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Farm Facts

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Farm Animals
No one knows when animals were first used by man. Cattle, sheep, pigs and goats were probably tamed thousands of years ago by hunters following grazing herds. As time passed they thought of the animals as their own, and learned that they could have milk, wool and meat without killing so many animals. Horses were tamed to help with heavy jobs such as pulling the carts and plough's. The dung from the animals was used to fertilize the soil and help the crops to grow.

Over the years the animals have been selectively bred, using those which were most useful.

Cattle
Cattle are the most popular farm animal, they can change grass, which has little food value and is hard to digest, into milk which is rich in food value. They can do this because they have four stomaches to digest their food. Cattle, goats and sheep all digest their food in the same way and are known as ruminant's.

Some breeds of cattle are kept purely for beef, others for milk, and some for both. The dairy cow gives birth to one calf a year and produces milk for the next ten months. The amount of milk that a cow gives depends on the breed but 10-15 litres is the average, although Friesian cows (the black & white ones) can produce as much as 20 litres per milking which is 80 bottles of milk a day! Cows need about 60 litres of water a day, and will eat 70kg of grass a day (its own weight in grass per week). When grass is scarce they are fed hay and silage, as well as concentrates.

The Dexter is the smallest breed of British cow, and the Jersey produces the creamiest milk. Numbers of dairy cows have been reduced due to poor prices being paid by the processors and supermarkets, and beef breeds such as the Aberdeen Angus, Highland and Hereford being kept purely for meat, and other bi-products such as leather, fertilizers and medicines. There has been a great influence in beef breeding due to the introduction of the European breeds such as Charolais, Belgium Blue, and Blonde Aquitaine, these animals are extremely heavy breeds. The beef industry in the UK has suffered badly since the effects of the B.S.E crisis, and the over-production of meat in Europe.

Pigs
In their wild state pigs are forest animals, and until the 18th century they grazed wild in woodland's, digging up roots and grubs. Pigs are kept predominantly for meat, either pork, bacon or ham. Their bristles can be made into paintbrushes (hog's hair). They can be kept either indoors or out, but the rare breeds as we have at Farming World excel out of doors.

Nowadays the intensive methods of indoor pig farming are becoming unacceptable to the consumer, and more outdoor breeds are kept. The UK pig Industry is at an all time low due to the after effects of the FMD crisis and European imports.

A sow (female pig) can have as many as 18 piglets in a litter (the record for the UK is 32 surviving piglets). The ideal number is 12 as the sow only has 12 teats with which to feed her young. Pregnancy lasts 3 months, 3 weeks and 3 days. Our pigs are fed a special diet of cereals and vegetable protein in the form of pellets. Pigs suffer from sunburn, and love to wallow in the mud in the hot summer months.

Sheep
In Neolithic times sheep became domesticated and were used as much for their milk as for their meat. By the end of the 11th. Century they were in demand for their wool, trade flourished with exports to the wool mills in Flanders. Sheep remain in demand in this country until the 1930's when many farmers were forced out of sheep farming due to cheaper imported food. There was more decline during the second world war when pasture land was cultivated to grow crops for food. Today the sheep industry is once again in decline.

There are two types of sheep, both with totally different characteristics. Lowland sheep have been bred to live in rich pastures, used to being fenced in and are large in size, with thick short fleeces. Their lambs fatten quickly, and are usually born in twins or triplets. The Southdown and Suffolk are examples of lowland sheep. Hill Sheep are hardier, and can live on poor pasture. They are more agile and used to climbing (and jumping!), they do not like to be fenced in. They have a coarse fleece, often long wool to protect them from cold climates. Soays and Wensleydales are examples of these.

Sheep are pregnant for 5 months, and lambs are born in the Spring. Their tails are removed to prevent disease and fly strike occurring. As the weather gets warmer they are sheared to remove the wool in one fleece. Wool can be spun to make yarn, which is then made into clothes and carpets. The fleece can weigh about 4kg.

Goats
Goats give a plentiful supply of milk which is easier to digest than cow's milk. They are browsers rather than grazers and will happily eat grass, brambles thistles, young shoots and bark of trees. Most goat herds are kept for their milk production which is used for making yoghurt, cheese and even chocolate. Some breeds such as the angora are kept for their fleeces, which provides mohair a very valuable fibre.

Llamas
Are the largest member of the South American camelid family, where they are used as pack animals, carrying heavy loads over long distances. In this country they are becoming popular for their fibre, which is highly prized for knitters. Some sheep farmers keep one llama with their flock of sheep to protect their lambs from foxes.

Alpacas
The smallest of the camilid breeds, only standing at 100cm to the shoulder. They produce a very good quality heavy fleece, which is both soft and strong, and very expensive! Their fleece grows thickly on their legs and faces making them look like woolly bears. They are now farmed in this country for their excellent fleeces which can sell for up to £200 per kilo, (an alpaca fleece can grow up to 2.5kg per year)

Poultry
Are kept for meat and egg supply. Poultry keeping is a very specialist business and most chicken are kept indoors either in deep litter barns or intensive factory farms. Most of the eggs which we buy in the supermarkets come from chicken reared this way where there can be as many as 100,000 birds in one factory. These birds are hybrid breeds kept especially for intensive farming. Chicken who are reared the traditional was are known as "free-range" Birds have no teeth, their food goes down into the crop (kind of bag) and then ground up in the gizzard. They need grit with their food to help this grinding process.

