Bury St. Edmunds Photographic Society

 

The stud had a visit from the Bury St. Edmunds Photographic Society last night.





We always welcome visitors to the stud.

Freedom Farm in the East Anglian

 

The East Anglian Daily Times has just published a nice article on what Celia and I have been trying to achieve at Freedom Farm.

Click to view the article!

New Trees

 

Planting trees is something we should all do.

This is one of the circles in the new paddocks that has been planted with a selection of native trees.


If you plant trees there is an extensive and very complicated Grant scheme that subsidises the trees. It is a waste of time unless you are planting thousands and have the mind of a bureaucrat.

It would be far better to give the grower a subsidy on every tree they sold, probably dependant on size. That would be easy to police as you'd only need to deal with registered tree growers and the public or the plants would probably get larger trees for the same money. Bigger trees are more likely to survive as they are easier to care for and less resistant to attack by deer.

But that sort of scheme would cut the number of civil service jobs used to administer the over-complicated current scheme.

Racing Days At Freedom Farm Stud

 

Most people love a day at Newmarket races. It is a great way to relax and the great advantage is that racing can be very much a family day-out, with something to appeal to everyone. Note too that children go free at the race course.

Why not couple a day at the races, with a visit to Freedom Farm Stud?

A typical day might start at say eleven, with a tour of the stud, to view the horses and what we are doing to create an energy efficient stud.

Note that as the stud has a wireless network and full business facilities, why not hold that important business meeting and then go off and enjoy yourselves?

We can provide refreshments, from a picnic to a full lunch, if required and also organise someone in the know to mark your card.

But above all what we do is flexible and geared very much to the needs of the client.

Creation of an Efficient Thoroughbred Stud Farm

 

I have created a document, which talks in some detail about the philosphy of the stud. It is a large Word document of about 17 Megabytes.

View the Document
So download with care.

Golf Buggy at Work

 

We are now using the golf buggy on a regular basis. Typically the longest trips the buggy does are the morning and evening feeds, when it probably carries two to three 25 Kg sacks of feed.

The first two pictures show it working much harder, as it carries about ten thirty or so kilogram sandbags, which are being used for a bridge.


Note how down on the rear wheels the buggy sits.

Bear in mind though that total payload was about 300 Kg in addition to about 65 Kg of driver. So this is really only the equivalent of three averagely-obese American golfers.


The last picture shows the bridge being completed.


One advantage here is that the buggy has a very good turning circle and can thus turn round easily without going off the track too much.

Tracks

 

The tracks to save the grass are now more or less complete. Or at least Phase 1 is, as I suspect, they'll be extended when we see which bits get worn.




They are based on road planings and as they are rolled in further they will become a good solid track for the buggy and the John Deere tractors.

Making Tracks

 

The picture shows some of the tracks we're putting in for the buggy.

The Definitive Water Trough

 

Water troughs can be a real pain on a stud. And although I have no experience on a cattle farm too.

You plumb one in and rest assured on the wettest and coldest day in the winter something will fail. In the pitch dark you will be trying to avoid pouring a large number of litres of water from creating a quagmire.

From many years experience of fixing the damn things, I like to think that I've come up with a better way of doing things. I probably haven't, as there will always be better methods and I suspect others have gone down the same route as I have.

So what do I do that is different?


One thing is obvious from the picture and that is that there is no back rail, so that the trough can be tipped backwards to both empty it and remove it from its cradle.

You will also notice that instead of hard-plumbing the trough into the cradle it's connected to the water through standard Hozelock components. This means that the trough can be quickly disconnected and removed.

This arrangement also has other advantages.

1. Water is often needed in the paddocks on a stud. Just unclip the connector and fill a bucket.

2. You can also use these connectors to join a hose to the trough, so that this can be used to perhaps fill an adjacent broken trough or supply water to trees.

But the whole point of this arrangement is to avoid using tools in a field on a cold and wet day.

Helping Hands

 

I had a lot of help today making the connections to the drinkers in the field more secure.


Lizzie doesn't do much but she does sit around, taking it all in. At least she doesn't run off with the tools.


These are the trouble-makers and note how one foal has his teeth in the pipe, trying to rip it off. I'll probably put a bar across to stop it.

This bunch are like a bored load of spotty teenagers standing around on a street corner. Anything that happens and they're up to no good.


