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...