Ducks & Geese
These are not as important in farming as they were years ago. Their feathers were plucked up to five times a year and used for bedding, arrow flights, furniture upholstery & quills, and they produced meat and eggs as well. These birds do not respond to factory farming and are kept as free-range unlike turkeys and poultry. Turkeys are raised for meat all year round, in huge units similar to broiler farms. Geese are grazing birds, ducks like to forage for their food, eating grass and digging up worms and grubs.

Horses
Farmers used to keep horses to do the work that tractors do today. They were used for ploughing and working the soil, and for pulling heavy loads on carts. There are three British breeds of heavy horse. The Shire, Clydesdale and Suffolk Punch. The Shire is the largest and can weigh up to a tonne. The Shire horses that we have at Farming World believe this statement as they are smaller than most and are very stocky, a typical working horse.

Cereals
The cereal crops of wheat and barley are divided into winter and spring types. Winter wheat and barley are sown in late September and are harvested in late July / August. Spring wheat and barley have a much shorter growing season, being sown in March and harvested in early August. Generally winter crops are higher yielding.

Wheat
Used for either milling into flour or for animal feed and breakfast cereal. The variety that we are growing near Farming World is used for making biscuits and pasta.

Barley
Again there are two types, one for animal feed, the other is malting barley used in the brewing industry.

Maize
Commonly known a sweetcorn, a very high yielding cereal used as good quality animal feed, and a popular vegetable. Maize likes lots of sunlight.

Grass
Grown primarily to sell as grass seed. Good quality hay can be made from meadow grass seed.

Annual Setaside
Farmers are paid by the E.E.C (Common Market) to take 10% their land out of production for a year; this is called annual setaside. Grass is allowed to grow during this time, but no farm animals are allowed to graze it. No crops are grown during this period. In 2008 due to the high demand for cereal crops the setaside percentage has been reduced to 0% - making no setaside this year.

Permenant Setaside
This is when farmland is taken out of production permanently and is used for other activities such as a golf courses, equestrian activities and is used for other forms of leisure.

Peas & Beans
Pulses are good crops to grow to put nitrogen back into the soil and to grow in rotation. They are used, when dried, in animal feeds as they are high protein. These are different to the varieties grown for us to eat.

Linseed
Related to the flax family, the straw is used for making linen. Grown also for its seed, which has oil, extracted. The oil is used for furniture and cricket bat preservation, and in oil paints. The flower of the linseed is a very pretty blue colour.

Oil Seed Rape
Popular arable break crop, which is high in oil-rich seeds. It is used extensively in Italy for producing Eco-diesel. A bus company in this country runs all its buses on diesel made from rape seed. The meal that is left after the oil has been extracted makes a valuable feed for animals. Distinguished by its bright yellow flowers. Very attractive to bees, they will travel miles for the pollen from rape. Honey made from rape tends to be very runny at first, later turning to a thick mass.

Onions
Grown for the vegetable market after drying.

Potatoes
The main crop potatoes are grown for the vegetable market, we are also growing a small acreage of both crisping potatoes, and salad potatoes.

Brassicas
Cabbages and cauliflowers are the summer brassicas. They can be grown on the good soil at Boughton where there is a lake for irrigating during the dry summer months. These crops need a high input of labour for planting and harvesting, and their profits depend on the market situation at the time.

Lavender
A new crop grown which is becoming popular. It is grown for its essential oil properties, where there is a growth market.

Cherries
The first recording of cultivated cherries entering this country from Europe is in Teynham. Before that there were wild cherries growing in Woodlands. It is from these wild cherries that most rootstocks are taken. Cherries have lost their popularity in the last few years, due to the necessity of using very long ladders to pick them, and the import of foreign cherries swamping the market. It is becoming increasingly popular to grow smaller trees, so that the fruit to be picked more easily and economically.

Hops
Hops are used in the process of making beer. The hop seed gives the bitter flavour to the drink. Hops are a permanent crop which do not have to be planted annually. The hops are grown in Gardens which is a field, which has poles and wires, and string is threaded between the wires. The hop bine climbs up the string by growing towards the sun. In September the bines are cut down and loaded into trailers which then take them to a machine where the flower is then separated from the rest of the bine. The hops are then taken to an oast house where they are dried and pressed into large bags called pockets. These are in turn sold to the brewer who makes the beer.

The hop plant stays dormant throughout the winter and in the spring when the new shoots appear they are then trained up the strings to begin another growing year. Many years ago families would visit Kent from London to pick the hops, they would stay on the farm in hop picker's huts. Although the work was hard, and the conditions basic, the hop pickers enjoyed their holiday on the farm and there was a party atmosphere.

Apples
Apples were originally grown from seeds and spread by birds. The seedlings were collected from the woods and grown in orchards. It was a cheap and easy way to grow apples, but was unreliable as variety and size was irregular. Later trees were chosen from the seedlings of the crab apple, this is known as the rootstock. The apple variety was then grafted onto this rootstock. This artificial propagation makes the apple true to type, and this method is still used today. There are over 2000 varieties of apples and these are grown on different sized rootstocks, MIX is the most common rootstock as it produces a small tree.

Fruit trees are planted and do not start to produce fruit until the third year. They have a stake to prevent them from being blown over. They are pruned in the winter to shape the tree and to remove any dead wood. The tree flowers in late April. Bee hives are put into the orchard to help pollinate the fruit. As the fruit grows it is susceptible to cold weather conditions, and many pests and diseases. These have to be sprayed against but these days we encourage predators (good bugs) to keep the pests (bad bugs) away.

In August we start to harvest the early apples and picking continues until October. Some fruit is sent straight to market, others are put into cold storage and packed into market boxes throughout the winter. Some of the smaller fruit is sent for processing, for cider and juice making.