Saturday 16 July 2011

Sheering



Thanks to Mike Churchouse of 'The Sheer Sheep Experience' all of our Ewes are sporting a much more comfortable summer coat. 


If, like our students you'd like to see Mike in action, follow where he is demonstrating his work on www.sheersheep.co.uk/

Wednesday 13 July 2011

Sausage Making Round 2


 Yesterday we made sausages with the 6th form students. We started by mincing the rare breed pork produced on the farm. We prefer a coarse mince as it produces a MEATY banger.




 Once the meat is minced it is mixed with the seasonings and rusk to ensure the sausage holds together.


The mixture is then stuffed into sausage skins using our big shiny stuffer. We made two really tasty mixtures; Pork and Chilli as well as Pork and Sage.


The stuffed sausages are twisted into links by hand. A process which is really straight forward and quite relaxing.






The finished product, in this case Pork and Sage. The links are placed in 6's ready to be sold to hopefully eager customers.

Love on the Farm

This is dedication to animal welfare. Our poor Suffolk Ewe was suffering from a bad foot that needed a good clean and some treatment. You'll be pleased to know she is fine and doing well. In order to treat her feet she needed to be restrained and as you can see the best way of doing this is being demonstrated by one of our 6th Form. In this case a great big cuddle. She looks like she's at home here.

Tuesday 12 July 2011

Getting the word out.


6th Form and Yr9 Agriculture Students
show off their hard work

Our small, 
unassuming banner. 


Hopefully this will let everyone know that there is good quality 'British Pork' being reared and  produced locally and available to buy!
Percy and Sootie showing off the product

Today the 6th Form made sausages (which pretty much sold out before the day was out), blog post to follow.






Show Success

Success at the Suffolk Show.

Our Saddleback Gilt came fourth overall in the Gilt Class and Won Reserve Champion in the Rare breed Pig Class.

All of our own pigs are pedigree bred with well traced lineages.  They tend to succeed in the show ring because the students handle them everyday and Kelly puts in so many hours in preparing them for the shows.


Whilst we did not enter the East of England show we will be going to the Hatfield Show (19th - 21st August) with two Gilts, the very successful Saddleback shown here and a Large Black gilt which we have high hopes for.



The Winning Rosettes. Some more to add to the collection. Redborne has a great track record of winning Rosettes at Agricultural shows.

To add to the Redborne Line two new Saddleback Gilts will be joining the Redborne Herd. The Gilts won 'Best in Show' at the East of England.

Saturday 9 July 2011

New additions


We've had a few new additions to the farm recently, the first being two lovely weaners.  They are a bit different to the pigs usually seen at Redborne because they're ginger.  They are Saddleback and Tamworth crosses.  The Saddleback in them comes from our Saddleback boar, Percy, and the Tamworth from our friends over at Cardona and Sons (http://thecardonagoodlife.blogspot.com/).  They are happily enjoying an outdoor pen and love the attention they get from everyone who sees them.

We've also had some newborns from one of our Black sows.  She has a healthy litter of 11.  Mum and piglets are all doing well.



Making Sausages

Making lamb sausages using Redborne School Farm lamb.


Today I made sausages with Andre and Jane using lamb from our farm.  They are Lamb and Harissa flavour.  They were seasoned with several ingredients, though the main flavouring is Harissa.  The other seasonings are: cumin, coriander, salt, white pepper, tumeric, saffron and thyme.  

We had a small taster test today and can confirm they are delicious!  We have a limited amount available to buy directly from the school farm, where a member of the farm staff will be available to help you between 9am and 4pm Monday to Friday

We also have other products for sale, all of which were bred and produced on our school farm.  Our speciality is rare breed pork (we've pork chops, sausages, burgers and joints) but we also have a small amount of lamb in at the moment (chops and shoulder joints).  All items are very reasonably priced and taste fantastic (even if we do say so ourselves!).