Testing Times (and a Minor Miracle)

Little George looks a bit lost with Big-G and Black Feather

We have been witness (and enablers, we guess) to a minor miracle. The tiny gosling rejected by the parent group on day 2 and rescued by us for, we thought, hand rearing, is now back with his parents. In our (limited) experience these rejections are permanent and if you try to reintroduce the rejects they can be attacked and killed. Geese are big, powerful birds, and the damage can be very fast and serious. Even as we let the reunion happen we were anxious that we might have to dive in fast and re-rescue George (Junior).

It was a charming and almost 'magical' day, the day after all our fun and games with exploding eggs described in the last post. Like a Mum who knows she is pregnant but daren't tell anyone before the 2nd Scan lest they jinx the thing, I didn't dare report this till now; I wanted to see us survive the first 24 hours and the first night.  Now, though, I can tell the tale. As I opened the goose house door first thing in the morning, I expected just George to march out to the orchard, and the 2 'women' to stay sitting on the eggs. Not this time. Out marched Black Feather on the heels of the Gander and off to the orchard in a determined way, her involvement in sitting on eggs now obviously over as far as she was concerned. She was a free range goose again.

Up the bath ramp at Mum's feet, down again nudged by Dad.

It was also a lovely warm morning, so I wondered whether to try again with the meeting we arranged 2 days ago between Gander George in the orchard, and G-Junior, safe inside a wire crate. That had gone well, with lots of excited beak-to-beak nuzzling and chuntering. It convinced me that Junior was well imprinted on geese, not humans. I wondered how it would go with George AND a female goose (Mum or Aunt, we don't really know). I did not use the crate this time, but put the gosling outside the orchard fence. Baby straight away started homing in on big guys and they on him. I held my breath. There was a good bit of the nuzzling and some open beak 'mouthing' of baby by George. Suddenly the gosling did one of his little clock-work-toy scampers in through the fence and was as suddenly 'in there' between the parents and was as quickly accepted by both.

These buttercups are a bit tall Dad!

The little threesome walked about in the orchard and even ventured up the bath ramp. There was some sitting down with baby allowed to sit close but Liz and I, looking on and feeling the rather keen wind which had sprung up waited for that moment when baby, who had been nudging around the sitting shape of Mum, seemingly nibbling the ends of wing feathers, was properly invited in under the Maternal wing, into the warm. The rest is history, really. They stayed nicely together all day so that we decided that they were better off like that than if we tried to end the experiment and 'rescue' the gosling again. It would have been more like 'steal' the gosling and we couldn't imagine the grown up geese being too happy.

Back on the nest between the 2 ladies

So we left them be, checking them hourly till 'bed time' when I shepherded them home and Black Feather jumped back onto the nest hotly pursued by the gosling, though he had to make his peace first with his other Mum-Aunt, 'Smudge'. Since then they have been doing happy families. This morning it was chilly and windy and no-one came out to the orchard. They all stayed indoors sharing their time between sitting on eggs, standing guard and walking around. I supplied food and water for all ages indoors (little 2 inch high Tupperware for baby, builders bucket for grown ups!). There is still a possible confusion as to how this goes in terms of either female being willing to leave the eggs to go exploring with Junior, but we are a lot happier that he is being minded by the geese rather than us.

So that was the parenting skills tested on the day when Ireland went to the polls so that the Euro and Local candidates (plus a couple of by-elections) could test their democratic mandates, and today we had the NCT ( =MOT ) test on the Fiat and our Bee Keeper written test. The Fiat failed but only on the alignment of the off side headlight (dip beam aims too high), so I was a bit annoyed but also very happy and relieved that that was all. The Bee Keeper exam went well for both of us, with almost all the questions being ones we had seen before and practised on. We are both hoping for good scores, though we may only hear the results in pass/fail format. We have now heard that the practical 'exam' session is to be on Monday evening. It will be good to have that all over so quickly.

Exploding Eggs

Ordinary common plantain. I just like the look of them.

You will recall that we have long since reached the end of our broody Buff Orpington's planned sitting time and are also at the end for the original twelve eggs which were being sat upon by both our sister geese, Black Feather and Smudge. These things can not be allowed to go on and on unchecked as the birds concerned quickly get out of condition due to the lack of food and exercise, and can get sick. The Buff had sat her full 21 days ending 8th May by which time she'd broken or rejected most of the eggs.

Broody Buff gets (un)comfortable
on the mesh 'deck'.

