As we feared, Mike the bull wasn't firing on all cylinders last year. We should have almost finished calving by now, but so far just five calves have been born (all heifers). We replaced Mike with our new bull, Winston, in July 2007 so we'll probably get a surge of calves in April (lambing time) which will cause problems if the weather's bad. Here are some photos of the calves when they were in the back yard while Chris mucked out the shed and gave them clean straw.
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The stags are back on the farm again. On 4th March, we counted 27 red deer stags on Opposite (the field opposite the farmhouse). I took a photo with Chris' camera.
When I was spring-cleaning the holiday cottage this morning, I saw three stags from the window of the master bedroom, so I took a photo of what guests may see from their bedroom. It's usually sunnier than this, of course! Chris saw a roe buck by the track to Barham Field the other day, and took this photo. We seem to be becoming a wildlife sanctuary. It's lovely to see so many deer on the farm, as long as they leave a bit of grass for the sheep, cattle and ponies.