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November-22-06 - November 2006

Global warming seems to be the hot topic in these colder months. Did you know that Organic farming methods have been proven through years of research by the Rodale instute to play an important part in significantly reducing the harmful effects of Global warming by removing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and fixing it as beneficial organic matter in the soil. Conventional farming tends to produce significant amounts of carbon dioxide therefore increasing the harmful effects of Global warming and polluting the atmosphere. Everyone who buys organically grown food is doing his or her part to help clean up the environment. I am sorry to have touched on this subject but too few people know about this. The choice is simple, we either pay more in taxes to clean up the atmosphere or pay more for our food

The year is rapidly drawing to a close; the autumn colours have been spectacular and we have had our first frosts of the winter. The cattle sheds are full, and the sheep sheds will be prepared so that the flocks can be housed after Christmas. It has been an amazing autumn with the grass on the Shropshire and Ty Mawr (Nr. Caernarfon) still growing until the beginning of November. This has helped to shorten the winter and reduce the overall feeding costs. The housed cattle are now being fed silage. We have about 800 lambs still to sell and these are now finishing well. The rams have now done their stuff and hopefully with the ewes being in such good condition we will have excellent results when they are scanned to see how many lambs they are carrying which will take place after Christmas. The autumn calving is now complete and the cows are in good condition. The Bison seem to be as happy as ever and their calves are growing well, they also still remain an attraction for people to come and look at even at this time of year.

The Turkeys are good form, I can see them from my office window enjoying themselves racing round the field and we have now increased our chicken numbers to 100 per week.

The retail side of the business remains very buoyant with trade up significantly on last year, the wholesale has been steady and we expect it to get busier again closer to Christmas. We have now started supplying another well-known London store with all their meat requirements.

 We have increased the staffing in the office to cope with the extra mail and trade orders leading up to Christmas and the telephones never stop ringing. It gets very busy at this time of year and then tends to go quiet again after Christmas.

Written By: Lord Newborough

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