Bull Wire

Bull wire.

We were right to hang onto those worries that the new post and rail fence might not be 100% sheep-proof and a couple of days back I ventured out on some garden errand and spotted that there were only 3 sheep on the lawn. The fourth, one of the rams, was grazing contentedly over by the pond. No damage done; he was quickly rounded up and moved, with his three oppo's, back to the East Field while we investigated the leak. We quickly found hoof prints in some newly dug (daffodil planting) soil - he had shimmied under the bottom rail where a dip in the soil gave him 12 inches or so of space. The solution this time is a single strand of 'bull wire' (it's like smooth trellis wire but thick enough to stop a bull (allegedly)) run along 6 inches from the ground, effectively splitting the bottom gap in half. I had a bit left over from the last job, so I have put that across the bottom two gaps - the taller ones. That seems to have stopped the lamb's gallop and the other three have not tried at all, so possibly I won't need to bull wire the whole 54 metre run.

Beech nuts - 2014 is a good year.

Meanwhile, now that we are through the recent list of inbound visits, we are slotting into a nice routine, especially with those sheep. Each morning they get a small breakfast of lamb 'crunch' (it's like meusli for sheep; all manner of grains, molasses-dipped meal etc) but then some more when I lead them round the corner from East Field to the lawn 'entrance' gate. They spend the day grazing the lawn and Primrose Path, browsing the hedges and pulling young ivy from the huge black-spruce trees. Then around 5 pm I rattle another feed bucket (a small amount more 'crunch') and they come sprinting across to be led back to their East Field for over night.

The very last joint of 2013 lamb - this half leg of Dora.

In previous years we have used the 'crunch' hard - 1 kg per lamb per day, to try to get good weight on but we are going easy this year. We are happy with the weight gain on honest Roscommon grass and last year's lambs were, if anything, too heavy at slaughter. I will use the crunch this year just for the training, leading them around and so that I get a good look at them a couple of times each day. When a sheep comes sprinting up from the bottom of your East Field to your whistle you can be pretty sure there is not a lot wrong with him!

The same, roasted.

By coincidence, we have just used up from the freezer, the last of our lamb joints from 2013, a half leg of the lady we called Dora. The meat has been pure delight. We can't claim organic, or even GM-free because of the crunch, but we can answer for the welfare, love and respect, the complete lack of unnecessary medication once they were here and for the respectful and professionally done 'end' in our local small butchers, Ignatius G in Castlerea. This joint did the original roast on day 1, has done lamb sandwiches for a couple of days for my lunch and my bagel this morning, and has reappeared in a risotto tonight; there is till some left. The dogs enjoyed the bones, too, especially Towser whose turn it was to get the pelvis today.

Two ladies of a certain age? Min and Squawk

The birds are mainly through their moult and have come back into lay. We are amused by the fact that the widow, Min (The Hin) our Guinea fowl has paired off with our elderly one remaining Cuckoo Marans hen, 7-8 years old and still laying regularly. This may be because they were both 'bereft' at similar times and are of similar dark colouring, but we see the two of them patrolling about, chattering to each other. The Marans is a genuine 'lady of a certain age', the Guinea fowl just looks like one with her stooped gait and lowered head position.

Opening the MAQS dose outdoors!

You'll know from previous posts that we have the expected varroa-mite problem in the hive and needed to apply the 'MAQS' formic acid treatment strips to fume the hive for 7 days. We remember from our pre-hive training days, when one of the group asked a visiting speaker whether MAQS 'seemed toxic enough' and he replied "Sure, there's a hell of a bang off it!" We now know exactly what he meant. The formic acid gel-strips come in sealed sachets in a sealed 'bucket' and the instructions say open it outside. They are so lively they stink from several feet away and the formic acid grabs you by the back of the throat.

MAQS strips in place on the queen excluder.

You have to be careful of temperature; you can use the strips when daytime temperatures are between 10 and 29 degrees, but towards the top end you have to create more ventilation or the intense fumes can kill older workers and stop the queen laying. It was about 15 degrees the day we did it, so hopefully we won't have that problem, but the strips are in the hive now slowly doing their stuff, fuming away for 7 days killing mites. The gang will be able to go into the Autumn ivy foraging and Winter, stronger, freed of their parasitic load and will, we hope, survive the winter all the better for that. We take the strips out next Monday when they are spent and we do the mite count thing again in Spring, re-dosing if required.

Rolo RIP (03-06-2012 to 02-09-2014)

Sadly, we have a tragedy to report today as one of our lovely cats, Rolo, was killed by a car last night. Mercifully this was instant. The dogs detected the poor little mite lying in the roadside ditch when we were out for our walk; I would never have seen him but for their noses. He's now buried in one of the flower beds, the site marked by a Geranium donated to us by Steak Lady when we were up at a family gathering over the weekend. RIP, old fella. We will miss you - you were a lovely boy as well as a demon mouser and ratter. Your brother Blue will miss you too, and definitely our pup, Poppy, with whom you were best friends. A short but happy and healthy life.

