Our 2nd October workday felt very autumnal although after the recent rainfall we were happy with a mostly dry day!
The first job of the day was to clean the chickens out. We are trialling using coffee chaff as a bedding material which is a waste product from the coffee roasting industry. We are grateful to Forge Coffee Roasters for donating us some to try. Our first impressions are good. It is very light compared to our usual bedding but has a slight coffee aroma which was still noticeable after several days.
We also cleaned out the chicken run and hosed down the concrete base which we rebuilt this year to create a cleaner, drier area so the chickens are ready for the winter months.
The pigs had been suffering with the wet weather and although they love mud, they don’t like it in their house so the pig arc was moved to a drier patch and refilled with straw which they seemed to appreciate.
We still managed to harvest a decent box with the last of the tomatoes and sweetcorn and some chard, leeks and peppers but the main work for the day was improving the animal areas.
The day was completed with a members meeting in the roundhouse followed by a meal at the Wisewood Inn.