We gave her another 7 days for good measure after which we cleared the nest and cracked open the eggs to see what might have been what. One exploded so spectacularly on being tapped that a piece whizzed past my ear and I was glad I was aiming the opening away from me. Since then we have hoofed Buffers off the nest three times a day or so to try to break the broody habit. Nothing doing. She'd have a quick mooch round, eat a bit of what was available and straight back onto the nest. Anne tells us that in these circumstances you need a 'broody cage', a wire mesh floored cage where the chicken cannot get comfy and can always feel the breeze blowing round her nethers. Hang the bird in a tree for 24 hours, allegedly and 'Bingo' no more 'clocker'. The girl goes back free-range. I have no such cage but my version of this, which might work was to build a wire mesh false-floor to get Buffers up off the warm hay and breezily uncomfortable. We'll let you know if it works.

Ash bark-beetle tunnels in some firewood.

Back at the geese we had to recover the old date coded eggs (some going back to 4th April!) from under the pair of ladies  and leave them with just the newer eggs if they wanted to stay sitting. This was going to be fun as geese are not always that submissive or co-operative. Also one egg had obviously exploded overnight and hit the wall of the goose house in an impressive 'paintball' splat. I'll forgive you for laughing at my expense, but you should have seen me 'going in' with chainsaw gloves on my hands and my chainsaw helmet with mesh visor protecting my face from any attacks. I needn't have worried. There was plenty of honking and hissing but the geese both panicked off the nest and out of the door at the sight of me looming over them.

Liz was waiting behind the door to close it while we worked. Anne had advised that we candle the eggs just in case they were good and hold each to our ear to listen for the faintest heart beat or sound of a little beak trying to 'pip' the egg (break out through membrane and shell, which can take 4 days). Well, these (4) eggs were silent and candled as fully opaque. We took them to the compost heap and gave each an exploratory crack with a piece of slate. One contained a full size but very dead embryo, the remaining three exploded in soft yellow, smelly mess, addled and a bit 'ripe' after 40 days under the geese. There were originally 12. We can now account for 6 - one hatched, one exploded overnight, 4 recovered. We assume the other 6 have also broken or gone pop and are buried in the debris under the nest. Well, there were also 8 'new' eggs, so we made up a couple of nests of 4 each and retreated. letting the geese back in (and George go with them as he had been a bit upset by our rude assault on the ladies). As of this morning (Friday) Smudge has now claimed all 8 and is still sitting but Black Feather has cried a definite 'Enough!' and followed George out to the orchard in a determined manner this morning, her job done as far as she was concerned. We are assuming all the new 8 are from Smudge, mated by George while Black Feather was already sitting. If she is doing her standard egg every other day, than that will have taken her at least 16 days so the eggs have now been incubated by the sitter for between 2 and 16 days. They might therefore hatch (probably widely spaced) any time from the 4th, right through to the 23rd June. It is not likely to end well. Once the geese have one baby needing to get off the nest to get food and water, they tend to abandon the remainder of the eggs.

Sorry about the rubbish photo - I was trying to juggle egg
and light in one hand, camera in the other. I couldn't use
flash or you'd not see the transparency of the egg.

Finally a more pleasant task, to candle the 16 Guinea Fowl eggs in the incubator, now at day 13. Well, we are very much beginners at this but to our untutored eyes, all 16 seemed to be fertile containing growing embryos. All have healthy sized air sacs and as you twirl them in the 'candler' light you can see a definite opaque side and a transparent side, a sign that the 'germ' disc is spreading its fan of blood vessels out from the embryo around the yolk. These guys are due on about the 6th of June.

It's all go! - oh and we had some fun yesterday as we returned from shopping to find the lawn running with escaped baby rabbits. We had to round them up and shore up the gap where the straight bottom of the run meets the not-particularly-flat lawn.

The Golden 'Mile'

Widow 'Min' hanging with the 'hins' now

Big News! I am almost certain that we have had a goose hatching event! No pictures yet and I have not actually seen any fluffy gosling heads poking up through Black Feather's immaculate white feathers, but today she seemed more than normally protective of her spot and I am 99% sure I heard the thin weedy 'wick week week' noises  of new-hatch goslings coming from under her. I heard them a couple of times but (don't you know it?) when I went in there to 'show' Liz, all was innocent silence and Black Feather looking at us as if to say "Yeah? What?". More patience required on this one. Tomorrow I hope to see some gos-fluff and I will probably put some food down in case 'anyone' should be feeling a bit more adventurous than today.

