Thursday 12 June 2008

Wild boar on the farm

The hotel farm is part of the national game reserve of the Sueve Mountains which are just behind the hotel. Most years we see signs of the wild boar where it has been rooting around the meadows digging up plant tubers and roots and looking for food in general. They love the roots of the plant Lords and Ladies and in early spring the boars go through the farm systematically digging up these plants. Unfortunately they also love orchid rhizomes which can be particularly annoying as they can up root 20 or 30 orchids in a night.

Up until this year we have only ever actually seen a boar on the farm, three or four times throughout the 13 years that we have lived here. However this year in April we sighted a large boar a number of times around our house and Joe even saw it late one night in her flower garden when returning from the hotel.

But two weeks ago we had the first sighting of the mother boar, now with 6 young boars! Since then the sightings have become a lot more regular with many guests having seen the young boars playing in the upper farm meadows in the early hours of the evening, as can be seen in the photo.

3 comments:

Ian and Luis said...

Wild boar pate?

Nigel and Joann Burch said...

Why dont you come and catch one of the young ones and tell the mum what you thinking of doing with her baby. When Ive seen the mum I think she must be well over 200Kgs, so I hope you can run fast!

Ian and Luis said...

Can you not write that into Hugh's job description? I'm a bit busy and I know he has some free time now the fleabane is cleared.

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Hotel Posada del Valle is a small hotel in Asturias Northern Spain surrounded by its own organic farm and where we are passionate about organic farming, food, and sustainable livelihoods. In this Blog those of us who live and work at Hotel Posada del Valle open a door to share with all of you who are interested in what we are doing.