A poultry health scare and a mountain of paperwork have been the key January challenges for Jeremy Buxton at Eves Hill Farm near Reepham - the subject of our monthly "year in the life of a Norfolk farm" features. Chris Hill reports.
The year has begun with a worrying problem for Norfolk farmer Jeremy Buxton - his hens are not laying eggs.
The 200 birds, which normally produce around 180 eggs a day, are now barely filling a tray of 30.
And as well as a health concern it's a big financial worry too, as he said the hens are costing his business £1,000 a month as they are not producing enough eggs to pay for their feed.
The free-range chickens arrived at Eves Hill Farm, near Reepham, last May, but have been forced indoors since November, when a mandatory housing order was imposed across the UK to stop the spread of the country's biggest-ever bird flu outbreak.
Mr Buxton said the lockdown has contributed to his chickens' ill health - but he was relieved to find that they had not caught the disease itself, which would have prompted an immediate cull of the whole flock.
Instead, vets have prescribed antibiotics for their respiratory symptoms, and found mites under their feathers which Mr Buxton has tried to remedy by creating a dust bath of "diatomaceous earth" - a natural product which can scratch the mite's waxy shell, causing them to die.
"We can partly attribute this to avian flu [the housing regulations], but also our inexperience with poultry," he said. "We're still novices and I accept that we have made some mistakes this winter with how we manage the poultry, because we are still learning.
"Any kind of change to their routine can put the chickens off laying. They have been moved inside and, in that unnatural environment, they are susceptible to pests like mites, which is the problem we have got at the moment.
"We decided to tackle the mite first, and we will consider giving antibiotics after that. I'm reluctant to use antibiotics, I want to give them a few days first to see if it will clear up.
"We made a dust bath for them, which is a very natural solution.
"If they were outside, all those little bits of sand and dirt in the earth would do the same job. That is what we did wrong - we didn't provide them somewhere to dust bath when they were housed. We didn't replicate nature inside.
"But that's the thing with livestock, you never stop learning. None of this will happen next winter, because we have learned from what has happened this winter.
"The most upsetting thing for me is that we have so many wonderful customers, and all of a sudden their eggs have dried up. We are having to let people down, that's the worst thing."
Paperwork and planning
Aside from the poultry problems, Mr Buxton said January is usually a quiet month dominated by a deluge of admin and paperwork at the family farm.
That includes preparing for farm assurance audits, analysing last year's financial figures, sending off soil samples for analysis, making decisions on spring cropping, advertising the camping and glamping sites, and meeting with council planners to discuss designs for his proposed new farm shop - prompting yet more forms to fill in.
"Most farmers would rather be outside, even when the weather is miserable, but in January we find ourselves inside a lot doing paperwork and planning," he said.
The farm is expecting an audit soon by Red Tractor, the major farm assurance scheme aiming to ensure high quality standards in British food chain.
"I'm quite scathing about these things, I think they are a bit of a nonsense," said Mr Buxton.
"For example, we took our cattle out of the Red Tractor scheme. Because we sell our beef direct off the farm, none of our customers ask about Red Tractor because we can be totally transparent, so they believe in the systems we have in place to provide the quality of beef they expect. It is just more paperwork.
"All of these audits and assurance schemes mean less time on the farm. I'm not a paperwork fan. Who is? But we have to be audited.
"We couldn't sell our crops if we were not part of Red Tractor, or we wouldn't achieve the same prices. It is to show that we are adhering to all the rules and regulations that the powers that be want us to."
Machinery movements
Despite the relative winter quiet in the fields, there has been a regular flow of machinery traffic in and out of the farm gates.
That includes grain lorries coming to take away consignments of grain from the last harvest, but also the sale of surplus machinery to get the farm's fleet into shape for the coming year.
"As our system is changing, our cattle are becoming more of a tool in this regenerative system rather than just producers of beef," said Mr Buxton.
"They are 100pc grass-fed now, so if a cow just eats straight out of the field we don't need all the grass cutting and baling implements which are depreciating in value while sitting there doing nothing. It cuts cost and saves time and makes life a hell of a lot easier.
"We're also looking at new machinery that could make the farm more efficient and speed things up. I would really like a direct seed drill. That is top of my list, and we need an ATV (all-terrain vehicle) or a Quad to suit what we are doing - a lighter, more nimble vehicle that causes less damage to the soil."
Veganuary / Regenuary
January is also a month when the impact of meat production and cattle emissions on the environment becomes a hot topic during the annual Veganuary campaign.
As a supplier of beef from grass-fed Hereford cattle, Mr Buxton wants to draw a distinction between his "regenerative" system and the intensive "feedlot" systems in other countries, where cattle are kept in large yards and fed optimised rations.
He is a fan of the alternative "Regenuary" movement, which urges consumers to choose meat from farms whose cattle enrich the soil on the carbon-storing pastures which they graze on.
"Everyone has the choice to eat what they feel is right for them, but this is about sourcing that food responsibly from production systems that are not harmful to the environment or our climate, and thinking about food miles too," he said.
"And everyone in the food chain needs to be transparent and honest about how their food is produced, and make sure that is conveyed to the consumer, so there's no mud-slinging."
As part of this educational effort, Mr Buxton is hosting a course on March 21, led by regenerative farming expert Niels Corfield, who has helped guide the new practices at Eves Hill Farm.
It will teach farmers the fundamentals of soil health, including minimising soil disturbance and artificial chemicals, keeping a living root in the ground throughout the year, integrating livestock into the system.
"Change is on its way, so here is some peer-to-peer learning to accelerating the process," said Mr Buxton.
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