One of ten Goldie x Kiwi bunnies at 16 days.

Meanwhile, you'll just have to make do with some cute baby bunny pictures. This heroic litter of 10 'kittens' by Charlotte's 'Kiwi' out of the doe 'Goldie' we got from Anne are doing really well. You may recall that we had all sorts of problems last year with bunnies fading and dying for no apparent reason; we just kept finding a new one dead each morning. Later on we started post-mortem-ing them and were surprised to find them dead with full, bloated bladders but we never got to the bottom of whether this might be an infection passed on from Goldie, a 'first litter' problem, bad husbandry on our (inexperienced) part, or something genetic. So far we have had no problems with dead 'uns and long may this continue. These ten seem pretty vigorous to us anyway.

6 white and 4 'Goldie' coloured. 

We know we are lucky enough to live in a lovely part of the world but we were delighted last week to 'discover' a breathtakingly beautiful walk within a stone's throw of the house. We had heard about 'The Golden Mile'  from the promotional village book produced by Lisacul as part of the tourism promo "The Gathering 2013" and knew from what Carolyn had told us that it was quite close to her house but on the other side of the River (Lung) and 'through' the forestry at the back of her house. To get to it you have to go into the village, cross the River, and come out again the south bank.

Then we got talking to John Deere Bob after his little 'dust up' with Jim B ( see my earlier post http://deefer-dawg.blogspot.ie/2014/05/the-run-around.html ) and it turns out the Golden Mile is just a bit further down the lane (Ball Court Lane) in which Jim has his yard and workshop, starting and finishing at the 'Old Kiltooan Graveyard'. The old graveyard, now out of use and replaced by the spick and span modern graveyard in the village, was where the villages went to hold their services and bury their dead. There is even an old track to it from the village called 'Dead Man's Lane', the route trodden by the pall bearers in those times.

Old Kiltooan Graveyard

Many of JD Bob's older ancestors are buried there. There are graves investigated by the Irish Archaeologists Society which date from the 1600's but most now are weathered into illegibility. The site and all paths to and from had been overtaken by decay and undergrowth, buried among chest-high brambles, fallen old ash tress and collapsed walls. About 8 years ago, the village (Lisacul) got involved in an environmental project designed to promote and inform people about old hedgerows. As we understand it they utilised labour from the Government quango "FÁS" (pronounced 'Foss or (almost) 'Force'), the (then) "Irish National Training and Employment Agency" (since dissolved).

The Golden Mile

These were young lads on training courses who needed practical experience with landscaping, gardening and forestry equipment. Who better to put to work clearing fallen trees and undergrowth, opening up old pathways and tidying up an old graveyard? Well, they created a marvelous thing - a beautiful walk in sunken paths which starts with a skirt around the graveyard (though you can walk through it if you choose), heads off into the paths between fields and loops back round on some newer tarmac lanes, back to the graveyard. It is buzzing with insects and  green with hedgerow herbs, wild strawberry, cranesbill, violets, hart's tongue ferns and the like, way more species than I am able to identify.

Stone steps into the graveyard, over
the wall.

There is a nice interpretive board at the start telling the newcomer what he/she might expect, though it is not well way-marked, so that you could easily take a wrong turn at some of the junctions. As we had expressed an interest, Bob himself offered to show us round the route and show us his family plot within the graveyard. Bob is not the fit young man he once was and can get a bit breathless but we needn't have worried. The whole 'Mile' is, in fact, only 1.03 km and almost flat, so he was well able for it. He only admitted to us, rather shame-faced afterwards, that although he knew the area, he had not actually done the full walk himself in its 8 years in existence! I have already posted that I have joined the bumblebee survey group, which involves walking set 'transepts' on a monthly basis and recording bees seen. The Golden Mile is now one such walk, and today, in the warm sunshine, I was happy to record my first score in double figures. Go the bees!.

Hubbard chicks at 14 days enjoy the sunshine

Meanwhile, back at home, we are now regularly putting the Hubbard chicks outside. Today's forecast had Roscommon up to 17 to 19 degrees in the sunshine, so the babies were outside for most of the day, but the night time temps were due to drop down towards 6, so they are not yet staying out overnight. You can see from the picture that their wings are well feathered and the new paint brush feathers 'in pin' are coming on their legs, chests and around their vents (bums!).

Hubbard Chick at 14 days.

