BCA Top Farm

Celebrating 20 years of Open Farm Sunday this weekend! 🚜

This Sunday 7 June, farms across the country will be opening their gates to help visitors discover the world of farming and learn more about how farmers produce food, care for nature, and protect the environment for future generations.

Farming plays a vital role in our everyday lives, providing much more than just the food on our plates. By supporting farmers and learning more about agriculture, we can all play a part in building a sustainable future.

Plan a visit to your nearest participating farm here: https://farmsunday.org/visit-a-farm

This morning our L2 Agricultural students were out visiting Nettlebed Creamery. They were greated by Rose who explained all about what they do at the creamery, even giving the students the opportunity to taste some of there wonderful triple cream cheese, Bix, along with some of their lovely Kefir.
They then were able to go and see exactly where the milk comes from to produce these and the other products at the Creamery.
With a short trip down the road to Merrimoles Farm, where we were met by Charlotte, their head Herdperson. She showed the students round the farm explaining to them about the importance of making sure the cows had the right nutrition and all aspects of the milking process.
It was a fantastic morning, our students gained some valuable insight to how things work.
Merrimoles Farm are taking part in Open Farm Sunday on the 7th June. So if anyone is interested in seeing how things work, please support them and pop along.

Today our commercial sheep flock were sheared to help reduce the risk of fly strike as we come into the warmer weather. 🐑🐑🐏

Our School Land and Agriculture students have reused some of our empty cattle/sheep mineral lick tubs to plant up some seasonal summer bedding plants.
This was part of their Plant a Container assessment and towards their level 1 qualification.
We use these blocks as it's important to support our cattle/sheep with extra vitamins and minerals, ensuring that thier nutritional needs are met.

Meet another of our amazing Agriculture Lecturers 🐑🐄🐓

This last term, our Agricultural Year 2 T-Level students have been mentoring a class of Foundation students to teach them the essential skills in correct handling and presentation of haltered sheep. This partnership provides a vital platform for our senior students to refine their communication and leadership abilities by sharing their expertise. Whilst simultaneously, Foundation students gain invaluable hands-on experience in livestock handling and teamwork.
To celebrate their progress we finish the project off with an in-house show.
All the students did a fantastic job and the sheep looked fantastic.

Last week our T-Level year 1 students were tasked with giving our ewe lambs a mineral drench, collecting tag no. Along with a maintenance footbath before loading them onto a trailer to be taken out to the field. 🐑🐑🐑

Yesterday, our Y11s Schools Agriculture class were invited to come see our Vet Bella from Pregnancy Diagnosis (PD) 5 of our cows.
Bella was brilliant at explaining what they were looking at on the tablet, and the students were even able to identify what they were looking at.
Scanning results were good, calving will be continuing 😊🐄

This morning our T-Level year 1 students were going through health checking cattle.
They helped to tag our new calves and to apply the topical treatment Spotinor to help with prevention against flies, ticks and lice.
Then they were tasked with moving them out to the field to join the other cows and calves.
A brilliant morning in the sunshine for all.

Some of our cows and calves are now out grazing in the sunshine.