End of the day

Every day we let all the animals out to roam around together. Whilst the pigs love the company of the sheep, following them where ever they go, the goats enjoy finding new patches of hedgerow to nibble and the chickens make dust baths in the parking area! Even the rabbits run wild!
At the end of the day the members shake a bucket of food and the animals all follow. Then they go back to their cosy homes for the night, worn out from the excitement of the day!

William's birthday BBQ

Last Friday we had a lovely BBQ lunch to celebrate Will's birthday. We had so much fun. In spite of the BBQ looking a bit on the smokey side, the members cooked the meat beautifully and there were no hollow sausages! Will's father came along for lunch too. He is very proud of William as he has just moved away from home into his first house. He coped with the move so well and is loving living independently with his new house mates!

Mucky pup having her first bath!

One of the members who comes to Origin has just bought a new puppy, it's a cross between a Poodle and a Yorkshire Terrier. In the picture you can see Tamsey (the pup) with egg yolk all around her mouth and another picture of her having her first bath which, by the way, she hated!

Camping at the smallholding

Some of the members and staff pitched tents and camped at Origin on Friday night. Members, staff and volunteers enjoyed a delicious BBQ, everyone helped by making different dishes using the produced.
grown and harvested at Origin. After toasting marshmallows on the fire and saying good night to all the animals we *hit the hay*! We were woken at 5.20am by the rooster. Lovely to see the hens out roaming in the summer sun so early. We will definitely camp at the farm again but next time we'll bring ear plugs!

Lovely lunches

We have been using the produce grown at the farm to make lots of lovely lunches. In the picture we had scrambled eggs using our gorgeous organic eggs with home grown spring onions and rocket. We have had endless salad and herbs from our beds and we are enjoying every bite! This week we are making soda bread and nettle soup for lunch. Some members at the project are looking forward to the zingy soup whilst others have opted to bring in a packed lunch!

Goats on the roof on the hen house

Our goats have discovered that they can jump on nesting boxes to get on the roof of the hen house. They love playing so high up on the slope. In the process they have broken both nesting boxes smashing 30 eggs! We have repaired them now and made the boxes extra strong so the fun can continue.

Collecting eggs from funny places

Our hens have taken a liking to the goat house and have decided to nest there. I was wondering why our egg count had dropped and then found 30 eggs in the goat house. Now we have to climb in and get the eggs every day!

Pygmy goats

The latest members of the Origin family are three little Pygmy goats. They are gorgeous and so much fun to watch. We have been doing lots of research into what they can eat and have been going on goat walks to find hazel, alder and hawthorn (but NOT the berries). We need to venture out a bit and find some oak leaves and some willow as we hear they love those too. They love the house that Jarred and Jess built and have lots of fun claiming up the ladder and onto the roof! I'm sure we will have lots of stories to follow!

Four baby rabbits

All of Amber's babies have now opened their eye and are running around eating grass at 2 weeks old! We held them for the first time today and their mum was very relaxed. Haven't yet sexed them, I believe thus can be tricky with rabbits! Looking for loving homes for them now.

Amber had her babies, second time lucky

Our rabbit Amber had 5 babies a few days ago, all healthy and cosy in the beautiful bed of fur that she has made them. Can't wait to hold them in a few weeks but will leave them to it for a while. We'll post more pictures soon!

Dandelions are out and ready to eat!

We have been making the most of all the lovely dandelion flowers. We made dandelion fritters and ate a few raw flowers on the side for extra goodness! Next week we will try dandelion tea.

New arrivals coming in June

Jarred and I went to meet Pygmy goat Daisie and her brother Buster today. Daisie has been bottle fed so she is ultra friendly and loves to be around people. We can't wait to take them both to Origin soon! Next project at the farm will be to build a nice house and play frame for them.

Tiny egg!

We have started to feed our hens organic wheat from the farm as well as their usual mash and we have been getting some unusually big and small eggs!

Spring is in the air!!!

Amber our rabbit at Origin has been missing for a week, on Tuesday Jess found her and managed to catch her. On Reunion with her companion Dusty we realised that Dusty (who we were told was female) was extra specially pleased to see her and started to mate with her! The pet shop must have got the sex wrong. We left the 'couple' to it for 24hours. Everyone at the farm is very excited at the prospect of baby rabbits in 28 days! We have now made them seperate hutches which Dusty is not very pleased about! Amber will need somewhere on her own to have her babies soon. Watch the space!

Dusty our rabbit

This is a little clip of our very sweeeet rabbit Dusty hope it works, this is the first video we have tried to post!

Jess is back!

It's nice to have Jess back at Origin

. She has been away for a few weeks unwell but she is pleased to be back at the farm.

Rabbits have escaped and Mya got stuck!

Today we came to the farm to find that the rabbits have got out of their run and are now under the log cabin. The dogs are frantically trying to get them out! Mya crawled under the log cabin to find the rabbits only to get stuck!!!! Martine and I managed to get Mya out but are still coaxing rabbits out with carrots!

Broody hen

For the past week we have been watching one of our Black Rock hens. She has only been leaving her nest to have something to eat and drink then she quickly returns. We have been taking eggs from underneath her until today. We decided that she is ready to be a mother hen. We replaced some of the eggs under her for white Leghorn eggs so that we get a real mix of chicks. She accepted the new eggs and tucked them under her wings. Every now and then she turns them carefully so that the embryo doesn't stick to the shell. Not all the eggs will have been fertilised but we'll see in 21 days if we have any chicks! Keep you posted!

Collecting eggs

Today Hayley and Will collected 45 eggs from 49 hens! They must be happy if most of them are laying an egg every day. Hayley put an egg in her pocket and forgot, the egg broke and left Hayley with a very slimy pocket!

Friday 13th January 2012

It's a stunning morning at the farm. Everything crisp and white, the sky blue. Looking forward to a morning walk followed by making some jam. Lots of eggs to collect and pack so that we can restock or honesty box shop. The pigs need their fresh fruit and veg and the chickens can look forward to their hot mash (not the potato type).