| News
Bay Trust pigs off to Norfolk
to help save their breed
Two pigs which helped regenerate an overgrown area of
Kent coastal habitat by chomping through almost an acre
of ivy and brambles are about to leave the county to
embark on a new mission – to help preserve their rare
breed.
angalitza sows
Flora and Lisa
were brought to
Steps Bank in St
Margaret’s Bay
three years ago by
The Bay Trust, which was looking
for a natural way to transform the
land into a biodiverse opencanopy woodland without the use
of heavy machinery.
The environmental education
charity’s Food Growing Manager,
Sean Giles, who has been looking
after the sows, says: “They’ve
done a great job of clearing the
area. They’re the next best thing to
using wild boar. They certainly
have a very healthy appetite: they
once escaped from their enclosure
and ended up in the tea room
looking for food. We had to entice
them back with cakes but it took a
whole tray to get them there!”
As well as clearing woodland,
wallowing in mud and enjoying
having their ears rubbed, the sows
have been educating local school
M
children. Pupils have been
learning to inspect the animals to
ensure they are healthy, as part of
their GCSE studies.
Now Flora and Lisa’s scrubclearing work is done, they are
heading for pastures new in
Norfolk to help ensure the survival
of their line. “The sows are very
placid and friendly and we will all
miss their funny ways,” says Sean.
The breed, of which there are
three types (the Red, Flora and
Lisa’s blood line; Blonde; and
Swallow Bellied) was almost
extinct in the 1990s, with a
worldwide population of less than
150 sows – but thanks to the work
of dedicated breeders such as
William Scott, Flora and Lisa’s new
owner, the Mangalitza has a rosier
future.
William, a former Mangalitza
Breed Representative for the
British Pig Association, plans to
breed Flora and Lisa with a Red
boar at his Frogs Abbey Farm in
Welney.
“I trawled through all the
records of the British Pig
Association to find the purest Red
boars and sows and The Bay
Trust’s sows were close to the best
in the country,” says William.
“They’ve been cross-bred once
in their great-grandparents’
lineage so by putting them across
a Red boar that’s genetically the
furthest away from them, the
piglets will be almost pure bred
within three to four generations.”
Sows can produce three litters
in two years but William will be
taking things more slowly, and
hopes Flora and Lisa will have
three litters each over the next twoand-a-half years.
“We plan to keep one boar and
two sows from the litters and
breed those with the genetically
next-best Red boar,” explains
William. “We want to build up to
eight or nine sows and four or five
boars. Then we can use the piglets
for a mixture of produce and
breeding.
“We’re working with farmers in
Germany, Austria and Hungary to
bring more Red pigs back to the
UK but ultimately we will get to the
point where we don’t need to bring
any more in.”
For more about the work of The
Bay Trust, including its Steps Bank
ecological land management
project, visit www.baytrust.org.uk
Re-investment in Northern mill
Substantial investment sees state of the art equipment being used to refurbish and re-open a feed mill in the north of
England.
BN, part of AB
Agri, recently
brought
Langwathby mill,
near Penrith, back
into operation after
major investment, helping improve
the geographical footprint of their
business in the region.
“Poultry production is growing
in the north of England, with our
existing customers expanding their
businesses, and also new entrants
joining the sector,” says Kevin
Sketcher, Business Unit Director
for ABN.
“To be able to better serve our
customers in the north, we saw the
opportunity to re-invest in
Langwathby mill, a previously
operational mill that was lying
idle,” he says.
Mr Sketcher explains, that
having a mill strategically placed in
North West England will also allow
ABN to free up capacity in some of
the other mills across the country.
“As a result of this, we are in a
position to place customers feed
A
production into their closest mill,
where possible, ensuring we are
delivering feed as efficiently as
possible.
“This has been a very gradual
process for us. We started with a
blank canvas, meaning we had the
opportunity to invest in the latest
technology and state of the art
equipment. As the equipment had
never produced feed before, we
were very diligent and careful in
the initial stages of production.”
He explains that a number of
different diets were extensively
sampled, tested and analysed to
make sure nutritional composition
was as expected. “Only after we
received the results did we release
the feed on-farm.
“Not all farms where moved to
the new mill at the same time.
Instead this was done over a three
month period to ensure each
process in the mill could cope with
the increasing volume, while
maintaining the quality
specification we wanted, with
robust quality control testing at
08 | Farming Monthly | August 2016
each stage.
“The mill is currently running at
the anticipated production level
with scope for future growth, which
means that we can react and
support industry expansion.
“We are very grateful to our
partner customers for their cooperation throughout the process.
They have welcomed the changes
and this marks a significant
development in our business that
we hope we can learn fro