Updates from the farm

My understanding is that my grandfather, Ralph Tibbetts, was the first in our family to keep hens. He was a baker who made the most fantastic lardy cakes and lived all 94 years of his life in New Yatt, near Witney. He initially kept hens and pigs after the Second World War to become more self-sufficient, and I spent much of my school holidays with him on his small farm.

My reason for thinking of him now is that every year, when the advertising went up for Witney Feast funfair, he would tell me in his strong local Witney accent, “Lock the doors after Witney Feast.” Translated, this meant: get ready, because fairly soon the weather will turn.

That is very much in my mind at the moment. We need to maximise the coming weeks and get as many of the small maintenance jobs completed as possible before the winter weather arrives.

I never quite know what is in store for the day ahead…

Yesterday afternoon, Jade was walking down the farm to collect eggs when she looked into one of the hen houses and noticed feed falling through the floor. We now estimate that about 1.5 tonnes had escaped. Part of the feed equipment had moved slightly out of position — probably due to a combination of vibration when operating and a slight slope on the floor — which meant the auger was continuously pumping feed from the silo into the hen house.

Luckily, this has only happened twice in 10 years, but it did mean I spent two hours underneath the hen house in my overalls, kneeling on manure and scooping the clean feed into buckets so it could be passed back up and returned to the silo. The hens loved watching and trying to participate in the activity! Today we’ll be making some changes to ensure it cannot happen again.

I’m also happy to share that Adam’s electric delivery van is working out really well. In fact, so well that in the coming weeks Jay will also be moving to a new electric van, with both vans powered, as much as possible, from the solar panels on the roof of our egg packing centre.

The solar installation has been a little bumpy, causing four unexpected power cuts during the first three weeks. This was a little stressful when the hens are dependent on electricity for lighting, feeding, opening their nest boxes and egg collection. I think (and hope!) that the installer has now overcome the problems. We’re now running the farm from the battery alone every night, which gives me some reassurance that, should we have a mains power cut during an overnight winter storm, we have some backup power available.

Some of our drivers continue to take holidays during October and November, and Ben has joined us to provide holiday cover. We always aim to complete all deliveries by 5:30pm. If you’d like to check on your delivery or get an estimated arrival time, please contact the farm office on 01993 868584 or deliveries@mayfieldeggs.co.uk.

Hopefully everything will run smoothly, but if we do make a mistake, please get in touch and we’ll put it right.

Thanks,

Gemma & James