Wealden Times | WT260 | January 2024 | Good Living Supplement inside

Jane Howard contemplates
her farm resolutions for 2024
Apart from the personal eat
more veg / stick to 14 units
/ brush teeth standing on one
leg routines, there are of course many
resolutions that would improve life around
the farm in 2024. So here’s the wish list….
The chickens… every year, in the spring
when the weather warms a little, at least one of the
hens will go broody, sit tight on a clutch of eggs and
raise a new family. This could be prevented by making her
unbroody, but I always come under pressure from the kids
(now in their late twenties!) to have Easter chicks, because
“we always have”, so we always do! Mother hen will duly sit
on around 12 eggs – fertile because we have Phil – resulting
after losses and breakages in about eight live chicks. It
would be all right if most of them were hens, lots of people
want a hen or two, but every year, yes every
year, there are always more cockerels than
pullets (the name for young females) and
we get left with a gang of unruly male
teenagers which I then have to “deal with”.
This year I will resolve to stand firm.
While on the subject of chickens, there
has been a very strange development in
the hen department. One of our hens
has become a cockerel! She has grown a
magnificent comb, and impressive wattles
– the fleshy flaps of bright red skin that
hang from a rooster’s neck – and started
strutting round the farmyard. Upon
further investigation and reading it appears
that although hens are born with two
ovaries, only one functions. The left one is
responsible for egg production and the right one is always
dormant. If however the left one gets damaged it will shrink
and then the right one will take over and occasionally take
the form of a testicle, so the hen then becomes a cockerel
and may start to crow. Goodness. Phil won’t be happy!
The cows… Once we start calving in February I must
be more vigilant. With most cows you can usually tell by
the state of their udder when the birth is imminent. A
Lots of people want
a hen or two, but
every year, yes every
year, there are always
more cockerels than
pullets (the name
for young females)
and we get left with
a gang of unruly
male teenagers
week or so before they calve their udder will begin to swell
known as ‘bagging up’ and then when it’s really close, a
few hours before, the actual teats fill so they look like an
inflated Marigold rubber glove. With cows this makes it
quite easy to tell, but with heifers (first-time mums) who
often don’t let their milk down till the
calf is born it’s all less noticeable – and
it’s usually the heifers that have the
complications. So while I always make
a visit to the barn before I go to bed, if
a heifer is due then I must, must, must,
take another look in the middle of the
night– not always easy when it’s cold, wet
and windy outside and bed is so warm
and cosy. But this year I definitely will.
Other… The ‘other’ list is infinitely
long, but could include successional
sowing in the veg patch so things like
lettuce, radishes and rocket don’t all
come at once and a major project to
make every gate on the farm open
smoothly and close with a satisfying
clunk without the usual pushing, shoving, lifting and
then securing with baler twine that gets annoyingly
knotted. And don’t get me started on the water troughs!
That’s quite a few improvements but if past form is
anything to go by, by the end of next year not much
will have been ticked off, I won’t remember what was
on the list anyway and can happily make another
(very similar list) for 2025! Happy New Year!
Find out more about daily life at Coopers Farm by visiting coopersfarmstonegate.co.uk
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