Gourmet Pig...

Here is a glimpse of our rare breed pork, lovingly prepared by the kitchens of Paris House courtesy of Head Chef; Phil Fanning....

The loin of pork is stuffed with wild mushrooms and served with ashened swede, tenderstem broccoli and crispy sage...

Check out the rest of the menus at the Paris house website... www.parishouse.co.uk

And Follow Phil on Twitter at... @ParisHouseChef

Cumberland Sausages...

We are ever the adventorous types here at Redborne, willing to try our hands at the new and exotic. This time however, we thought we'd try something more traditional, something that despite it's popularity we had never actually made ourselves...

The good old fashioned but extremely delicious Cumberland Sausage...

The pork comes from our finest rare breed pigs and Hellett, the butchers were kind enough to mince three entire pigs for us so we could create a range of new sausages (Including one called Old Banger). With the meat already minced all we needed to do was mix the seasoning into the meat, along with a little bit of rusk and some water just for the purpose of binding everything together. We only add rusk at a rate of 3% of the weight of the meat. By the time water and seasonings are added we are still left with a sausage that is 90% top quality pork

We also use all natural casings for a properly, authentic sausage... It's also as big as your head!!!

This one was baked on top of red cabbage, apple, port, balsamic vinegar and just a touch of honey for 2 and a half hours in a very big pan....






The smell was amazing, warm red wine spicy sausage and pickled cabbage....








Served with crisp, roast potatoes and bread sauce it was truly scrumptious...

All of our sausages are priced at a very reasonable £3 per pack:

We currently have in stock:

Old Banger (6pk), Plain Pork (6pk) and cumberland (Ring and 6pk). Plus a some delicious lamb and mint burgers...

Paris House...

We have been supplying Paris House Restaurant at Woburn with rare breed pork for a few months now and it has been well received...

Paris House is the only Michelin Starred restaurant in Bedford and sits within the grounds at Woburn. A rather fitting destination for the toils of our labour...




And Here we are on the Menu...

Weaners for Sale...

We have some weaners that are ready for a new home. We have a long history of rearing pigs and most of our stock goes to other farms. Being an open site we encourage people to come along to view our pigs and of course try some of our products at home for themselves. All of our pigs are from pedigree stock, raised to the highest welfare standards and birth registered...

Mutton and Lamb...

As well as Pedigree pigs and high quality pork products we also produce our own seasonal lamb and mutton. This year we have sold our lamb exclusively through the school and have limted supplies left. Our lamb packs come with all the cuts you would expect from the expensive and tender rack of lamb to those cuts best cooked slowly.  All of them are delicious and can be used to make treats like this pie, rich with redcurrant and mint.

If you are interested in lamb then feel free to contact us at stbwilliams@redborne.beds.sch.uk

A Year in Pigs...

A mixed year for the Redborne school farm pigs with regards to the weather but rain or shine we tried our best!

Suffolk Show is always our first stop in the showing season and by this point we hope to have the young pigs trained and our show coats washed and ironed ready to go but as soon as we hit Suffolk we realised we we're in for wet and windy weather. 

Our class was an inter-breed September Gilt class and we gained a 3rd and 4th place rosette and this qualified our 3rd place gilt to go in to the best of breed class.

On the second day due to high winds and the sheer amount of rain we had had, the show cancelled.  So we had to decide what to do about the qualifying rounds, we decided to continue showing inside the pig tent in our wellies and now not so white show coats, and, to our delight we gained the Best Saddleback pig in show rosette.

East of England show was another wet one but every body kept their spirits up and although we were showing in a very muddy show ring we gained a 2nd place rosette, which is not bad considering the breeder of the 1st place Saddleback has been breeding these pigs for sixty five years!

Hatfield show was a scorcher and by this point in the show season our show pigs had decided that they would rather act like greyhounds and run around the ring, not good in that heat! But in a massive class of nearly 20 Saddleback pigs we came 8th so we can't complain too much!

Over all we had a great season and have already chosen the pigs for next years show season!

Ferret Kits...

Not strictly a farmed animal but we keep ferrets at our farm anyway. As well as helping us keep down the population of unwanted pests they are a great way of introducing students to handling and caring for small animals...

We have three adult ferrets; Scratch who is a gill (Female) and two brothers called Max and Paddy (Male ferrets are called hobs). Ferrets are obligate reproducers meaning that when a gill is fertile or in season she must mate otherwise she will remain in season and become susceptible to infections. As Max and his brother Paddy are getting on a bit they tend to go through the motions but have not produced a litter with Scratch in a long time. That is until recently. Scratch had an unexpected litter of four healthy and very adorable ferret kits.

When born ferret kits have no fur and are completely blind. They stay with mum slowly growing for about 6 weeks when they are weaned and take solid food...

Mangalitsa Journey...

