January 2010

Hello everyone and happy new year!!

We have just finished our busy period in the farm shop. This has been successful with figures slightly improved on last year. My thanks go to all staff and customers who continue to support Cannon Hall Farm.

I write this while we are in the depths of our biggest freeze in living memory, I know it looks nice but I will be really glad to see the back of it! The farming day is now just taken up by trying to defrost frozen pipes, carrying water and shoveling snow. Added to this we are right in the middle of lambing our first batch of 150 ewes and it is proving very challenging.

Our daily grind was interrupted this week by a visit from Look North cameras who proceeded to make a short but very entertaining piece about how the snow was affecting the animals. This was watched by over 1 million viewers and one of our mule ewes decided to produce triplets in front of the cameras. The number of lambs is exceptional and as always is an indication of the weather and condition of the ewe 5 months ago. i.e. not the weather when the lambs are born.

We are currently putting together a calender of special events, these so far include a lambing half term in February, lambing at Easter along with an Easter egg hunt, sheep shearing at spring bank and we have decided to give away a pumpkin with every farm admission at October half term. Watch the website for details of these & other events to come.

We are currently drawing up plans to add a large indoor playground & expand the livestock buildings at Cannon Hall Farm. We intend to make the indoor playground one of the biggest and best in the country with an estimated spend of £1 million.

We also intend to market season tickets and make Cannon Hall Farm even better value for our loyal regular customers. Progress on the development of this project can be followed on the website.

I will sign off now and hope it will not be too long before we see the first signs of spring.

Best Regards,

Farmer Robert

August 2009

Hi everyone! Thought it was time I gave my thoughts again.

As we speak we are about to start our busiest spell of the year - the summer holidays and we are all hoping for some better weather. School trips have gone really well and with record numbers we are really pleased. We are delighted to welcome our new tour guide Brad - he is from down under but we have adopted him as a true yorkshireman.

Expansion of the farm continues with the building of some more paddocks that will enable us to give more exercise and variety to our animals. The paddocks will be adjacent to the playground and will have public access so that the llamas and alpacas can have good exercise and still be on view to our visitors.

Plans are well on the way to extend the adventure playground. We want to improve the attraction year on year. I am a big believer that if you don't go forward you go backwards so we are commited to continual development of the site.

Farming-wise we are about to harvest our second cut of round bales which will go a long way to supplying the round house and 120 beef cattle.

The pigs (apart from Portly) continue to have fantastic numbers of piglets and we have brought in two new breeds. The hungarain Mangalitza pig which has a hairy coat and two delightful Kune Kune pigs (Salt & Pepper) who are already great stars.

Visitor numbers are good. We are hoping that a radio advertising campaign will reap its reward but as always the weather will have the last word.

It is amazing how quickly the months slip by, in two weeks it will be time for the early lambing sheep to be mated, this will result in January born lambs.

Best Regards,

Robert the farmer

July 2009 - Nigel's Disappointment

Farm foreman Nigel Elliott experienced ground hog day when Portly the pig – a sow that he has adopted as his own – brought embarrassment upon him once again.

Most of the pigs at Cannon Hall Farm have between 12 & 18 piglets each litter but Portly for the second time running had just 5.

Nigel is quick to remind me that they are 5 really good ones but these are the lowest numbers born by any pig for 5 years so to do it twice is exceptional. Could Nigel be hampering Portlys production with kindness (over feeding)?

It is a proven fact that overfeeding leads to poor fertility and Nigel is known for giving his favourite extra helpings.

Portly will now have to go on a strict diet in readiness for her next litter which will be born in February next year.