The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: norfolk newbies on January 11, 2013, 02:07:09 pm
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This might be interesting...
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/first-time-farmers (http://www.channel4.com/programmes/first-time-farmers).
We probably wont get chance to watch it even on the TV +1, so if anyone does catch it I would be interested to know whether it is worth struggling with my awful BB speeds to watch it OD.
thanks
Jo
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Have recorded it- I didn't know about it, but my other half noticed and set it up. Will watch it later.
No idea whose in it or helping them out.
Beth
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it's on 4OD
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I managed to catch most of it ...
Oh that poor lad trying to get going with Berkshire pigs - the abbatoir telling him "rare breeds are rare for a reason" ::) Though I must admit, we've NEVER EVER seen as much fat even on a "porky" Kunekune - his carcassess were quite "lardy" :o
I wished that there had been an explaination on the programme as to why they were so fat - WE all know it's to do with husbandary - non-commercial pigs need to be raised outdoors, with plenty of room to run & play :thumbsup:
I hope it's not going to put folks off raising rare breeds for meat - though my OH did say that he got some supplies contract from local resturants & the chef was full of praises for the flavour & texture.
:love: :pig: :love:
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Seeing it would put me off rare breeds...but I havn't got a clue about pigs... YET :innocent:
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Aha - me senses a possible sound of little trotters coming your way some time in the future ;)
:love: :pig: :love:
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Aha - me senses a possible sound of little trotters coming your way some time in the future ;)
:love: :pig: :love:
Would love to have them..give up work and live the dream..maybe in the future.. A lotto win would help :D
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Aha - me senses a possible sound of little trotters coming your way some time in the future ;)
:love: :pig: :love:
Would love to have them..give up work and live the dream..maybe in the future.. A lotto win would help :D
Oh yes - the elusive lotto win - we dream of being able to jack-in the day jobs too ... one day. Hopefully the "small-holding" may break even for us this year or the next :fc:
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They should have given an explanation re: the fat on that pork. The phrase "rare breed pork" took a bit of a knock last night and it could have been put in context if the lad held his hands up and said " we got it wrong becuase...". He was lucky to get a second chance - seems that he had a good financial buffer wearing shirts like that !!
;D
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I thought it was following a load of ag students who rather than being 'first time farmers' are more 'starting to run the family farm'. I might watch it now, as it sounds more interesting than I thought.
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I managed to catch most of it ...
Oh that poor lad trying to get going with Berkshire pigs - the abbatoir telling him "rare breeds are rare for a reason" ::) Though I must admit, we've NEVER EVER seen as much fat even on a "porky" Kunekune - his carcassess were quite "lardy" :o
I wished that there had been an explaination on the programme as to why they were so fat - WE all know it's to do with husbandary - non-commercial pigs need to be raised outdoors, with plenty of room to run & play :thumbsup:
I hope it's not going to put folks off raising rare breeds for meat - though my OH did say that he got some supplies contract from local resturants & the chef was full of praises for the flavour & texture.
:love: :pig: :love:
Exactly what we thought too, rare breeds need to work and any money they'd been fed on the nastiest cheapest pig food they could find, if you want to sell a premium product you've got to give it first class attention, the lads poor mum looked worn out so she knows what hard work is involved in getting rare breed pigs to work for you. methinks boyo needs to buckle down a bit and get some hours put in! The prices at the auction also confirmed what we already know about the abysmal price for pigs at present.
mandy :pig:
ps could of slapped that butcher :rant:
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mmm - it was really Steve. They followed 3 principle characters who were getting to grips with expectations to carry on the family farm. One could not hack it but bought the correct contry clothes and made a good fist of his first go as being an agro auctioneer. Those left of Tony Benn will hate the show.
