Pheasant walked in our new concrete - life down on the farm!

It has been a mammoth task, as it is not just a matter of putting down a large slab of concrete. Initially, the old dirt floor had to be dug out. It was then levelled and graded, so if any rain does get in, as it is open-sided, it will run out again.

Getting the correct ‘fall’ on the concrete therefore, is critical. Inevitably, one job leads to another, and now that the floor has been properly designed to prevent water lying on it, then of course, the current drainage immediately in front of the shed, needed to be updated too.

Hunts Post Farming Column by Anne-Marie Hamilton, of Wood Farm, Hail Weston (Image: Newsquest)

As there was such a large area to concrete, we hired an amazing machine to tamp the concrete in to place, and decided to lay it in three sections, over a couple of days.

The whole process was overseen by a friend of ours, Phil, who is a local builder, and the rest of the team was made up of Rob and everyone from our business partner’s farm. All went well as the first bay was put in, and it looked wonderful. Rob checked it at 8.30pm to ensure that it would not suffer any damage from night time frost, and retired to bed, happy and relaxed, with a job well done.

I will leave you to imagine his face when he went out first thing the next morning to find that a pheasant had walked all over the damp concrete in between times, and it was now too late to remove his tracks! I honestly do not know what it is about wet concrete – it seems to draw cats, dogs and small children like a magnet, but this is the first time that we have suffered from a pheasant!

The second bay was laid the following day, and this time, it was my turn to find pheasant footmarks all over the new concrete. He really had not spared himself on this occasion, and many of them were quite deep. Thankfully, the concrete was still wet enough this time for Rob to smooth them out again, but we are now searching for a pheasant wearing concrete boots, as we want a quiet word!