The Farm Year
Here at Beera, Robert my husband rents 180 acres of land which forms part of the Hardicott estate, we have approx 1000 breeding ewes, the ewes are put to Charolais or Texel rams the gestation period of a ewe is 5 months and three weeks. We scan all of our ewes to see how many lambs they are going to have. The ewes lamb between mid February and Mid April in two batches, a very busy time for all the family, including our parents. The lambs are sold for meat later on in the year, Robert weighs the lambs on a weekly basis hence why when you arrive at Beera sometimes the barriers are across the lane this is when he is moving sheep around on the farm. Each sheep has to have it's feet checked on a regular basis; this takes quite a lot of time. The sheep are shorn at the end of December just before they come into sheds ready for lambing.
We also have a small pedigree Charolais herd. At present we have 1 bull, 20 cows, and 8 calves.
Robert also rents 120 acres from my father 12 miles from here just into Cornwall, some sheep are kept here along with 30 Charolais cross cattle.
We grow grass for the sheep and cows to eat plus we harvest some of the grass ready for the winter months to feed indoors this is called haylage (a cross between silage and hay), this is bailed into large oblong bales and wrapped in plastic to keep all the nutrients in.
We grow corn to feed the cows and sheep and the straw is used for bedding up the animals in the winter. The corn and straw is usually harvested late August/ September.
The farm is entered in the Countryside Stewardship Scheme, where we are encouraged to farm in a wildlife friendly manner, so that modern farming can co exist with this, this means we only trim hedges every other year to help increase wild life habitats and leave 6 metre margins around fields so wild life has a great opportunity to live. As part of the scheme we have also reinstated the apple orchard by planting 30 local apple tree varieties.