It will not be long before we declare them 'fully feathered' and able to spend warmer nights out in the 'hutch'.

Black Feather's Day 31.

Hunting for Guinea Fowl eggs. 

Monday the 12th May and day 31 for the Black Feather goose incubation, so we are hovering around all expectantly and keep poking our noses into the girl's private bedroom to see if we can see or hear any evidence of fluffy gosling heads poking up from between the sitter's pristine white feathers. If solid and consistent sitting is anything to go by then Black Feather should be an A1 brooder - she has stuck to the job with first rate professionalism for the whole period, only coming off the eggs for her 'allowed' 20-30 minutes each day to eat, bathe in the big pond and presumably to do her toilet. As I type this, though, at 14:30 on the first likely day we have no movement so far, but that would be normal. These things go at their own pace and the poultry-man must go by the 'watched pot never boils' school of patience.

Guinea Fowl nest with 16 eggs

Sadly, we have a tragic event to include today, the 'loss' of our Guinea Fowl cock-bird Henry, he of the frequent hanging about in the lane and on the verge  keeping watch while the hen bird (Min) laid her daily egg in the bushes. My top photo shows Liz at the nest site which we eventually found. It was with a grim inevitability that we found Henry's sorry, flattened body on the tarmac on Friday afternoon. We quickly checked that Min was 'home' and realised that we might have the same noisy grieving process from Min as we have recently described for the rescue Guinea 'Blondie'. This is a definite failure on our part but would be part of keeping your birds completely free range. We could only have prevented it by caging the Guineas in some kind of tall-sided aviary and that is not how we do things here - we would sooner not keep birds, but it is still an unhappy 'first' for us a bird killed on the road.

Guinea Fowl eggs.

Mercifully (for us and for her!) Min does not seem to be suffering the loss as much as Blondie did hers, so we are not getting long periods of loud, strident, carrying, heart-rending, 'Buckwheat buckwheat' calls; we just get a short burst morning and another in the evening. We put this down to the Guineas having been well integrated into our flock as a whole, so Min is nothing like as lonely as Blondie and in between the calling she hangs out with the hens moving about with them, feeding, sheltering from showers and so on. Also Mercifully, she has completely given up on the nest across the lane and does not go out of the gate any more, not even to look for Henry. This observation had Mentor Anne asking "so who was leading who astray, then?"

Setting the Guinea eggs in the incubator.

We decided that we might as well gather up the eggs from Min's possible nest and see if we might hatch any; we'd keep Henry's DNA going even if we'd lost Henry himself. A quick rummage through the hedge had Liz discovering Min's little stash among the ground elder and snowberry close by the abandoned cottage opposite us; 16 eggs down in a neat mossy bowl. Charlotte of the mini-horses has leant us her incubator for the 28 days and the eggs are now sitting in this being turned twice a day.

Incubator

Anne and Simon have managed to hatch Guinea eggs before but under a broody bantam, they are notoriously hard-shelled and you can have problems at the end with the little 'keets' unable to escape the eggs. G-Day 28 will be Friday 6th June, the day after, all being well, we collect our pigs. I have to smile. We were never going to get into all this - hand rearing, brooder boxes, Infra Red lights, incubators. We were just going to keep a few hens for the eggs, and if anyone went broody than that was a bonus. Now we suddenly have an incubator set, the Hubbards in their brood box* and a feeling that this poultry 'thang' has crept up on us and is taking over!

Scrubbed up for M's Communion 'do'

Back on the 'humans' though for our main event yesterday, a visit down to the Silverwoods for the First Holy Communion of No. 2 nephew, M who is now 8. For my non-Irish readers, this is major Rite of Passage - almost all Irish school children will have their First Holy Communion aged around 8 and then, still organised by the school, their Confirmation at age around 12. The event becomes a big Family Event with all the relations and friends gathering, suited and booted, new outfits, bouncy castles, outings and restaurant meals. Lately, this being modern 'austerity' Ireland, there has been some controversy around the amount of money being spent on these 'do's (the little girls' dresses can be as elabourate and expensive as wedding dresses and some families go a bit mad with stretched limos hired to get to the church and so on). There are questions asked about why this is still part of school life (Despite appearances to the contrary the Catholic church is NOT an 'established' church in Ireland, there is officially NO established church) and why there are even Government grants available to help you pay for the bouncy castle and the dress if you if you have fallen on hard times, lest your child feel excluded from the bulk of society.

