Happy New Year everyone! The year has started with me seemingly becoming an enforced admin farmer.

It's always the case in January after a busy Christmas. However this year I managed to put my back out on Christmas Eve simply lifting a bag of calf feed and over Christmas itself was laid up waiting for osteopaths to return from their Christmas break.

Farmers are never a breed to be happily idle so the time indoors has been utilised tackling paperwork. Needless to say I have also discovered just how debilitating back problems can be, and how much I am reliant on my back to do simple everyday chores.

We produced 600 turkeys from the farm for Christmas - a mixture of orders from butchers and private orders direct to the farm. Feedback has been very positive and rewarding. We also sent a few surplus birds to local Christmas markets, as its better to do this than keep them frozen here.

Unfortunately the prices were not great this year, but you are always slightly vulnerable going down this route and subject to the supply and demand theory.

We currently have no young calves on the farm, requiring daily milk replacer which has meant that the sheds have been able to have a rest. We've cleaned them out and opened up the doors and the recent cold snap has been helpful in killing off any residual bugs lingering.

We still have 110 calves here but being slightly bigger they are on water and daily nuts to supplement hay. The oldest are about six months old and we'll be looking to send these on when bringing in new ones in a few weeks.

There's not a huge amount to update on the other animals, the piglets are growing and I've moved the Dorset Down ram from the sheep flock - hopefully he's been productive and I  look forward to reporting from the sheep maternity wing in March time.

With the cold weather the log trade has literally gone crazy. We aim to stockpile logs to be despatched as orders come in, however there's been no New Year siesta for my father who's had to get busy with the chainsaw with bumper orders and deliveries over the last week.

Finally we're looking forward to a family day out to a local point to point at Larkhill on Sunday. My mother trains a couple of point to pointers on the farm and has her first runner of the season this weekend, so fingers crossed all goes well and I can watch with no stresses or responsibilities for a change!