January Newsletter

Farm school at Hale farm, livestock news, farm shop and kitchen updates and more..

New beginnings for our Farm School children

We were excited to launch our new satellite farm school this month at Hale Farm Campsite where our students met and learnt to care for their wonderful farm animals. The children got straight in looking after the pygmy goats, alpacas, turkeys, chickens, peacocks, miniature pigs, miniature donkeys, shetland ponies and more! What a fantastic opportunity for them and a wonderful place for them to continue their Farm School experience.

In the last 18 months, we have had the pleasure of working with hundreds of children and young people from across East Sussex and with the launch of the Hale Farm site we are grateful that we will be able to work with and support even more children! For more information about South Brockwells Farm School at Hale Farm click here: https://halefarm.co.uk/farm-school/

Farm School - Developing practical skills

As well as caring for our animals and learning where our food comes from, our farm school children also have the opportunity to expand their practical skills. This month they showed fantastic team work, concentration and determination as they worked with the fantastic James to kit out our boot room with this fancy boot rack and overall hanger. How good does this look!  

But it wasn't just the boot room where the children learnt new woodworking skills, they also had the opportunity to work with green woodworkers Danny and Jodie from Sussex Green Woodworking.

Danny and Jodie were amazing working with both our students and staff teaching us new skills and helping us build our own shave horse and chopping block.   

We can’t wait for the next few weeks as we start work on our outdoor shelter and continue to learn new skills.

Farm shop and kitchen updates

It's the start of a new year and we will have some wonderful offers, updates and events coming up throughout the year.

The road may be closed but we are open!

Access is clear from the A26 so please do come along and see us. Why not pop in and check out our Gas Leak Special Offers! For example:

• 4 packs of our delicious sausages for £15

• Brace of wild mallard for just £10

Burns Night Sell Out!

Arron and Angie are delighted that their Burn's Night Celebration of a sumptuous 4 four Scottish menu has sold out.

We plan to run more foodie events over the coming months if you would like to find out more please email farmshop@southbrockwellsfarm.com and we will be in touch.

Fill your freezer with delicious game birds

We are heading towards the end of the game bird shooting season so now is the perfect time to fill your freezer with some healthy local game.  We will have pheasant, partridge and duck in the shop for the next two weeks so pop in and buy some fantastic value game birds. If it's venison that you crave, no need to worry, the season continues through to March.

Pies are back!

Have you tried Angie's handmade pies - they are delicious! Angie will make a different variety each week. 

Our weekend brunches are growing!

Regular customers will notice that we have changed the shop around a fair bit last year and we now have a cosy area for diners at the front of the shop. Every Saturday and Sunday Angie creates mouthwatering dishes with our home grown produce.  Firm favourites include The South Brockwells steak sandwich, Arron's smoked salmon with our free range duck eggs and Angie's heartwarming spaghetti dishes. Angie will also be cooking delicious game birds and local wild venison for brunch on Saturday and Sunday for the next couple of weeks. All the perfect antidote to a chilly wintery weekend. 

We offer hot food every Saturday and Sunday from 10 am - 2 pm and freshly ground coffee and hot sausage roll mid week!

Livestock update

Spring is just around the corner and we are excited about the new life the new year will bring!

Our gorgeous buck Dexter has been to West Sussex on 'hire a husband' for a few weeks. I am sure he will have been very successful and will no doubt produce some more beautiful goat kids.

Back at South Brockwells Farm our pregnant goats have been scanned and we are delighted to say we have a fantastic success rate. Our does are looking in fantastic shape and their pregnancies are progressing well. The pictures below show the scanning machine and a scan from one of our goats. If you look carefully you can make out the head, length of the back, shoulders and back leg, Goats have a gestation period of 5 months which means we should have lots of goat kids arriving during valentines week - how romantic!

Thank you for your old Christmas trees

Thank you to everyone who kindly dropped off their Christmas trees for our goats to enjoy. A particular thank you to English Woodlands for their very generous donation of a lorry load of trees. Our pregnant goats love them, they chew the bark and strip the branches clean of needles. The trees provide a delicious treat, rich in vitamins including vitamin C at a time when there is little foliage around.

Clever Tess and her beautiful puppies.

Our beautiful working sheepdog Tess has had her litter producing 6 stunning puppies. She has been an amazing mum taking to her new role like a pro! We have selected wonderful new homes for 4 of the puppies who will be starting their new adventures in the coming weeks. Chrissy will be keeping one to follow in mum Tess's pawprints and become a working sheepdog at South Brockwells Farm.

I'm sure you are wondering what is happening to the remaining puppy, well the exciting news is that the 6th (and I think the cutest) puppy is staying to be our very own Farm School working/therapy dog! Our students love all the dogs at the farm and we felt it would be an amazing opportunity for them to help train one for Farm School. We are very grateful to Chrissy Wells and her family for allowing Farm School to have this opportunity. So all that's left is for me to introduce you to 'Jam'.

We will update you on Jam's progress in the next newsletter.