Open Farm Sunday approaches.....

And we still have a lot to do!

All sorts of piggy fun and more pigs than you can shake a stick at, pop in and see us -

>Open Farm Sunday Website

See you there!

When we first moved to Noggin farm we were struck by the quietness of the area. We rarely have more than 2 vehicles an hour passing on the road outside the house. However, this solitude does lead to the problem that you think that everyone who is passing is coming to see you!

On Thursday, we experienced this phenomenon. We were expecting a couple who had bought 4 of our weaners (weaners are nearly always available, please contact us for further information) when we heard a the sound of people talking outside the house. In fact they were a team of walkers completing the first task of the charity fundraising trimettathon - namely walking 120 miles from Herefordshire to Staffordshire over 7 days while living as homeless people. The money raised will go to homeless charities in the UK, orphanages in Burma and to provide medicine to children at a school in Kenya, all of whom are living with HIV.

After a quick bit of piglet admiring and cuddling, a cup of tea and refilling their water bottles they were off....

One more step along the road...

There's no business like show business!

Our first ever show arrived this weekend, in the form of the Shropshire show. We were only taking 2 of our 3 "show pigs" - Lulu & Milly. They were entered in a mixed tradiotional breed class of gilts born in 2011.

As the last class in the ring we had the opportunity to watch all of the competition and also see the pig showing skills of the other pig owners. Unfortunately our pigs still were not quite ready to play ball and spent much of their time in the ring dashing around from end to end pursued by children from The Elms School who were doing the actual showing of our pigs. However, the judge was able to see the merits of both pigs and especially their walking (which he said was the best of any of the pigs at the show!) and duly awarded Lulu 1st place and Milly 2nd place in their class.

This meant that Lulu had qualified for the Traditional pig championship against the winners of all the other classes of traditional pig. He was clearly still impressed by the little pig as he awarded her the Reserve Champion traditional pig! An amazing achievement for a young pig that was being compared against proven sows and boars.

However, Lulu's work was not finished as she then had to represent the traditional pigs for the title of overall pig champion (both commercial & traditional). Again the judge praised her, and placed her third overall.

Roll on the next show at the Three Counties in June!