Countryside Crafts - The rural classroom

The Farm

Farm information
Eastern Hill Farm is a traditional Devon stock farm, running suckler cows and calves on 80 acres, of which 20 acres is woodland. In 2000 / 2004, 8 acres of new woodland were planted. Within the woodland 4 wildlife ponds have been created. In our mature woodland we have many wild flowers and in the spring we have a beautiful display of bluebells.

These woods are open to the public in May for ‘Bluebell Walks’ . There is much wildlife to be seen on the farm ranging from deer, foxes, badgers, and dormice. The woodland is also a haven for many species of wild birds.
	We now keep a small suckled herd of cows of mixed breeds containing Limousins and Herefords. We are sad to announce that No.90 our old Hereford (see opposite) had to be put down last Monday (21/7/2008) at the ripe old age of 34.
Some of the heifers which were bought last year with the Limousin bull. They calved Spring 2007.
	The limousin cows are a family, one set of twins, a sister, and an off spring from the cow opposite (a light brown colour with black nose surrounded with white). The cows are served to a Limousin bull, the calves when born are kept with their mother’s for 9 months, then weaned. The calves are then sold between 12 and 14 months old.
All the cows and calves have to be housed in sheds during the winter. The ground gets too wet to ’out winter‘. They will be fed round bale hay made in the summer. We have used all our round bale hay up this winter so fields have now been fertilised and hopefully we will get a good crop for '08 winter. We run the farm and woodland on a conservation footing. Old coppiced hazel covers about four acres, this requires on going work to create a good habitat for dormice and other mammals and birds. A small brook runs along our boundary. We have a further two blocks of woodland adjoining the farm, one of sixty acres, mixed conifers, plus ten acres of oak. Twenty one acres of old wood which has been neglected for many years.