Pimping Two Babes for the Lads

Diane (who died on 21st Oct 2014) and her disreputable
Border Terrier cross, 'Ragworth'. 

Ignore that dubious title for the moment. First up today we remember that most excellent Friend of the Blog, 'Diamond' (Diane Loraine Walsh). Rest in Peace, lovely Lady. Today (25th) would have been her 61st Birthday. The thoughts of this Blog are with her husband, John, Her Family and all those readers who knew and remember her. I am also told that today is the 602nd anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt and the 75th of the Dedication of the local village church here (Lisacul village), but maybe more on those later.

4 young poults. From the colour of them, almost certainly sired
by our Marans rooster, 'Gandalf'.

With the majority of this year's young chickens having hatched in June, a whole bunch of these are starting to come 'of age' (poultry keepers frequently use 21 weeks, or "point of lay" to denote maturity though that varies wildly between varieties.) from now through November. We had 19 chicks across those early batches and have since added another 7; the 'Manus' and the ABs, bringing our total to 26. The place is fair heaving with young poults. The law of averages tells us that we are likely to end up with 13 hens and 13 roosters though that, too, can vary wildly.

Existing alpha-rooster, Gandalf

In the hard-hearted 'business' world of small-holdering, we would generally keep or sell as going concerns, all the hens, especially if they start laying good eggs but have to dispose of the roosters. If you are lucky you might sell, or give away a few and you might keep one good one if your hen/rooster ratios can sustain it (you want about 7:1, so if you are adding 13 hens to your flock there should be room for one more roo', if not 2). If we can, we will make the(se) keeper(s) either pure-bred Marans or Buff Orpington. 

Our #2 rooster, sex-change 'hen', 'Herme'.
See earlier post
 http://deefer-dawg.blogspot.ie/2017/04/
mazy-lou-and-airy-fox.html

The rest of the roosters will be for the pot and you need to identify and cull them out as soon as they become a problem, fighting with each other or challenging your existing lads. As the girls start to come up to point of lay and (we hope) start popping out the good eggs, the boys cannot help but give away their own sexual identities by squaring up to one another, flaring their cape feathers and bowing down beak to beak preparatory to a few, beginner-ish flying 2 footed kick-outs. If you do not sort them it can get bloody and injurious very fast. What we will do between now and Christmas is to 'sort' them before they become a problem.

We love the colouring on some and we hope they are hens. This
one is optimistically called "Silvergirl"

That's probably enough on chickens. I said "If you are lucky" above (selling roosters) because just when you have your glut of spare males, so does every other chicken breeder you would know. It's like having too many courgettes and hoping other veg-fiends might not have grown courgettes this year.

2 Guinea Fowl boys in search of some female company?

Friends of the Blog may recall that our story of owning and trying to breed Guinea fowl here is not a happy one. We currently have, and have had for many months, two cock birds who are happy enough and tend to wander about like 'the management' minding any turkeys they can find or piles of food. In our Guinea story these guys are preceded by our first pair (Henry and Min; 2013) who tried to breed but we lost H in an RTA. This left M to desert her impressive stash of 16 eggs in the hedge on the far side of our lane. We incubated these and hatched, I think, ten. We managed to sell 5 as youngsters but then had the other 5 stolen by Mr Fox. So far, no roast Guinea fowl for the table.

Dillisk biscuits. 

Henry was briefly replaced by a white bird we called 'Blondie' but he/she was famous for his/her unwillingness to stay here and need to hike off Eastwards. Blondie eventually deserted for good. Subsequently we bought 2 boys (2015) from Sue and Rob (called Apollo and Belvedere) hoping that at least one would pair off with poor, lonely Min, of the heart-breakingly continuous 'buckwheat buckwheat' calls. Belv' did so and all was quiet for 2016. However we never saw more than one or 2 eggs and there was no breeding success. This year, Min fell ill and stopped being able to repel the attentions of our rooster, Gandalf. Before we knew he had nailed her well and truly, flaying all the skin off her 'saddle' with his spurs. We tried to isolate her (not easy to catch!) but she went downhill fast and died within a few days.

Cheesy fish pie. We missed this while we hosted Augustin
who professed a loathing for fish and cooked cheese. 

So in 2017 we are left with the 2 lads, Apollo and Belv' and, although we think they are OK, we think they might enjoy some female company. We livestock keepers are, after all, meant to keep our stock to the "Five Freedoms" (freedom from starvation and thirst etc), one of which is "Freedom to Express Natural Behaviours". In my opinion, that includes being able to mate, breed and bring up young if possible.

Growing fast, the young turkeys. This one is male.

Step forward, then, our newest friends who I mentioned a few posts back, who happen to own a goodly flock of Guineas and are happy to find me 2 hens of sure-fire female-ness (Guineas are notoriously hard to sex). They have promised to get the birds to us by early next week. I have, I hope "pimped" some lovely ladies for the lads. Watch this space.

New limbs for the archery bow.

I will finish with a completely random waffle, the fruits of an addled mind left out watching over dogs on the front lawn today. I said that today was Birthday for the late Diane and also the anniversaries of both Agincourt and the Dedication of Lisacul Church. Agincourt is 602 years ago and 602 (cc) is also the engine size of my beloved Citroën 2CVs. So today handily brings together all manner of "my favourite things". Diane represents friends and Kent, the 602 brings in France and 2CVs as well as archery (Agincourt) and Lisacul Church stands for the local area and the Community here whom have made us feel so welcome here in Ireland.

