[Fowgill Farm]

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

[Blinkers]

Outraged  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. 

[northfifeduckling]

write to them and complain! 

[pigs in space]

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?.......
 

[northfifeduckling]

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....

[Fowgill Farm]

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   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

[SteveHants]

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.

[northfifeduckling]

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.

[Shropshirelass]

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  (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

[sabrina]

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.

[HelenVF]

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

[fiestyredhead331]

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 
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    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 

[the great composto]

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. 

[Blinkers]

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 

[Marches Farmer]

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.