Why not become a member of Bath City Farm?

If you would like to receive a copy of our all singing, all dancing newsletter, in glorious colour and with pictures, please consider becoming a member of Bath City Farm. Membership only costs £10 a year (concessions available). Your membership fee helps to support our running costs, e.g. salaries, site work, newsletter and of course our animals.

Spring at the farm

This Spring is set to be a very exciting time at the Farm, not only are we all looking forward to some nice warm weather after the long, cold Winter, but we are also expecting some new arrivals too. The first to arrive will be a Jacob lamb and yearling from a local farm. The Jacob Sheep is an ancient breed of horned sheep. It is a dual purpose sheep, providing tasty sweet meat and high quality wool. They are also popular for their unique appearance; they are very attractive and can be easily recognised because of their horns, they can have up to 3 sets! The fleeces are also distinctive, with a mixture of colours (cream/brown/black). If that’s not enough reason to be excited about this breed they are also highly prolific, make excellent mothers and are heavy milking. The Jacob is also very versatile and will thrive in most conditions and types of management.

We are also currently incubating fertilised chicken and duck eggs of different breeds including; Indian Runner ducks, Light Sussex bantams and Indian Game birds. All being well we should have lots of chicks and ducklings running about in just a few weeks time!
Molly, our resident Tamworth pig has recently been visited by Bertie the boar from Gloucester City Farm and we are hoping that she is currently pregnant. If she is we will also have lots of piglets running around by the beginning of the summer.

The Easter holidays are also a busy time at the farm and lots of family activities have been planned including an Easter Egg Hunt, spring nature trail and making a giant papier-mâché pig money box to try and raise money at the Bath Flower Show to buy a rare-breed Saddle-back pig!  

The May spring bank holiday is when the Farm attends the Bath Flower Show. It is an important annual event for us as it helps to publicise the farm to the wider public and it is also a good way for us to generate money through donations. This year we will be taking the usual array of animals; goats, sheep, chickens, chicks, ducks and ducklings and we will also be championing rural crafts; felt-making, wool weaving, green wood-working and bee-keeping. We are sharing the marquee with the Bath Organic Gardening Group and Transition Bath so there will be plenty to see and do. We will look forward to seeing you there!

Animal Welfare and Horticultural Course

The Farm has recently run its second animal welfare course funded by Community Learning Services. The course ran for five weeks and was followed by a five week horticultural course at Bath Organic Gardens.
During the animal welfare course we covered topics such as hedge-laying, chicken care and incubation, pig breeding and the introduction of new stock. The course was well attended by a keen and friendly group of students. Thank you to every one involved for making it so enjoyable. Information on further courses will be available at the farm.

Kedric Fisher

School visits

Bath City Farm is an ideal place to provide outdoor education for children of all ages; it can offer hands on experience in ecology, culture and agriculture.
The site is a natural playground that can help to inspire creativity in children as well as enabling them to work together and be more physically active, be more aware of nutrition and where food comes from, and also to be more aware of their local, natural environment.

Three Ways School, The Link, St. Michael’s Junior School and Hayesfield School have regular weekly or fortnightly sessions at the farm and the groups enjoy the benefits of being outdoors and getting close to the animals.
Activities change with the seasons but some examples that our regular groups have been involved in are: caring for the animals, planting vegetables, pond dipping, incubating eggs and recording their progress and making bird feeders.

This spring and summer we have a fantastic timetable of activities for school groups to get involved in. If you would like to find out more, or if you would like to arrange a visit for your group or school, then please contact Laura on
 01225 481269.

Volunteer Update

This spring has been a hive of volunteer activity so far. Helen Lerwill returned from Maternity leave as Volunteer Co-ordinator and was pleased to see the volunteer numbers still in good health.

Farm volunteers have been extremely busy creating a new hedgerow. This work was undertaken as part of the Countryside Stewardship Scheme to improve biodiversity on the farm. We first had to clear huge thickets of bramble, and then put up a stock-proof fence to prevent the cows from nibbling the trees. We then planted about 300 trees which included native species such as Hazel, Hawthorn, Blackthorn and Field Maple.
Bath University Students finished of the task by spending a day digging out the bramble roots to prevent them from growing back and suffocating the new saplings.

Other tasks volunteers have worked on include creating a new enclosure for the chicks and ducklings, repairing the old fencing to create new pens for the Jacob lambs, building a new pig ark and creating a woven hazel compost bay!
They have also been busy planting lots of daffodil bulbs. B&NES Council donated about 600 bulbs which had to be planted quickly as they had started to shoot. We have planted some nice long drifts of daffs around the pigpen and the Saturday club even created a daffodil maze in the shape of a pig!! We will have to wait until next spring to see if the maze works.

A new gravel path has also been built that makes it easier for wheelchair users and buggies to visit the farm. Culverhay Boys School came to lend a hand along with their Mentors from Bath University. This was part of the Junction 49 Project. The project aims to help young people share and develop ideas to make a difference. The project gave the farm £430 to buy the materials and they all worked really hard shovelling 5 tons of gravel and tramping it all down. This path has been needed for a long time and we are really pleased to have no more rainy days slipping along to see the animals.

The Farms sensory garden is also starting to spring into life with lots of new shoots appearing. We are really keen to enter Bath in Bloom this year as we feel the farm’s garden is beautiful all year round and provides lots of joy to farm users and visitors.
We are looking for new volunteers to help with gardening every Monday afternoon. No experience is needed as training will be given. We also plan to start working on growing some soft fruit and vegetables.
Call the Helen at the farm on 01225 481269 if you would like to volunteer.

Trustee Update

Over the past few months the trustees have been undertaking a considerable amount of work in order to ensure we are working in the most efficient way.  One of our main concerns, as always, is with regards to funding.  We have been looking at how best we can become more self sufficient with the long term aim being to raise a percentage of money annually ourselves rather than relying totally on donations and funding applications.

At present we are working alongside the Federation of City Farms who are helping us look at how best to achieve our aims.  An exchange visit has been planned with Lawrence Weston Farm in May with the aim of this day being for us to learn from them and look at how they work.
 
We are also looking at running our own training courses at the farm which will not only provide a valuable resource for the local community but also raise a regular income for us.

We have also been very lucky in attracting two new committee members both of whom have business and fundraising experience.  They are working hard with existing trustees to ensure the continued success of Bath City Farm.

Funding News

We would like to thank the following people and organisations for the donations and grants that have been awarded to the Farm over the last few months.

BANES Council awarded us £2010 towards the creation of a Butterfly Bank and wildlife friendly area, from the Environment and Heritage sector.
The Butterfly Bank will be created by local schools including; The Link, St. Michael’s Juniors, Hayesfield and Threeways.

Medlock Charitable Trust sent us a £1000 donation towards the upkeep of the Farm.

O2 ‘Its Your Community’ has awarded us £750 to renovate the community picnic area on the Farm.

Waitrose awarded us £400 through their in-store ‘Community Champions’ project.

Bath Rag has also awarded us money towards volunteer expenses.

Adam Gretton kindly donated us 100 mixed trees as a contribution towards the newly planted hedgerow on the farm and also £100 towards the cost of fencing materials.