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Free entry to the
animals & play area |
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Coming to Cornwall for Christmas?
Order now & we'll
have your food shopping ready when you arrive! Free range
turkeys & geese, ribs of beef, glazed hams, homemade iced
Christmas cakes, puddings & mince pies, ready meals, Bread,
cheese, wine, Cornish beer & cider, local vegetables, logs,
Christmas Trees & more.
We would like to welcome you to Carruan,
our livestock farm at the top of Polzeath Hill on the North
Cornish coast. We want you to experience some of the pleasure we
get from working on a farm in such a beautiful location.
You are welcome to visit the play area and farmyard for free
when you come to the farmhouse kitchen & shop, but we ask you to
make sure that children are supervised at all times. |
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Why not hold your
Christmas or Birthday Party or Business Meeting at
Carruan?
To find out more about how we
farm, watch a video made by Guardian Films
of Sophie Grigson's recent visit CLICK HERE TO VIEW |
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| Have you ever wondered where the food you eat comes from, or
how it is produced? Our aim at Carruan is to show you how we
farm, and how we care for our livestock and the countryside
around us. If you can�t visit us and you have any questions
about the farm you might find the answers on our
farming Calendar or
farm diary. If not, just post your questions in our
question & answer section and we�ll do our best to answer
them. The farm offers something for all
the family, with tours around the farm on the tractor & trailer, the
play area and the farmyard animals to get to know. Try the
home-cooked food in our licensed
farmhouse
kitchen. Buy meat produced on the
farm as well as dairy products and vegetables from other local
farms, wine & local beer & cider in our shop
& if you aren�t able to visit us we can deliver fresh beef & lamb
direct to
your door by courier.
And when you leave the beach, come and join us for a family BBQ or
farmhouse supper with storytellers, singers, children�s games, sheep
racing or birds of prey handling to round off the day.
We open at 8.00 am and stay open until 8.30 pm (times may vary out
of season), so pop-in whenever you�re passing. Entry is free.
Carruan is a working farm, so there�s always something going on.
Mike & Clare Parnell |
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Visit Carruan
Who Farms Carruan
Farming at Carruan
Sheep
Dogs
Cattle
Crops
The Environment
Carruan History |
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- Experience farming and food production first hand
- Help us feed the lambs
- Take a tour around the farm on the tractor and trailer
- Come for a family BBQ with
storytellers,
music or games
- Enjoy the local food & relaxed
atmosphere in the farmhouse
kitchen. Breakfasts, light lunches,
cream teas, homemade cakes, BBQs
- Buy our own meat & other local produce
in the farm shop
plus gifts, wine 7 local beer & cider.
- Have fresh beef & lamb
delivered to your door by courier
- Watch the sheep dogs bringing in the sheep
- Meet the farm animals
- Bring your school or playgroup
- Hold a
party or event here.
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Mike & Clare farm a total of 350 acres. This includes Carruan
which is owned by Clare�s parents, Norah and Tony White who live in
the farmhouse.
They bought the farm in the 1960�s and moved there in 1966 when Tony
White sold his veterinary practice in Plymouth. His family farm was
Cutliffe, just outside Taunton in Somerset, but this was sold when
his father retired.
Clare has lived on the farm since she was seven, and apart from
periods away travelling and at University has worked on the farm all
her life. Mike was born and bred at Pityme, near Rock but until 12
years ago worked as a Bosun in the Merchant Navy before deciding to
go farming.
Mike & Clare work the farm together with Clare�s father and nephew
Philip Kent. Philip is the third generation farming at Carruan.
Clare�s father has a wealth of experience about the farm and what
grows well, and its very useful having a retired vet as part of the
team!
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Mike & Clare farm a total of 350 acres this includes Carruan and Treswarrow Park where Mike & Clare live. Some additional land close by is rented. The main enterprises are sheep and beef and enough arable crops to provide their winter feed and bedding.