No Blue! It may BE fish on the menu but we are still not giving
you any even if you try to take up station on the Dining Table.

Sorry about that. It just kind of bubbled out of no-where.

Telling Them Apart

Mapp delicately samples a small wedge of apple.

When our pigs arrived, apart from being totally unfamiliar (our first ever pigs), they seemed as alike as two peas in a pod. We wondered whether we would ever tell them apart. Even the ear tag numbers (371 and 372) are not visible from the front, so are no use when a piglet is nervously checking you out face to face. 9 days on we are starting to get to know them better and they are getting a bit used to us. I spotted that although Mapp (371) has a full 'pelt' of bristles across her shoulders, her sister (Lucia (372) has a bit of a threadbare patch between her shoulder blades.

Sometimes all you can see is two ginger backs
among the buttercups and grass!

Once separated, we could start to see differences in their little personalities, especially as they started to come up and eat food near to us. They are currently on a commercial pig-ration ("pig nuts") which they quickly recognised as edible, and we are introducing new things to try them out; so far mainly apple and tomato. Banana, carrot and pear were all declined.  We started with them sharing a bowl but they started to squabble over food, so we've moved up to separate bowls.

'Greens' for the keets - chopped grass and cucumber.

Mapp seems to love her fruit and piles in to that first, leaving the pig nuts till she does not have a scrap of apple or tomato left. Lucia, in total contrast, concentrates on the nuts and leaves the fruit till last. If I'd had my camera with me this morning I'd have taken a clear picture of this - ten minutes in you could see the shiny, nut-free bottom of Lucia's bowl and 8 intact wedges of fruit, while Mapps had no fruit and a complete layer of pig nuts. Sometimes, Mapp will suss that Lucia may have fruit left and abandons her 'ration' to try to a sneaky bit of piracy but Lucia, who is possibly slightly 'alpha' will usually butt her away. She's not that bright and sometimes will grab the one slice of apple and dart away as if saying "No! It's MINE!" leaving the bowl, of course, completely undefended. Mapp is then in there like Flynn!.

The roses are doing well in Liz's "Rose Walk".

As I said, they are slowly getting more used to us. I sat in there on the grass for a while yesterday and one of them came right up and butted my shoe, but then sprang away nervously. I have not yet got to being able scratch their ears and backs yet. Patience is the thing, obviously. We are, as I said, only 9 days in and these are still very small and nervous babies. They have met the dogs through the orchard fence and were happy to graze 6-8 feet away from the 3 whimpering, excited, bouncing, tail-wagging, would-be-hunters. They seemed unconcerned, but were not taking any chances with closeness.

They got me again - one gooseberry bush defoliated by
gooseberry saw-fly larvae. 2 others untouched.

No such differentiation is possible between the Hubbard youngsters, 'poults' now rather than 'chicks'. They are all white and fully feathered. The only differences are that 3 or 4 of them are developing the bigger, redder wattles that make us think 'rooster' rather then 'hen' and we have seen pairs of them squaring up to one another. They are on day 45 today and all growing well. Our friend Simon tells me that he has found the same as us, they seem to be a far healthier group this year than last, as if some work has been done to improve the strain. We had no lameness this year and the legs seem sounder all round. I am sure they are gaining weight faster too, but I did not take any detailed records last year. These birds are hand-reared. Last years were under our 'clocker' Broody Betty. Hen or 'roo' does not actually matter this year, they all face the same fate come July or August.

Does Min 'know' these are her babies? She is quite often
hanging around, pacing up and down and peering in.

In the guinea fowl keets we have 3 distinct colour types and one poor little soul who is very easy to tell apart with his/her unfortunate scrunched up toes. My experts on the web forum tell me that our hen bird 'Min' would be called 'Lavender' for the purple tint in her cape feathers. Henry was "Pied", with his white chest and underside, so the babies, still in chick-fluff and just starting to feather up are either fully brown and stripey (They will be the Lavenders), brown-stripey with white chests and neck-fronts (Pied) or fully silver-grey. The latter (2) will presumably come out white like our brief resident "Blondie".

Last year's lambs continue to yield well -this huge leg of
'16A' - a big lad, fondly remembered!

In the lovely sunny weather we have been letting them out to feel the grass under foot and the sun on their backs and on one warm night, even to let them sleep outside, shut into the 'bedroom' bit of the rabbit run. On cooler rainy days we rescue them to indoors, the crate and the Infra Red light, all be it the latter is so far up above them it must feel like a distant sun! They are doing well and we are very pleased with them. They have a very amusing way of zooming up and down the run, flapping their tiny wings and managing short flights 3-4 inches above the grass. I need to build them their big aviary. Apart from anything else we will need the rabbit run for Goldie's "kits" - 5 weeks old now and soon needing to be taken off Mum as she stops lactation.

Pulmonaria (lungwort)

Soon something a bit different. We are off to 'spring' niece Em-J from her 3 week session in the Irish speaking Connemara, just to take her out for a picnic. She could not have chosen a more remote bit of Ireland if she'd tried - she is in Baile Lar, way down in the bottom left hand corner of Galway, on a headland surrounded by Atlantic.

Well done Lidl! One of my favourite
'foreign' beers is on special offer!

I am secretly hoping that it is the kind of Atlantic that might have the trad wooden sailing work-boats 'Galway Hookers' nipping about but whatever, we will surely enjoy the time with Em-J and the beautiful scenery. More on that when we're done and back.