Mapp and Lucia

Welcome aboard, Mapp and Lucia. 

A big adventure today when we are scheduled to head for Ballymount in Co. Kildare  to collect our pigs, 2 Tamworth females ordered back in February before they were even conceived, to be taken as 8 week old weaners in due course. Due course turned out to be the 5th June and our pig area, house, feed and water were all ready and in place.  It's a bit of a hike down to Kildare from here - 2 and a half hours in the car but Charlotte had asked to come along for the ride so we'd even had to practice fitting 3 people and the dog-crate in the car. Charlotte is an experienced and knowledge-able pig handler so we could definitely use her help and support and then another good reason arrived - she was invited to collect a fancily-marked 'special' Dutch rabbit from a breeder near Mullingar, not far off our route.

Mapp and Lucia cleaned up for the journey. 

The pig breeder is found by typing FreeRangePigsIreland.ie into an internet search but appears as 'Piggy Wiggy' on the website. They (Therese and Michael) are lovely, helpful, cooperative people who could not do enough for us even when our arrival coincided with them taking a delivery of fresh concrete being pumped from a lorry into a prepared hole in the ground - those guys do not stop if you are not ready; you end up with a quickly setting heap to deal with, so it is all hands on deck. We were sent for a wander round to look at the pigs on offer, while they leveled the wet concrete into the shuttering - a new piece of car park. They actually sell Tamworths, Kune-kunes, 'Iron Age' pigs and Berkshires. Only after that were we loaded and documented, our two pigs having been scrubbed up clean for their journey, possibly because they knew we were collecting in a private car.

Back on the road by midday, the two pigs were safe inside our dog crate on the back seat of the car with a dog blanket to lie on if they chose to. They actually lay down as soon as we were in motion and spent the journey home fast asleep, occasionally twitching or moving their mouths in piggy dreams. We had decided to bring a picnic although I'd been worried that the pigs might not enjoy the run and we might have to get home as quick as possible and eat the picnic on the run. No need to worry. We parked under some dense trees to shade the car and the pigs slept on like children in car seats, apparently unaware of the break in the journey.

We wouldn't let Charlotte sneak this tiny
Kune-kune piglet into her pocket.

We made our little diversion to Gainstown to collect the rabbit at an agreed rendezvous outside the National School. Charlotte checked it was the colour mix she'd ordered, checked it over for general health and then quickly sexed it to make sure it was her 'dream boy'. She is a keen breeder and favours the 'Dutch' strain of rabbits, and this boy has Show winners in his blood line. Back on the road then and up through Lanesborough and across the Shannon to Strokestown. Home again we left the still-sleeping piggies in their crate in the car while we relieved the dogs and fed any poultry which was noisily and hopefully greeting us (Hubbards and Geese mainly) and collapsed briefly with a cup of tea.

Snuggling down into the straw.

Next job was to carry the crate down to the new pig house already well stuffed with straw. I had read that if you put 2 tiny piglets into a big area they don't get very comfortable - it is better to put whole straw bales around the edges to give them a smaller 'well' in the middle in which to make their bed. These pigs are not much bigger than our Westie dogs and the ark floor is just under 6 by 8 feet. I had put a bale at either side, intact but with the strings cut and taken out, and then broke up a third bale in the middle.  This seemed to be met with porcine approval and when we left them to it and went back an hour later to check on them, all we could see was straw shaking about disturbed by invisible pigs well snuggled down into it. Charlotte tells us that they are not great travelers and will probably feel a bit queasy and exhausted after the car run so will just snuggle down in there for the night to recover. Tomorrow they will wake up inquisitive and ravenous. Good night little ones. We will come and find you in the morning.

11 keets now dried off and up and about.

Meanwhile, I was going to give you a Guinea Fowl update. We had a burst of 11 eggs hatching over the 24 hours or so of the main event. These guys are dried off and now up and about, rescued to the brooder crate with the Infra Red heat lamp. After a pause, a 12th tried to hatch but came out with a wad of un-absorbed yolk sac outside its body and lost a lot of blood. This one did not make it through the night. The remaining 4 eggs are doing nothing and now, on candling, appear to have the too-big air space which is a sign of a dead embryo. This is quite normal, to have all the 'good' ones hatch in a burst. Any that do not come out then are probably weak or poor in some way. 11 good ones, though, out of 16 eggs rescued from a wet hedge-bottom and incubated in an unsophisticated incubator is still a brilliant result. We are delighted.

We have had a third gosling hatch and this one is doing well, so we have a rather dysfunctional looking family wandering about, with George Junior, at over 2 weeks, looking huge and robust alongside "Very" Junior who is only 2 days old. The other female adult is still hanging in there, sitting on the 6 or so eggs which still remain. It's all 'go' isn't it - pigs, keets, goslings all in the same week, and soon, the bees will be arriving.

Stop Turning!

