We made a trip over the weekend to a local farm that was having an open day. It was advertising lambs and feeding, with tractor drives around the fields thrown in. We arrived late morning and were immediately surprised by the amount of people there. At £10 a family it initially seemed reasonably cheap with a fair return for the farm so a great idea.
We started with a burger ( another £10 spent!) before progressing to a wander. It was at this point that I began to wonder at the kindness of modern farming.
My phone makes this picture look quite cute but actually these cows were living in almost darkness in a barn that was falling to pieces. The sign on its door gives you some clue
There were a lot in here. Cows and calves in what was clearly a deep litter scheme. Although it had obviously been newly laid for the occasion it was still quite smelly.
This was their view of the fields they should have been turned out into for the spring. If only it wasn’t being used as a car park!
The sheep faired no better. Here the pregnant ewes are rounded up into a straw covered yard with little shade from the relentless sun. The ones lucky enough to have given birth were under cover in pens hardly big enough to turn around in, being stared at by a never ending row of stressed families as a loud speaker crackled over and over to not touch the lambs or not to feed the sheep. Miss C took one look at the length of the queue and decided she’d seen lambs before and was to hot to join it.
The length of the tractor queue got a similar response so luckily within the hour we were on our way home.
Hubby pointed out that the meat is probably butchered off site and returned so it’s still got food miles but I brought some burgers from their farm shop anyway. I feel I’ve done my bit for another local business and they had been lovely eaten in the barn earlier.
Then I realised the burgers were pork and apple and I never saw any pigs!
acquest13 