Family catering. Liz is on the flapjack job.

I have to quickly say here that the Silverwoods do no such excessive thing, there are no stretched limos prowling their streets and they do not avail themselves of government aid but Mr S. says it is still "a bit like paying for a wedding" - they do have to budget for it. Be all that as it may, it was a lovely day for everyone and we did little M proud, He looked superbly dapper and handsome in his light sandstone linen suit, the church service was dignified and genuine (this class of 20-odd boys slotted in to a normal 12 o'clock Mass well attended by the normal parishioners). We adjourned to a small local hall for the 'party' which had a hot food caterer but baking done by family and friends, there was a puppet show and magician for the little ones and a bit of a 'disco' with no end of balloons flying about to burn off some party calories. Some of the grown ups sneaked off into the kitchen area and set up a laptop to watch the Liverpool game, this being the final day of the footie season and crucial to decide whether the Silverwoods' beloved 'Pool' might pip Man City to top spot in the Premiership. (No such luck). Thank you all the Silverwoods for inviting us down. It was a pleasure to be part of it all and we thoroughly enjoyed the day and the superb spread of food. Thank you, too, Charlotte, for 'dog-sitting' to give us a bit of extra time at the event.

Sheep's Liver and garlic about to become paté

Probably enough for this one. Just a quick Kitchen note - Liz gave a try to a recipe idea you may not have thought of. Liver paté with whiskey is common enough but we have a bottle of home made Cassis knocking about. This makes for an interesting paté with a novel sweet twang. Beautiful on your toast or on a bagel. Signing off now, must go check on that Black Feather goose again. I will let you know as soon as we have news.

12 day old Hubbards get to walk on the grass. 

*These guys actually had a little look at the outside world today as we had some lovely warm sunshine. We snuck them down in the cat basket and let them have a scratch of the good green grass and a little sun on their backs. They are well feathered on the wings but still only 12 days old, though, so not really allowed out yet and we rounded them all back up to their box before they got a chance to get cold.

Born on the 10th April

This is my 1500th post on this blog. Just thought I'd say that. A little bit proud of the fact.

Hubbard chick on Day 6

It is about time we had a bit of a catch-up on livestock as there is so much going on at the moment I can lose track of whether I have left any stories hanging; I wonder is there anybody out there wishing I'd tell them how 'it all ended up' with the Guinea Fowl. So not very entertaining this time, more a status report.

Weighing chicks in batches to get
an average - they are 91 g on Day 6

The biggest news is that we have now heard from the pig breeding people in response to my progress check query; 'our' pigs were born on the 10th April so they are roughly 4 weeks old now and we can collect them at 8 weeks old on Thursday 5th June. We are all very excited about this, keen to get them here, set them down in the pig-patch and see how we get on. We were down at Anne+Simon's today where they have their pigs for just over a week and I have to admit to being amazed about how much rooting and digging theirs have done in such a short time, and how deep are some of the rooting holes. They have gone with electric fence all round the run, I am hoping that a high tensile strand of barbed at ground level will deter little noses from trying to get under the fence, but now that I have seen the depth of the digging I am doubting my decision. I may have to go with electric fence after all. We live and learn.

The Hubbard chicks arrived on 1st May and are doing fine. We started them in a plastic crate inside wire-mesh dog crate to protect them from dogs and cats. They have already outgrown this and moved on to a bigger crate which they will inevitably also out-grow. Their future fate depends on a number of things. We would love to get them out into the sunshine to feel grass under their feet and start to scratch in the dirt like 'proper' chickens but it needs to be warm and dry for that.

We also have a Buff Orpington hen currently sitting on eggs which are due to hatch tomorrow. However, although she is in the groove now and keeping them all warm, she is a first-time Mum and was not brilliant at it in the early days. She trod on or kicked and broke most of the original 7 eggs - we are down to only 2 now (plus 2 dummy eggs to keep it feeling OK under her). She also used to let them 'leak' out from under her skirts and we'd find them stone cold and try to sneak them back under her, so the remaining 2 eggs may well be chilled to death. She may produce a miracle tomorrow and actually hatch a chick or two but we are thinking that if she doesn't, by about Sunday (4 days late) we might try to substitute the failed eggs with a Hubbard chick or two (and then 12 ! ) to see if she will adopt them and rear them. Our 2013 champion 'clocker' Broody Betty has not showed any signs of wanting to go broody yet.