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when he discussed the pigs with his mum he said 'wrong breeding,wrong feeding' !
i was pleased to see the girlfriend was going to give it a go. i give it 3 months.... ;D
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We were discussing it after - sadly not every young farmer with idealism is called Jimmy Doherty who's always had a famous best mate in the hospitality trade to help him along! :&>
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And why didn't they put the berkie sow to a berkie boar, they can't sell rare breed meat when its not. :(
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And why didn't they put the berkie sow to a berkie boar, they can't sell rare breed meat when its not. :(
Yess i noticed they had a pietrain boar, now that crossed with a berkshire will give a queer shaped pig! Suspect they hoped the traits of the boar would be dominate in the progeny. Agree to sell as rare breed it should have been pure.
By the way next weeks episode is 3 completely different young farmers.
mandy :pig:
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Outraged :rant: by the perception they have now given Jo.Public about Rare Breeds. NO explanation whatsoever about the reason for the 2nd fat layer (as others have said here). Idiot Butcher and ditto Fowgill - could have slapped him......HARD. :rant: :rant:
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write to them and complain! :&>
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I watched the program and found it interesting as it did show some aspects of farming usually hidden from the viewers like dead stock, delivering dead lambs, etc.
As for the pigs...You never get the full story..
After asking and taking advice from various sources we reared three Oxford Sandy Blacks for our first attempt at rearing pigs. We gave them a 100x12 foot outside run and fed them pignuts, windfall apples and the occassional stale cake. They dug up every root, weed, nettle,....you get the picture!
The belly pork had 27% fat, yes a little high, but mettled in your mouth like sweet nectar. I dont like fat but this was no ordinary fat.....The meat didn't shrink when cooked and was to die for in taste and texture.
As for the chap in the abattoir that said there wasn't a market for Rare Breed Pork....... I'm sure has fogotten more about pigs than I'll ever know but the facts are we could have sold the meat twice over. The feedback from people who tasted the pork was "Have you any left" and "When is there some more available!"
Beginers Luck?.......
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I also think there is a market for good meat , one better does the research on where to sell it to beforehand, though (if you don't have the connections anyway). It won't be the supermarkets.... :&>
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IAs for the pigs...You never get the full story..
The belly pork had 27% fat, yes a little high, but mettled in your mouth like sweet nectar. I dont like fat but this was no ordinary fat.....The meat didn't shrink when cooked and was to die for in taste and texture.
The feedback from people who tasted the pork was "Have you any left" and "When is there some more available!"
Beginers Luck?.......
No not beginners luck............just a job well done :thumbsup: It is just so battered into peoples minds that ALL fat is bad and there are no allowances made for the flavour, succulence and texture that it adds, supermarkets are a lot to blame there is hardly any fat on any of their varieties of meat.
people don't know what they're missing....sadly butchers have to compete with them whcih is i suspect at the root of this butchers comments.
Mandy :pig:
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We were discussing it after - sadly not every young farmer with idealism is called Jimmy Doherty who's always had a famous best mate in the hospitality trade to help him along! :&>
And to be fair - his first series had me shouting at the telly. Didn't he just buy a load of sows and a boar and turf them into a 10ac field to begin with...cue them all vanishing in the long grass to emerge with various piglets..
I mean he could have at least looked like he'd read a book on pigkeeping or something.
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I don't remember that ::) , first time I saw him was when Jamie Oliver visited his farm with the 15 apprentices. "That's where happy pigs come from" or something along that line. :&>
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Very good & very intresting show & I actually knew the auctioneer & firm John Uffold at Mccartneys who are a very good local firm which was nice to see them on the show with someone I knew :) & it's in one of my local counties I love - Heredfordshire ;D (Sos if its poor spelling) But the butcher saying that surprised me as the area they are in & esp near & around ludlow you could sell meat like that 10x over! Esp if its rare breed but it was quite fatty, glad he got a 2nd chance & the other lad found a job he was happy in x
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I had recorded this and watched it last night. Found it interesting. Good to see the young at least having a go at farming but thought they lacked some common sense.As for the pigs, what did he feed them. why did he breed so many if he could not break even. You learn more doing the job, my first go with pigs was the all black and I let them get too fat but the meat was great. My next go was the kune-kune and I made a better job of them. Will do them again as their size suits us. When you are working with the land and animals you never stop learning any farmer will tell you that. animals have not read books and the weather affects every growing season. Will be intersting to see how this program pans out.
