News from Ruth's Little Farm

This is our new 'News' webpage. The purpose of this webpage is to give you an insight into the developments on our farm.  We will update this page periodically and we hope you enjoy this latest addition to the Ruth's little farm website.

Posted 14/1/09

We would like to apologise for not reopening as planned. My back problem has reoccurred and I hope that by not reopening the shop I can concentrate on staying fit enough to keep the pigs.

We are supplying Andrew Gordon on Chattan pl with fresh pork each week.

My thanks for everyones support.

Posted 5/1/10

Happy new year to every one.

We have been supplying Andrew Gordon (a butcher in town) for about 6 months now. This started as an outlet for our pork when we were considering closing our own farm shop. We have managed to keep up the supply to us and him but we will just not have enough pork for us both in the new year. We have increased our breeding herd to meet the increased demand but it takes around about a year from deciding to do this and when we have more pork. So in the meantime we will be sorry to have to stop supplying Andrew. We will keep you updated if and when we start supplying Andrew again.

The Shop

We are enjoying running the shop on Fri and sat as well, we still have fresh bread, veg and eggs both days as well as the pork of course! We want to say a big thank you to all of our customers who have visited us this year.

The biggest news is that we have installed our own purpose built butchery, and have a professional butcher helping us for a day each week. This has been a major undertaking and we are thrilled with our decision to take the plunge at last.

We have a new cranberry sausage, herby sausage and also a cold smoked sausage (oak smoked at dinnet estate, the Deeside smokehouse), which has won a silver award at the BBC Good Food Show Scotland.

Pigs

What can I say plenty of frozen water pipes and bucket lugging. Lots of  fresh straw bale humfing and headtorch wearing!

Winter is well and truely upon us and the pigs are coping fine its us that are falling over and  moaning more.

We have had a couple more litters since I last posted. Both at the Alford end of the field doing fine (5 weeks old and 11 weeks ish).

Our new boar from Derbyshire is growing up just as we had hoped and has started work and I am still thrilled with the lovely gilts we brought up from the same breeder. I have since read that the granddam of these gilts has been given the champion of champions title at the Royal show this year. I am so pleased for the breeder they are producing some lovely pigs (my three included!).

Posted 12/09/09

Now the shop will be open Friday 2-7 as well as the usual Sat 9-4. We will have the bread freshly made on each day and fresh pork and veg as usual. So if you need something for tea on the way back from work or a roast for saturday lunch please pop in and see us.

We have had 2 litters of Gloucester Old Spots this week. Smallish litters for two first time sows, they both did really well and are doing fine. You can see the sows at the Alford end of the field, the piglets usually come out of the arcs at around a week old (although one or two ventured out today, less than a day old!), so keep an eye out for them over the next few weeks.

Posted 27/08/09

Since my last posting, one of our neighbours managed to take a couple of photos of our stall at taste of Grampian. One of which is a photo of me speaking to Phil Vickery (Fern Britons Husband from 'This Morning' on ITV) who was very interested in our pork, what we did and gave us some helpful tips as he also has a heard of rare breed pigs.

I / we are really pleased to be able to say our farm shop is staying open. We had been thinking about having to close our farm shop due to family commitments, however we have been very touched with some of our very kind customers offering to help out, which has meant we can keep the shop open.

We are also pleased to be able to say that Andrew Gordon Butchery and Fine Foods, in Chattan Place Aberdeen also now sells our pork. Andrew has listened very carefully to how we cut our pork, make our sausages and bacon, to ensure it is the same as our normal produce which has taken a lot of product trialling etc.

We hope you come visit us soon. Ruth

Posted 7/6/09

We just wanted to say thank you to every one who visited our stall at the Taste of Grampian. We had a really great day. We hope that anyone who bought some of the pork or sausages enjoys them.

Since I last posted we have had two litters of Gloucester Old Spots (one a six weeks old and one two weeks old). Watch out for these from the deck if you come to the shop (sat 9-4).  We have been busy moving the pigs from their winter pens to their new ones and have been enjoying the longer evenings and sunnier days.

On the shop side of things we now have BBQ packs and even more types of fresh bread. We also have fresh Highland Beef each week as well as either pedigree Gloucester Old Spot or Berkshire pork. Our lastest addition to the shop is ice cream. You are welcome to come, sit , watch the pigs and now have an ice cream too!

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Posted 12/02/09

Work has been hard on the farm of late with cold weather and snow; ensuring all the pigs have water, food and plenty of straw in their houses. The pigs have been playing out in the snow. We however look forward to the days getting longer and the water pipes unfreezing when the temperatures get a bit warmer.

For any of you that have visited this site after reading the article on us in the P&J, Welcome! we hope you find this website interesting and come and visit our farm shop. Look out in next weeks P&J when some of our recipes will be in the paper.

Posted 9/11/08

Today we said a sad goodbye to our Berkshire boar and two of our sows. They have gone to be a starter herd at a farm park near Arbroath. We let them go so that we have an easier winter, with our shop, sixty pigs and two children we are finding life pretty busy. We will be looking at getting other Gloucester Old Spot Gilts that we will have the option of breeding from next winter.

We have had a litter of Berkshire piglets since I last posted, they are around week old and doing well. They are in the silver arc in the paddock opposite the top of the driveway (if you would like to take a look next time you are here) and look tiny compared with the nine week old Gloucester litter in the arc next to them!

The shop will shortly be gearing up for Christmas with;  CHAS (charity) Christmas cards, a Christmas range from the bread maker (Christmas cakes, puddings etc).  Hams for roasting, chipolatas, as well as Christmas veg packs. Please come a long to have a look, pre orders for veg packs and Christmas hams welcomed.