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The sheep flock has 950 ewes all of the
same breed – Poll Dorset. “Poll” means that
they don’t have horns. One of the main characteristics
of the Dorset Horn and Poll Dorset breed
is their ability to breed at any time of the year. This is important
to because Mike & Clare lamb most of the flock in November
and the remainder in February. In Cornwall and the wider South
West, farmers with Poll Dorset & Dorset Horn sheep can lamb
their ewes in the autumn because of the very mild climate and
long grass growing season. This means they can produce lambs
ahead of the rest of the country. Waitrose appreciate this and
sell their product as “Dorset Lamb” on the butchery
counters of many of their stores from February through to May.
Mike and Clare are part of their Dorset Lamb group, made up
of selected farmers who supply Dorset lamb and meet their exacting
quality standards.
www.waitrose.com
To find out more see the farming
calendar, farm
diary or ask
us.
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We wouldn’t be able to manage all the sheep we have without the help of our working sheepdogs who you can meet when you visit the farm. You can see them working the sheep or being trained by Clare as well. Jim is the oldest at 13. He prefers to work from the back of the quad bike now and leaves the others to do most of the work. He still likes to help, but only when he feels like it!
Jo is eight years old and never wants to stop working. In fact Clare has to keep a firm eye on him to make sure he doesn’t push the sheep too fast.
Jack is Jim’s son and at 3 years old is still learning the job. But he’s very steady and coming on well. He still
gets his left and right confused sometimes!
Max is the latest addition – born in February 2006. He is unusual because he is chocolate brown and white instead of the more normal black and white. All he does so far is chew things up and annoy the other dogs! Ben does no work at all – he is our Labrador.
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Mike and Clare have a herd of 25 beef suckler cows. “Suckler” meaning that the calves stay with their mothers from birth in March and April suckling them through to weaning in late October. Both the cows and their weaned calves come into the cattle shed in late October for the winter. Last year’s calves, now called yearlings go out in the Spring and have a second summer at grass. The cows calve in the shed and then go out with their new calves when they are a few days old, weather permitting. To find out more see the farming calendar, farm diary or ask us.
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Mike and Clare grow 40 acres of barley and oats to feed to the sheep and cattle in the winter. Some of this is planted in the Autumn for harvest in late July, and some planted in the Spring for harvest in August. The grain is fed to the sheep and cattle mixed with some extra protein that is bought in, and the straw is used as bedding when they are housed in the winter. The protein is always bought in from GM free (genetically modified) sources.
They also grow 20 acres of forage crops to feed the sheep in the winter. These are green crops such as kale, stubble turnips and forage rape.
In the Spring they take the livestock off some of the grass fields in order to grow crops of grass that are harvested to provide extra feed in the winter. They make hay, which is dried grass, and silage which is “pickled” grass. Silage is made by wrapping the grass in plastic, making an airtight parcel so that acidic conditions are produced, ideal for the bacteria which pickle the crop. To find out more see the farming calendar, farm diary or ask us.
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Carruan is part of a scheme called Countryside Stewardship which encourages Mike & Clare to continue to farm in an environmentally friendly way. Through this they work with
RSPB to provide additional habitats for Corn Buntings which have been in severe decline over recent years. Corn Buntings are open country birds which nest in arable farmland. The farm provides them with a field planted with spring barley and millet in which to nest and, to ensure that they are not disturbed, the crop is not harvested. In addition once other cereal crops have been harvested the stubble is left in at least one field over the winter together with all the stubble from the forage crops to provide winter feed for birds.
Under the Countryside Stewardship scheme many of the traditional stone-faced hedgebanks on the farm are being repaired. These provide important habitats for both plants and animals and are used as wildlife corridors by wild mammals.
DEFRA
The farm is a member of
FWAG (Farming & Wildlife Advisory Group) & Mike & Clare are delighted to have won the
2007 Cornwall Otter Trophy awarded by FWAG for their conservation
work linked to good commercial farming.
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Unfortunately Mike & Clare’s knowledge of the history of Carruan is very sketchy, in fact all they know is that:
In 1200 Carruan was spelt CAREWEN which means Ewen’s fort, Ewen being an old Celtic personal name. The Cornish word CAR means fort, usually a Cornish Round. Rounds were the type of dwelling used in Cornwall from the late iron age and roman periods. A recent aerial photograph of one of the fields on Carruan indicates the presence of rounds. RUAN was a Cornish saint. They would like to know more and are hoping that a school group might like to investigate for them click here for more information about school visits.
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