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I enjoyed it and I'm sure he did tell his mum that feeding was part of the problem as well, so it sort of touched on it being his fault, although not his fault, fault as the above post says, we are always learning.
Will certainly be watching it again.
Helen
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we watched it thinking great, will be interesting to see 'first time farmers' when I think they all came from established family farms, albeit not making a fortune but their houses were lovely :-J
While the actual animal side was interesting, especially the guy with the pigs but as we were slaughtering ours a couple of days later all I could think about was how much fat was going to be on our pigs :o thankfully I hear from the slaughterman that ours were good.
As for the guy with the ewe who was lambing....he seemed more concerned about her delivering in the back of his shiny Defender!
I suppose if you take it for what it is, and don't treat it as a factual, informative piece of television then it's quite entertaining but I agree with MAK, the girlfriend in the Art Gallery ain't going to get her manicured hands dirty ;D
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It made me go back to look again at the original jimmys farm series from 2003 on youtube. that seemed easy when you have 80k loaned to you.
I nearly turned the first time farmers off when the opening was 2 of them racing cars round the field.
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On a slightly different note, I wonder what happened to those people who 'Won' the 25 acre farm on that TV series from ??year before last (I think it was). Does anyone know :thinking:
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I agree on the fat issue. People do tend to think you can feed pigs on the cheapest thing possible whereas they first need the protein to build frame and muscle. I feed our GOS a soaked milled what and barley mix for the month before slaughter, to put on a bit of fat, but they still get 60% pellets. A bit of green stuff for my growers is an as-well-as, not an instead-of.
I also wondered about the chap trying lambing for the first time. Surprised that poor ewe trying to deliver two large, probably breech, lambs wasn't picked up on earlier. If you get up close to your ewes a couple of times a day you're left in no doubt when one's carrying a dead 'un! Lad with the auctioneer was certainly very lucky to get a 2nd chance. Pity he wasn't grown up enough the first time around.
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We watched it and thought it was very well made. OH and I are both young farmers ourselves and the programme highlighted just how lonely being a farmer can be, but also as a farmer's partner. OH when on spuds will pull 18 hour days every day unless it's raining, I have a house to run, lambs to look after, help on the farm if I can, a business to run and horses to do... mostly on my own as OH is out working so much. I don't think the general public realise just how full on farming is.
Had to chuckle at the young farmers barn party, had a few of them too, always messy events!
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Hubby and i enjoyed it too.
Thought the young auctioneer was really good, good on him for doing what he wanted. Soon as that butcher opened his mouth i said to OH
" Oh no that's not going to go down well with many people"
But i thought it was good the public see a bad lambing and how things can go wrong i swear they think it's all skipping lambs and mooing cows, Cadbury chocolate flake style. ::)
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The best line was
"You should try everything once
- except Incest and Country Dancing!"
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We have a holiday cottage on the farm which is closed for lambing. When we tell people that this is because we work a 14 hour day, seven days a week, during lambing (that includes taking turns to get up and check the shed every 2 hours through the night) their reaction is probably the same as we'd get if we said we were planning a holiday in the salt mines! On the other hand, when they ask where we go for our holidays (!) and I say "We'd go somewhere beautiful, where we could spend a lot of time outdoors and not have to look at the clock all the time ...oh, hang on, we already live here," they still don't seem to get it, even though they're the ones who don't want to go home at the end of the week. So I guess they never will Get It.
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"We'd go somewhere beautiful, where we could spend a lot of time outdoors and not have to look at the clock all the time ...oh, hang on, we already live here,"
:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: yes :&>