Silage making breaks out in Lisacul after our recent surprise (and very pleasant) succession of hot sunny days. Any animals or birds on the lane had better watch out, because these guys do not hang about and the machines are the big, heavy selection from what's available - big heavy tractors, mowing machines, balers and wrappers, bale trailers and then the slurry tankers to spread the stuff on the aftermath trying to ensure a good second cut in ten weeks or so. They are keen to get on and snatch the 'harvest' before the next rain front comes through so you hear engines roaring, balers grinding and clanging and the spreaders churning away up and down our ridge. This is the time when we were sure our cock-bird Guinea Fowl would 'get it' if he hadn't before now, sitting as he did, out in the lane watching over his egg-laying 'wife'. Sadly, you'll know, he was hit a while back and she has since kept clear of the lane, so we hope none of our lot are hit. We have only seen two road-kill casualties so far, a big hedgehog and then, yesterday, somebody's white cat which Liz stopped to pick up and move to the roadside ditch. Good harvest you silagers!

Candling Guinea Fowl eggs at Day 24

Today is day 24 for the 16 Guinea Fowl eggs in the incubator, so tomorrow, according to our book of words, we have to stop turning them and top up the humidifiers, then sit back and wait. They've been turned 4 or 5 times a day for these 24 days, you have to do this to ensure good development. I can remember learning in biology at school from some teacher who obviously knew how to catch his students' attention why you do this.

Hubbard chick at day 33. Enormous legs!

Apparently, in nature the mother bird is for ever rolling and shifting them and this means that not only do they all get a turn at the warmest centre of the clutch, but also that the embryo on the yolk, suspended on the spiral strands (chalazae) gets rolled around in the 'middle', not touching the outer membranes. If it is not rolled the embryo sags against the membranes and can grow welded to the membrane or in among it, leading to deformed and not properly grown chicks. Yoiks. Or maybe the teacher was just having us on. Strange things get lodged in your brain when you are a ghoulish school-boy! Anyway, I decided to candle a few of them again at this stage and held them to my ear. I am no expert at this but I think we are still OK. I swear I even saw twitching movement in one, not just the flopping about of dark debris, and also that I heard a tiny 'cheep' in one, but I'm not putting any money on the latter.

Geranium 'Orion'

This is also P-minus-3 day; we collect our pigs on Thursday. That will be quite an adventure. The farm, near Ballymount, Colbinstown, County Kildare, is two and a half hours away on Google Maps and our friend and rabbit-mentor, Charlotte wants to come along for the ride. We had to 'practise' getting the three of us into the little car with the pig (actually dog) crate to make sure we'd all fit. Charlotte will be a bit cosy in the back there along with Mapp and Lucia, but at least the little weaners will not be lonely. Liz is also promising to construct a picnic for the way down.

Sweet rocket. 

I have been reading up my 'National Pig Identification and Tracing System' documents to make sure I know what I am doing with the journey/movement paperwork, though I expect the seller will help me out if I get 'lost'. I have to contact a 'central agency' by (lo-call) phone to tell them about my new arrivals within 24 hours, quoting herd number and a secret 'PIN' code. Wish us luck. I hope to be able to post on Thursday that we have successfully completed this mission.

Lupins from Vendor Anna's seed

One other small drama and sad tale to report. We now have, as you know, one successful gosling back with his Dad, George and either Mum or Aunt, now out in the orchard each day, feeding well and growing like a Hubbard chick. The other goose stayed home to sit on the later eggs which we left her, for which we have no accurate dates so we are by no means certain when to expect hatches. Well, we had a hatch three days ago and woke up to a little, apparently happy, cheeping form in the nest along with the two female geese and George (Junior). But the broody seems to have a focus problem - she's mad keen on anything egg shaped but doesn't give a tinker's cuss about anything yellow and fluffy that might come out of the eggs, so the new chick was allowed to wander off and never an attempt to guide it back to the nest.

Beekeeping Federation magazine. Very professional.

There was no beak-to-beak nuzzling or any kind of recognition. I let George, Black Feather and the bigger gosling back 'home' from the orchard early thinking that BF might adopt it, or GJ might go and talk to it. It was a warm night, so we decided to not rescue it till morning if it still looked lost and abandoned. Sadly, the little mite never made it that far and it was a dead, cold, stiff gosling I had to gather up.

Deefer.

We will never know if this was bad parenting or something wrong with the chick causing them to instinctively ignore it, or a result of its rather on/off incubation period, or our bad husbandry. Possibly geese need a 'mass hatch' of the majority of eggs in one go, to trigger the change from 'incubate eggs' to 'rear chicks'. If there are any more and they look like being left, we will rescue sooner and give the baby a few days in the brooder under the lamp and then try a re-introduction. It's never boring.

Yellow flag iris in the pond.

Oh and then tomorrow, of course, is Happy Birthday to 4 of our animals - Towser and Poppy, Blue and Rolo all make it to 2 years old tomorrow, though if they shout me awake at ten to 6 again it might be a very short celebration.