Posted 11/10/08

We just seem to have been so busy, the farm shop is open every Saturday (9-4) and is going really well. I enjoy picking up the fresh handmade bread each Saturday morning, it smells so good on the way back, and  just makes me so enthused about great produce, made in a careful way. Thank you to our butcher (John Dossett, Kintore) who is working really hard, to our suppliers and to everyone who comes to visit us.

Pigs

We have had two more litters of piglets over the past few weeks, both of which had no problems during the births and are doing well.

Chickens

A very generous family gifted us a shed so we built it and got another 15 chickens to put in it (previously the chickens were kept in a  a barn of 7000 commercial chickens, and as their production has dropped would have have been slaughtered. They are only a year old and have six-seven years laying left. They do look a bit shabby but even in the couple of weeks we have had them thier feathers have started to grow back in. They aren't laying yet but we will let you know when they do.

The next few weeks

We are building our selves up to getting started on making the winter pens ready for moving all the pigs closer to the house again. We do this to let the ground rest and so that when the water freezes it is a bit closer to carrying water from the garage, to the 60 pigs we now have.

Moving the pigs takes lots of extra work; making pens, disinfecting and moving arcs, moving and plumbing in water drinkers, and eventually moving the pigs.

Posted 22/09/08

Thank you to all who came to our farm shop on its opening day. I had a great day and it was great to meet some regular and new customers. We hope you enjoyed visiting us and enjoyed the pork / bacon / ham /  other produce we had on sale and we hope you come back again soon. And for anyone who couldn't make it last weekend, we are open every Saturday 9 till 4. Thanks again Ruth

If you do have any suggestions on anything else you would like to have seen please drop us a line.

Posted 14/09/08

Our very own Farm Shop will be opening on Saturday the 20th of September. Every Saturday our shop will be open from 09:00 until 16:00hrs. As well as selling our own produce such as Pork, Bacon, Hams and Eggs we will also be selling produce from other local producers. Their produce is also very unique, we will be selling Bread, Honeys, Jams and Veg boxes.

We hope that you come and visit us.

Posted 25/8/08

Exciting news this week, we have had two litters of piglets. A pedigree Gloucester Old Spot litter arrived on Thursday morning and a pedigree Berkshire litter in the early hours of Sunday morning. The piglets and sows are doing well. We should hopefully have some pictures soon.

Posted 7/8/08

We have been so busy; extending the new pens, Cleaning and moving  arcs, setting up farrowing pens and moving our pregnant (in pig) sows into their new areas, strimming under all the electric fencing.  Even the basic feed, water and check are taking an hour to an hour and a half (twice a day). There is always something to do.

We are due two litters in the next few weeks and then another two in a month or so. We will keep you posted.

Posted 12/7/08

The 'big move' happened last week. All of the pigs seem very please to have new spaces to explore. The pigs we brought up from Cheshire have settled well and we are hopeful that they are finally  in pig (pregnant).  We have work to do on the farm tomorrow, extending some of the new pens and hooking up drinkers, it should save me lots of time standing around waiting for the hose to fill the drinkers up.

We sent some emails out to people we met at Taste of Grampian and have had a busy day as people came to pick up pork. We sold out of bacon in couple of days and hope to have some more in two weeks. If you would like to reserve a pack please contact us ruth@ruthslittlefarm.co.uk or 01330 830078.

Posted 19/6/08

Still busy making our pens this week. Waiting for a friendly farmer to come help move the arcs.

Posted 10/6/08

We exhibited at Taste of Grampian on Saturday. It was a great day out for us, and a real change from our usual Saturday on the farm!

Posted 30/05/08

Since my last posting quite a lot has happened on our farm. To give a quick overview of the highlights

new additions

The farm has a small expanded with us adding 2 Berkshire Sows and 1 Berkshire Boar. These have been brought up from Cheshire from a well established breeder, with the pigs having very good pedigree lines and a history of showing. As a result we now have 5 Breeding Sows and 2 Boars. The new additions have settled in well, and are happily routing around in the field.

weaning

Our Gloucestershire Old Spot and Berkshire Piglets have both been weaned from their Sows. Giving the Sows some much needed rest, both Piglets and Sows are doing well.

new pens

With the summer weather being here, we have started to create new pens in the field to move the pigs onto. with the winter snow and spring rain and or course routing, the pigs have managed to turn up most of the grass on their pens. Therefore new pens are being made up to move them on to nice grassy land for them to eat.

Posted 06/04/08

Click on the pictures below to enlarge the photo.

Posted 28/3/08

The litter of Berkshires are nearly five weeks old and the sow spends most of her time outside the arc away from her boisterous piglets. The piglets have started eating the sow's food and spend most of their time sleeping and rooting. Photos will follow shortly.

Posted 22/3/08

Another litter of piglets! Yesterday evening our Gloucester Old Spot sow had fourteen piglets! They are all doing fine this morning, we are keeping our fingers crossed for them because this is a very large litter.

Posted 8/03/08

Just an update. The piglets are all doing well and so is the sow. They ventured out of their arc for the first time at just under a week old and they now all troop out together when ever the sow is out, trying to have a bit of peace!.

Posted 26/02/08

The piglets have arrived. Early Sunday morning our Berkshire sow gave birth to a litter of 7 piglets. Both sow and piglets are fine with the little piglets already giving her the run around.

Posted 16/02/08

Our Berkshire sow is expecting a litter of piglets this week. We are very excited and will let you know when they arrive.

Posted 03/02/08

This is our new 'News' webpage. The purpose of this webpage is to give you an insight into the developments on our farm. We will update this page periodically and we hope you enjoy this latest addition to the Ruth's little farm website.