continued sunshine and warmer weather brining life to the farm. Our next objective will be trying to make hay once we’ve got a prolonged dry spell in the forecast!
