News at Notaires

As we had already lost one lamb we kept an hourly watch on the other expectant mother, sure enough at 10pm at night the sheep went into 2^nd stage labour, 3 hours later it looked like the lamb was too big and would have to be assisted out. Sparing you the gory details, the new lamb was laid next to its mother who promptly got up and walked off. When she didn’t come back voluntarily we herded her back to where the new lamb was wobbling up on his legs. The new mother sniffed her new arrival then bang, head butted the tiny lamb clean off it’s feet. We tried everything to get the mother to bond but to no avail so now we are hand rearing a baby lamb with a pen in the living room and straw going everywhere. Fortunately lamb development is much faster than human babies and after a week of 3 hourly feeds we are nearly getting through the night.

The new lamb, currently named ‘Lambo’ follows his foster mother everywhere, even down to the lake to visit the anglers. Sam took a break from his catching streak (broken his PB three times so far) to help feed Lambo.

Caitlin found that Lambo has a penchant for football and buts the ball around the farm yard, because of this behavior  she has suggested that we should name the lamb after a former French footballer who was also known for headbutting! 

exhaustion	Feeding time	... sure to go ...
lamb footie	animal family	Sam takes a break

Our new ecommerce bait shop is now online  - the web address can be found on the directions sheet which will be made available to you in your Customer Area on our website when your holiday has been paid for in full. 

As well as the Quest Baits range you can order your particles and pellets in advance without having to worry about having spare euros to pay for them at the end of the week (credit cards can be processed via PayPal).

We stock Parti-mix, maize, hemp, and carp pellets amongst others, details at the shop.

Our online bait shop

It can be difficult to deduce the trends from the catch reports at a family venue like Notaire’s since the angler usually isn’t fishing as flat out when compared to a Drive and Survive venue. Whilst there were a couple of difficult weeks, both of which occurred after massive temperature swings (seeing as much as 10 degrees increase per day),we are very pleased to report that yet again no one blanked at Notaire’s.  (Chris reaches down to tap the wooden table!)

The chart of the best fish reported shows that, apart from a couple of outliers from the very hot days, most anglers landed a best fish between 35 and 40lb.

Equally this wasn’t at the expense of the total catch (remember, very few family anglers can fish 24/7.) Dave Mutton landed the best result with a catch of 33 carp, closely followed by the Hayden party with 85 carp between 3 anglers.

It’s not so easy to chart the distribution of the fish as the catch returns sometimes came as numbers of fish and sometimes as total weights of fish caught. However, the table above shows that the major cohort lies in the 20-30lb range and that there is a significant number of fish in the 30-40lb range. Our winter feeding programme should see plenty more of this latter group of fish moving into the 40lb+ bracket.

In conclusion, we hope to see you at Notaire’s where you can enjoy arm-aching fights with the younger fish, have the chance to better your PB with carp in the 40lb range, and spend quality time with your family.

At Notaire’s you can have your cake and eat it!

They say it’s an ill wind that blows no good and the north wind certainly blew in with ill intent, freezing the upstairs pipes and causing havoc with the heating.  Even the drain pipes froze up overnight as the temperatures dropped below -10 each night for two weeks, even reaching as low as -19. The fix for the drainpipes was to fill a backpack sprayer with hot water and use it as a hot water drill to melt the plug of ice each morning.

On the plus side a well frozen lake meant that we could reach the overhanging willow branches that were dipping down into the house lake on the far side, this area is a great fish attracting area with both shade and rich natural pickings for the carp but with the consequence that the carp made a run for the trees when they were hooked (and as the records show there were plenty of carp caught in the house lake this year, but that is for the next post).

We had thought of using the boat to reach the branches but a boat and a chainsaw sounds like a fast trip to casualty, this only left the option of partially draining the lake and slogging around in the mud, even then each year we have been defeated by the onset of cold weather before the slow drainage had reduced the levels sufficiently, so here you can see the results as we trim back the willows and do a 360 degree pan around the banks from the center of the lake.

As our previous visitors will be aware, we are building up an old style farm with a selection of animals (ok they didn’t have llamas on an old fashioned farm but that is another story). Currently we have llamas, alpacas, sheep, turkeys and  chickens (and pets such as a dog, some cats and guinea pigs). Now we are planning to expand into old breed pigs. In preparation for this I attended a pig experience day held in Poitou-Charente by David  and Lorraine at Le Logis old breeds farm (www.lelogisfrance.com) . Prior to this course I hadn’t been closer to a pig than the supermarket meat counter.

It was an old fashioned drive across France (I say old fashioned because the centre of France has no east-west motorways, so it was a case of travelling from town to town like England in the 1960s). It took 3 ½ hours to drive 150Km west to Poitiers and then 30 minutes to drive the last 60km south on the motorway) to arrive at the pretty Charentais farm. After coffee and introductions we went out to get hands on experience,  starting with feeding and welfare. We tiptoed past one of the farrowing stalls where one of the sows had given birth to a litter the previous night. Lorraine explained how critical the first 24 hours were to the welfare of the new litter.

We first met the Berkshire pigs that Le Logis is becoming famous for and it was immediately obvious that these animals were a cut above the cows and sheep that I had met before.  The pig is rated the 4^th most intelligent in the animal kingdom, only behind chimps, dolphins and elephants. The Berkshires trotted over to greet us, vocalizing amiably (it would be an understatement to just say grunting like in a childrens story). They tucked into their food and played around with the buckets afterwards. Lorraine explained that they loved to play with toys and that an overweight pig could be slimmed down with a toy that had some treats concealed within.

We topped up their shelters with straw and I was amazed at how clean and tidy they kept their sleeping quarters. I know some teenagers who could learn a thing or two from them (mentioning no names).

Lorraine talked us through the various breeds that they have at the farm, not just Berkshires but Gloucester old spots and the rather fetching Oxford Sandy and Black, also known as the Plum Pudding pig!

All too soon it was time to drive back to Notaire’s but with plenty of time for planning where to raise the pigs; in the wooded section below the house lake where they could have a very naturalized life or should we use them to turn over the cereal field next to house where we could spend more time with them. Watch this space and I will keep you posted on our progress.

Berkshire	Gloucester old spot	Oxford & sandy - plum pudding pig
	Contentment