Our Mangalitsa pigs came to us in May and we expected them to be with us for quite a while but lots of pasture and plenty of love and care have seen them grow up very fast. Thay are definitely a breed we can recommend keeping...

The Mangalitsa has been called the Kobe beef of pork, this suggests that we will be in for a real treat and having put so much care into the rearing of our stock we put a lot of thought into how we treat the products. Because the Mangalitsa is an extreme fat breed (meaning that it has a higher fat content than usual) it lends itself to curing and is extremely full of flavour. Equally Mangalitsa fat is very high in unsaturated fats due to the grass grazed upon. This unsaturated fat is much better for us than some other types of fat...

We'll dry cure the belly, wet cure the legs for ham and leave the shoulder and loin as natural as possible to celebrate this wonderful animal...

Definitely more to follow...

Hatching Chicks...

Hatching eggs is surprisingly easy with a good incubator and little bit of patience...

Quail take 17-18 days
Chickens 21 Days
Ducks (Except Muscovy) 28 Days
Muscovy Ducks and Geese 35 Days

We have had 18 chicken eggs in the incubator now for 21 days...

The incubator has been kept at 37.5 degrees Celsius and 55% humidity and now they are starting to hatch...

The young chick breaks free from the egg...

The chick is left in the incubator for a short period of time to dry out...

Now dry and fluffy the chicks are placed in a heated brood box with fresh water and chick crumbs

...

Try our Tasty Sausages...

At Redborne our primary aim is education, but we also produce some very tasty products. these include, a range of pork and lamb products such as our very tasty sausages. Currently we are selling Sweet Chilli sausages and Lemon and Herb sausages...

Here are a couple of tasty serving suggestions...

Sweet Chilli Sausages with Fresh Pea Shoots, Spinach and Butter Bean Puree

Lemon and Herb Sausages with Homemade Coleslaw

Perfect for those summer days we are all hoping arrive soon...

Pig News...

It's been a busy time of it lately when it comes to pigs...

With two more beautiful litters of Saddleback piglets, we're busy tending to their every need.

Our Managlitsas have lots of fresh new grass to eat and root through and a new extension to their paddock...

Our two September gilts have been very successful at the Suffolk Show, winning best Saddleback and gaining 3rd and 4th overall amongst all the breeds in the rare breed category...

Liam in the ring...

Despite the attrocious weather, team work prevailed and the show pigs did us proud...

First Time Swarm Control and Top Bar Hives...

Our friends at Cardona and Sons asked if we would like some bees to fill our Top Bar Hive. The only catch was...

That we had to help catch our own swarm...

The Swarm decided on a somewhat unusual temporary home...

The swarm was found on a traffic island right in the middle of a major junction and was in such a worrying position we even had our very own police escort. I don't think it was their usual call out...

It was 8pm and getting cold so the swarm was collected together for the night and there was a low chance of leaving any stragglers. Having sprayed them with a little sugar solution to encourage them to wake up a little, we collected the swarm into a frameless Nuc box and gently wrapped them in a sheet...

The Swarm was taken back to the school and gently tipped into the newly prepared Top Bar Hive. We tipped them at the end farthest from the entrance so that they were warmer and left them some fondant to get them started...

The top bar hive is different from a national or commercial hive in that it does not have frames but allows the bees to build their own combs in a more natural way. It also allows inspection of the hive with only a small amount of exposure to the colony. That said it does have it's limitations in that standard frames cannot fit into the hive and you can't just keep adding supers on top...

The Top Bar Hive...

Top Bar hives and Swarm Control: Bee News...

With the warm weather and abundance of flowers planted by Jan our horticluture technician, the bees are in full swing producing honey at a fantastic rate. Our friends at Cardona and Sons came to check on one of their hives and found it so full they had to split the colony to stop it swarming...

Fully suited and with a prepared brood box Andre first inspected the large colony...

One by one Andre removed the frames and checked the health of the bees, their stocks and reserves and their brood. Some of the frames showed sign of queen cell formation. When the bees are preparing to swarm they produce a special brood cell in which the juvenile queens will develop.

The large Queen cup is clearly visible

All but one Queen Cup must be removed and destroyed, the surviving Queen Cup (Usually the largest) and its frame are placed in a new sterile brood box along with several frames of unhatched worker bees. The Queen Cups are destroyed by scraping them off the frames with your hive tool. The bees still flying will serve their original hive and queen, the newly emerged bees will serve the new queen in the new hive...

The other good news is that we have raised £390 to buy the equipment and 4 hives for our Kenyan orphan project. The equipment will be winging it's way to Kenya on the 23rd June and the hives will be in place by mid July. Plus to get into the theme of our project we have invested in a top bar hive. These hives are used across the developed world and instead of being split into mulitple chambers like the national hives they are one long colony.  The bees produce their own combs and the hive is said to be more 'natural'. If nothing else it will be an interesting side project.