Bloodied and relegated but un-bowed.
Our original rooster, William

While we're on chickens, we have had a change of dynamic 'at the top'. We came home one day to find William badly cut about the back of the head and with blood splashed into his cape feathers. The Buff Orpington 'roo' was clean of feather, although with a little dried blood on his face and a whole new confident strut about him. We are certain that the two boys had another big fight while we were out and Buffers must have jumped on top of William and held him down for a good pecking. Buffers has no spurs. Now William is very much the underdog and hangs on the periphery of the flock with a couple of loyal females while Buffers struts and Cock-a-doodle-doos with the bulk of them. If he tried to mount one, William used to come running to push him off. Not any more. The fight was a(nother) one-off and does not seem to have been repeated. William's cuts have scabbed over and the rain is cleaning up his feathers. He will be back to his old magnificence soon but will presumably have to accept his new role as Number 2. Oh and we lost our lovely Black 'Jersey Giant' hen, after a sudden and very quick-onset illness which we have no idea what it was. That is sometimes the way with poultry. Like all birds - they work to such fast systems and rates that when something goes wrong it can go wrong very quickly. The old adage in the poultry world is that they do not go sick, they go from healthy to dead. It is good for the vet bills but a bit galling when you lose a favourite. She was a tame and friendly soul. RIP Blackie. Lovely slow-cookered stew, mind.

Full grown Hubbard hens from the 2013 day-olds.

The white Guinea Fowl, Blondie, was never seen again and never reported to us by any neighbours or friends, so we guess we have to give up on her. Just somebody we used to know. Henry and Min are now trying another nest and clutch, we think, this time is a much more perilous position than their 100 yards-off-the-road previous effort. We think she is laying deep in the (12 foot thick) snow-berry hedge almost opposite the house. While she sneaks in to lay the egg each day Henry stands on the grass verge trying to look innocent, being noticed (and frequently reported to us!) by those same passers by and neighbours. We cannot find the nest and do not want to tread down too much verge trying, so we cross our fingers and pray fervently for the half hour they are out there and dread the 28 day (?) incubation period when she may be out there continuously and Henry, bless him, may THINK he should stand guard in his verge grass. Thankfully most neighbours know and expect Guinea Fowl, so they drive with care and the birds are also street-wise and sensible; they stand still and do not try to run in a panic across the road. We just know that if we hit the hurly burly of rush about silage cutting season the machinery flying about might not be as merciful.

In the goose department, things are a bit more secure and less confused. Black Feather (pictured) is solidly sitting and just comes off the eggs for 20 minutes a day for a bathe, eat and toilet-break. The 12 eggs, when we can get at them are intact and lovely and warm. They are due to hatch next Monday (12th May). I have constructed a wee gosling ramp so that they can get back into the nest should they go exploring - the nest is in a feed manger 6 inches above ground level. A concrete cliff to a gosling. They now have a gentle plywood incline to get home up. The other female goose, Smudge, has come back into lay and has now dropped a further 6 shiny clean eggs into Black Feather's nest, but we can easily spot these and remove them.

At least 9 little fat bellies. 

Goldie-rabbit's babies are now 8 days old and we can sometimes sneak a peek at them. In the warm they let the fur nest open at the top and you can see enough legs, ears and closed-eye faces in the tangled pile of 'kittens' to estimate that there are at least 9 babies. Well done Goldie. Our rabbit-expert, owner of the 'sire' and friend, Charlotte had a look today and pronounced herself very pleased with their plump little bellies - a sure sign that Goldie is delivering plenty of milk. They should start leaving the fur-ball nest to explore the 'bedroom' in the next few days, but it might not be till they are 3 weeks old, before anybody emerges into the sunshine.

Selfie. 

Non-breeding rabbits Ginny and Padfoot are fine but not doing anything reportable. Our 2014 lambs are still with their Mums, suckling away. We will not see them till July. The bees are also still only a dream, we hope growing fast and rapidly expanding their parent colonies in Drumshanbo so that we can have our 'Nuke' (Nucleus colony) as planned in June. Dogs and cats are also fine but not doing anything note-worthy unless you count Poppy's lightning-fast-despatch of a mouse which Rolo did not even mean to give to her. We humans are also OK, enjoying our spring time after what seemed like a long, wet January, February and March.