Note that in this picture, I've replaced the Hozelock fitting with a Jubilee clip. Well not a real Jubilee clip but a Chinese copy.

Acorns

 

The oaks are full of acorns this year.

View From The Top

 

This is view from the top of scaffolding on the new office. Note my round office in the foreground.

Guard Dogs

 

We have two very fierce guard dogs to protect the property.


Mary, who is nearest to the camera, is getting old now and is pretty deaf and almost blind, so be careful not to run her over. Lizzie is younger and rather wary of strangers, so she generally runs home if someone arrives.

New Hedges

 

We've been filling in a few gaps in the hedge that borders the road between Cowlinge and Great Bradley.


Judging by the speed at which the hedge has grown, I would think that this wet summer has at least been good for trees, shrubs and hedges.

Pest Control

 

Our premises are protected by an Attack Cat.


She also tries to deal with all of those little furry pests, like mice and rats.

Lizzie and a Yearling

 

This is Lizzie having a talk with a colt yearling, who has been turned out in the outdoor school.

A Rainbow

 

I was walking the fields last night and took this picture to see if rainbows can be photographed.


They can!

Why We Don't Use Keepsafe

 

A lot of studs use special wire fencing, like Keepsafe, to enclose stock.

We don't.

I don't think it looks tidy, it can be expensive to replace and minor repairs are a nightmare.

I illustrated the latter this morning when I drove the Bobcat, that I'm using to bury the water main, into the new fencing.


With a hammer and some new nails, everything was repaired within half an hour.


Try doing that with wire fencing.

Mares and Foals

 

I took this picture of mares and foals in one of the new paddocks, to show how unspoilt the countryside is around here.


Note that if I'd taken it from a different direction you'd see the awful water tower on the skyline at Haverhill.

Crossing the Ditch

 

We're at the ditch at the bottom of the land, where the water main crosses into the far field.


Note the scaffold pole used to pass the water pipe across the ditch.

All of the plastic pipe and fittings was ordered over the Internet from a company called Pipestock.

Mark and his Crumb Hoe

 

This shows Mark Reed with his special crumb hoe for taking those annoying little bits out of the drainage channel, before the pipe and stone go in.


Rumour has it that the hoe was salvaged from Noah's Ark. After all Noah would have needed a lot of drainage.

Digging in the Water

 

Mark Reed is using a very old machine to dig the trench for the water pipes.




It works extremely well and gives a nice clean trench for the water pipe.

We are also putting in an extra land drain at the same time, so that hopefully we won't need to put in an expensive road to get to the bottom paddocks.

New Paddocks

 

Two new paddocks have now been commissioned.


They are based on land that we put down to grass fifteen years ago, so they are well bedded in. Note that they slope gently southward so that they are also protected from the worst of the winds from the north and east.

Stud Workhorse

 

The picture shows the stud workshorse.

It is a John Deere 455 garden tractor powered by a diesel engine. It can easily pull the one tonne trailer, which is used to more things like feed and fencing around the farm.


The advantages are less damage to the ground due to the low ground pressure, ease of getting on and off to attend to stock and very low fuel consumption.

The disadvantage is that you get wet when it rains.

Low pressure vehicles like these are a much better bet for working on the land in many cases than to use expensive 4x4 vehicles, which may be more comfortable, but do much more damage to the land.

An Aerial View of the Stud

 

This aerial view was obtained from Microsoft Live Maps.


Note the paddocks to the South of the buildings and the large outdoor school to the East. The school is actually sand, but obviously reflects light pretty well so it shows up as white.

The picture was taken in early spring, as is shown by the rape just about coming into flower.

This image was actually obtained to see if we could see the drains in the fields to the East of the farm buildings, as we needed to mole drain them. Luckily we got it right.

Sandringham

 

Today, I went up to the Royal Stud at Sandringham.

Now, I've visited many studs owned by the famous, the rich and the ordinary.


You don't really know that the buildings are a stud, as they're all hidden behind a long brick wall and it's only when you see this statue of Persimmon and see a tiny sign saying horse-boxes that you know you're there.


The Royal Studs don't do lots of expensive modern brick and are best described as functional, homely and professional.

Half an hour after arriving, I was back down the road again to Newmarket.