Redborne Lamb For Sale...

For the first time ever we are selling our lambs direct to customers. We feel that having invested so much time and effort to produce a product of fantastic quality that we would like to put our name to it as opposed to letting it head to the supermarkets and join the long lines of cellophane wrapped mass produced meat.

Now a lot bigger than this, all our lambs were born and reared at Redborne. Grass fed and allowed free roam of our paddocks they are a high welfare, high quality product.

To that end we are selling our lambs initially by the half or whole animal, fully butchered and packed up ready for the freezer. We’re also ensuring that we can match our quality product with fantastic prices just £65 for half a lamb and £120 for a full lamb. Lambs will be released in phases throughout June allowing you to free up that much needed freezer space.

If you are interested please feel free to request an order form from the school Farm:

Redborne School Farm, Flitwick Road, Ampthill, Bedfordshire, MK45 2NU

or Email

stbwilliams@redborne.beds.sch.uk 

Don't forget that you can also buy rare breed pork from the farm as well...

A Hog Well Roasted...

We were asked to cater for a party this weekend with a Hogroast. As it was our first, we were a little nervous and apprehensive so we got up nice and early (4.30am). We got everything ready and started cooking at 7am...

Scoring the fat ready for cooking...

We only specialise in rare breed pork and this Large Black pig was the perfect hogroast pig, it's marbling produced moist and tender pork when cooked for a long time...

Nearly done...

10hrs later it was cooked and ready to serve. Over 160 people tucked in...

Birthday boy ready to tuck in...

Tucking in...

And soon there was nothing left...

Plant Sales and Bacon...

Our plant sale was a great success, despite a slightly chilly start we managed to sell out of plants, bacon and sausages. Thanks to our volunteers for making it possible, as due to the sunshine we were inundated with customers...

Cold and slightly misty morning at 6am

Fantastic plants and the cooking started

All our meat is produced on the farm with the bacon cured and smoked onsite by ourselves

Jan's plants in all their Glory...

The heat of the Kitchen...

A stockpile that did not last long with well over a hundred bacon and sausage baps sold, it was a very busy day...

The 'Alan Sugar' of Horticulture does her thing...

The last of the bacon; sold.

Even these last few plants disappeared pretty fast...

Guest pigs III: Mangalitsa Pigs...

We have two new guest pigs which arrived amongst the down pours.

Loaded up and ready for the trip home...

The two Mangalitsas along with the Gloucester Old Spots will hopefully help to enrich our curriculum, teaching students about the great variety of traditional breeds...

In their new pen before the big escape...

Mangalitsas come from Austria and areas across Eastern Europe and there has been suggestions that the Managalitsa is a relative of the now extinct Lincolnshire Curly Coat...



Mangalitsas come in three distinct colours, Blonde, Red and Swallow Bellied. Our two new weaners are both Swallow Bellied, blonde underneath and black on top...




Due to their ability to seemingly run through electric fences, they now have a more secure temporary home before being trained to stay in their nice grass covered new pen...

 

A picture of Mum, she is a blonde Mangalitsa with a very woolly snout.

Settled in and having a drink.

The personalisation of their new home begins

How to catch a wild swarm of bees...

Thanks to Andre from Cardona and Sons, I had my first taste of harvesting a wild swarm which will now be filling one of our previously empty hives. As student I tried to follow all the instructions from the expert so here's how we did it...

It should be noted that the swarm was collected later in the evening once the temperature had dropped and the swarm collected for the night. If you harvest a swarm in the day you risk leaving a lot of bees behind...

1. Wear appropriate clothing! A veil and suit are essential as bee's can be unpredictable. Luckily these ones were very well behaved.
2. Lay a white sheet on the ground near the swarm. This will give them a guide to follow into the skep...

3. Place your Skep next to the swarm raising one edge to allow the bees entry...
4. Using a bee brush or other handy equipment start to 'encourage' the bees onto the sheet and towards the skep...

5. Once the bees have discovered the nice warm and cosy Skep they will release pheremones encouraging others to follow...

6. Use smoke lightly to encourage the bees to head towards the Skep. The smoke will help remove the pheremones from the queen that encourage the bees to stay in a swarm. The bees will soon begin to follow the queen into the Skep...

7. Once the bees have marched into the Skep wrap them into the blanket or sheet...

8. The Bee's can then be emptied into a nucleus...

Thanks again to Andre and if you fancy a hive of your own follow the link to Cardona and Son to find out more...

Green Fingers...

Thanks to Jan, the Greenhouses are filling rapidly with a vast number of plants, shrubs and trees to tempt would be gardeners. All of these will be available to buy on the 13th May at our plant sale 7am -12pm...

Including Jan's top creation, Jubilee hanging baskets...