Bee-ing Practical

Ireland's Royal Canal

Easter Saturday and we wake up to lovely weather and a few bits of good poultry news. While I'm still doing my 'feed and release' walk about, Black Feather hops off the eggs and goes for a walk allowing me in, at last, to gather the extra eggs again. She had gone from an unconvincing broody who we had thought would fail this time, to sticking like glue. I don't like to chase her off, so I was waiting for a chance to gather up the more recent, undated eggs to bring her back to the 12 we want her to incubate. Blondie, our new Guinea Fowl survives the night and in fact wakes us up with her strident calling from first glimmer of dawn - her temporary hutch is just below our window and we sleep with the window a-jar (not for long!). On that first walk about I also find Henry and Min at her run talking to her through the wire, the first sign that they want to know her. Later we discover a stash of 10 chicken eggs in the woods, all different as if 10 different chooks have all contributed one.

Fetching attire.....

So far so good, but today is really all about bees. We must visit our friend Elspeth in her gorgeous lock-keeper's cottage for our first practical training session around her hives. We had been a bit nervous of this. We have read and heard that you can be an expert bee-keeper "in theory", reading all the books and scoring top marks in the written exams, but that you might then still freak out when faced with a buzzing 35,000 bee hive and surrounded by potential stingers. A small proportion of people also show a bad allergic reaction to bee stings, which can lead to anaphylactic shock and be life threatening.

Liz examines a brood frame.

We 'book experts' were therefore keen to get hands-on and see if we could cope. Not quite so keen to get stung and see if we react, but that'll no doubt come. Thanks then to Elspeth who is on the Committee of the Longford Bee Keepers Association and volunteered to do us in her own home apiary. There is a club apiary but it has had some health problems and they are trying to keep visitors out while they isolate and sort it. She is a wonderful person and a good friend so we were treated to excellent hospitality too - coffees, cakes, sandwiches etc, as well as being loaded down with helpful literature, back copies of the Federation magazine "An beachaire" (The bee keeper), as well as being able to enjoy her perfect, bee-friendly cottage garden (along with attached farm, chickens, ewes and lambs etc).

We got togged up in our shiny new suits, gloves and (not so shiny) wellies, Elspeth lit the bee-smoker and off we went to find her three hives. This is the start of swarming season and we needed to check every frame in every brood chamber for sneaky queen cells, so we had real work to do while we were getting trained; plenty of practise at all the moves. It was very enjoyable and fascinating. We learned to crack apart the hive boxes which get glued up by the bees (the glue is called 'propolis') and then to prise apart the frames of brood and honey.

More importantly, maybe, we learned to reassemble the boxes without crushing any bees between the parts - bees getting squashed upsets all the workers and you can fast have a problem of angry bees on your hands. Some boxes are heavy but you must learn to be gentle, controlled and slow. Clonking about knocking bits together upsets the bees. You also need to be aware of where on your hands or body there might be bees. No good squatting and squashing a bee between thigh and calf, or leaning on a fence with a bee on the palm of your hand.

We also had to learn to tell the types of comb apart - are those storage cells for honey or pollen, are the brood cells for workers, drones or are they 'queen cups', do they have new eggs in or healthy white larvae, curled cosily round into their 'C' shapes. We had to become adept at spotting the drone bees and finding the queen bee in each hive. Your health checks now are all about is the queen there and laying eggs, and has anyone started trying to build queen cells -  a sign that half your hive may be about to depart in a swarm. More amusingly, I was also trying to suss out how to take pictures with gloved hands and with my face covered by the 'sword fencing' mesh visor.

As I said, though, it all went well and we are very grateful to Elspeth and her husband for entertaining us and for laying on this training for us. We were both delighted that we didn't 'freak out' and we feel like we may be able to cope with our own bees when they arrive (June?). All in all a brilliant day. Lovely too just to be near canals again and to see the picture postcard, beautifully maintained lock with its lovely flower beds and spruce black and white gloss paint.

Back home then to the continuing drama of the Guinea Fowl 'integration' if you can call it that. With the rabbit run doors open we sat back at a distance to watch Blondie's "escape". She was very reluctant to come out but eventually started to move about and soon came across Henry and Min. They seemed to get on OK with H accepting the new girl and even trying to mount her. We relaxed. I took the dogs for a walk leaving Liz well able to cope. Unfortunately, no sooner had I gone than Blondie suddenly took it on herself to make a drive east, a meandering path through various bits of garden and hedge, field and so on. Liz tracked her and called me over when I got back with dogs, by which time B was 2 fields away and almost at Una's. We rounded her up and sent her back home. She is a good flyer and whirrs over hedges with ease and can run like 'Road Runner'. There is no catching her but you can shepherd and marshal her. We then had an afternoon where she headed east several times and had to be rounded up but by roosting time she seemed to be hovering around the pop hole door with the rest of the gang. At that point Henry decided to have another go at her and she exploded into flight and whirred away across the east field, disappearing into the hedge. We went out with binoculars and walked the hedgerows but as we go to roost ourselves tonight we can honestly not say where she is or whether or not we'll see her again in the morning. She has a night outside to cope with. We are wishing her all the best, but we have to admit we have singularly failed to look after her as you should.

Broody at Last????

We may finally have a goose going broody on us but the question marks in my subject title are because she (Black Feather) does not seem at all convinced that she should sit there all day. She announced this possible intention by not coming out of the goose house this morning at 8-ish when I let George the Gander and our other female (Smudge) out and went to shepherd them across to the orchard. She has done this before, mind; she often seems to lay her every-other-night egg very late so you have to leave her sit till she's quite finished and then shepherd her across the 'gap' to find her chums.

'Spare' eggs. Black Feather only needs 12 to sit on.

But today she sat and sat (and also seems to have pulled some of her belly feathers out to line the nest, which is another sign). We wondered if we were on, Day 1 of 31 (-ish). We know that geese, even when in the 'heat' of incubation will leave the nest and go for a wander and a wash for up to 30 minutes so, the way we are currently laid out, we have to leave the goose house door open for her and just keep an eye, as she'd then be completely free range, the big pond, veg growing areas, flower beds etc. All being well she'd only be out for the 30 minutes, so wouldn't be able to do too much damage.

First rose of 2014, a 'Dublin Bay'.

Well, she came off after lunch but then seemed to stay off. I wondered if she was trying to 'talk' to her chums, so at one stage I opened the orchard gate and let them all 'commune' but , no, they all three just wandered about eating the nicer grass outside the orchard and bathing in the big pond. At least I had a chance to nip in and steal the 'spare eggs' again - we have being following Anne's instruction to date mark the eggs and then steal the oldest each day, leaving the nest with only 12. Eventually I got bored with watching them stroll about and shepherded all 3 geese 'home' thinking that Black Feather, on being led in there might see the nest and 'remember' her responsibilities. She did. She went to sit and the other 2 wandered back to the orchard. We saw her off the eggs again later in the afternoon too, so I am worried that she is not yet 100% convinced as a broody. Watch this space, I guess.

Keyhole bed fortified with chicken wire.

At this time of year that all our perennials and the tulips start to emerge from the soil with plenty of young, tender, green shoots, very attractive to chickens. They growing tips are turgid with April rain and quite brittle, so that a chicken pushing through the clump, even if she is hunting grubs rather than greenery, will snap off all your tulips and trample down the new green stuff. We go into defensive mode, and can hear Anne telling us when we first met, that there is a big difference between fencing chickens into an area, and trying to fence them out! My ring of sheep fence round the keyhole bed which worked 100% last year was perceived with scorn this year by the new ladies and I had to add 4 feet of chicken wire on top. It's not beautiful but the galvanised mesh is old and dull and if you squint you can ignore it and see the lovely safe tulips coming into unbroken bud inside.

Liz in a cage. I let her out when she's done enough weeding.

We also decided this year to encircle the entire new raised bed with 40 metres of (4 foot high, 2 inch mesh) chicken wire, in this case supported on canes, just because it was going to be a temporary structure. However, Liz so enjoyed weeding without assistance of the chooks and found some more chicken-damage which we had not spotted, that this encirclement may become permanent. If so, we will probably make it more beautiful, all this fencing is starting to look like Guantanamo Bay. The official story for this picture is that Liz has shut herself in. Some might suspect that I lock her in this cage till she's done enough weeding and then let her out!

Flowering currant (Ribes)

There is not a great deal else going on. Broody Betty shows no sign yet of following Black Feather down the 'broody' road. We chug on with our Bee School - Lesson 5 was last Monday. I have 'Piggy School' on Saturday, my training course for Pig Rearing down in Tipperary. I think I will just leave you with some nice 'macro' pics of garden flowers which are currently doing the honours. Enjoy them.

Vital bee food in April - the humble dandelion. 

A new one on us. Coltsfoot (Tussilago)

Pulmonaria (Lungwort)

Doing very well here in 2014. Primroses.