Sheep Watch

We've had these three sheep for almost 6 weeks now and it feels like they are such an established part of our routine, they've been here a lot longer. We have thoroughly enjoyed the experience and they've been very little trouble; very happy relaxed animals which are a pleasure to look after. In terms of man-hours they get a bit more attention than any other animals with 2 separate hours of 'exercise' each day in what we call "Sheep Watch".

They have long since munched off all the long grass in their original paddock, so we let them out twice each day to graze and browse around the wider estate. In the process of doing this every day for 3 weeks or so I have come to know them quite well and to be fascinated by their little ways and individualities.

Originally these 'Sheep Watch' sessions were just out to the front lawn and back. One of us (Liz or Myself) would grab a handful of their pelleted feed ("Sheep Nuts") in a plastic bucket and go out to their gate rattling it so they'd come charging over to meet us. You'd open the gate and then lead them, still rattling your bucket, to the front lawn, where you'd give them the nuts and then they'd look up from the buckets and realise there was lovely green grass all around. Their noses would go down and your job was basically done for 50 minutes or so while they filled their stomachs.

When their tums were full of basic grass 'fuel' they would start to look up and look around and maybe start exploring, maybe into the wooded bits or the hedges looking for some 'dessert' of ivy or young Queen Anne's Lace or other succulent herbs. We'd let them do this till the hour was up but by then you could rattle another hand-full of nuts in the bucket and they would rush over and allow themselves to be led home to their  paddock where they'd sit down to 'cud' and digest that hour's takings. This we do twice a day, around 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. in what we call Sheep Watch 1 and Sheep Watch 2.

As time's gone by they have started to eat off the  front lawn grass and get a bit more curious; more likely to wander about in search of variety rather than focusing on the lawn. They've explored the woods and all round the allotment (where I have to keep shooing them off the curly kale and the human crops and try to keep them on the grass 'verges' or the knackered old slug-riddled cabbage), they've come down through the yard into the Secret Garden and been all up the Primrose Path and ventured into the East Field. This is where watching them gets a bit more serious as the fences outside of their actual paddock might be cow-proof but they are in no way sheep proof. Sheep can easily duck under the bottom barbed wire strand of a cattle fence, so the watcher has to hover nearby to shoo them back off vulnerable gaps or be ready with a bucket of grub to tempt them back to safer ground.

As I said, in the process I have found them fascinating little individuals. I was surprised how choosy they are. Even on the front lawn which looks, at first glance, like an even carpet of grass, there are 'favoured' bits and less favoured bits, so that parts are grazed really short while other bits, such as near tree roots, stay long. Maybe they taste different?

They love to climb and clamber over the raised bits - old overgrown walls and mounds, or stand up against trees to reach up for ivy. This might just be because they are 50% Jacobs, Jacobs being a very goat-like sheep. For me, because of their dark brown colour, they remind me a lot of the dark-phase Fallow Deer in Challock Forest (Kent). They move through the trees in a similar way. I was surprised too by how fast they can move about and run, sometimes kicking up their heels and chasing away for 50 yards or so in a bouncing, leaping run like playful baby lambs. These dashes are the ones which bring them suddenly to the curly kale and have me sprinting after to shoo them away before they get too many mouthfuls! They even seem to do that stiff ankled, high-leaping run which in deer is called "pronking". Again, this might be the Jacob 'mountainy-sheep' blood in them. I didn't even know that ewes squat like a bitch to wee! They are also slightly different, each one, with Constance definitely the most 'tame' and most likely to come and say hello. She likes to have her hair ruffled and lets you tickle her chest and back. Florence (the paler, gingery one) is a bit tame, but Dora will have none of your fuss unless she has her nose in your feed bucket.

It's been fun but now, as I said, they are coming up to a reasonably hefty weight so we are approaching the time when we have to stop thinking of them as entertaining animals and start thinking about live-weight and the yield in shanks, shoulders, leg-of-lamb and rack of ribs.

Hey ho.
Matt

3 Baby Bunnies

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We have some excellent news on the rabbit front and can report that Padfoot plus 3 two-week old baby bunnies are now rescued to the Maternity Unit where Pads is now standing guard outside the 'bedroom' of her new hutch and the three babies, in a nest made with fur from her belly and new dry hay are hiding within.

That sounds nice and easy and relaxing, doesn't it? It was not that calm to start with. Dad had done the sheep-free-range thing which happens now twice a day; the sheep get let out of the paddock to roam the lawn, the pond garden and the stuff around the allotment where the crops are finishing ( or in the case of the big York cabbages, so slug-riddled that a sheep is hardly going to make visible damage!) and all we dogs were locked up indoors, so Mum and Dad drew a deep breath and went to look.

At first glance it was all a loss, the compost 'heap' looking more and more like a trampled, dank mess of rotting nettles and the 'hay plug' Dad had seen blocked only a collapsed, empty tunnel with a few shreds of fur in it. But Dad climbed over the fence and started to look for other entrances as then found one right at the back against the wall. This proved to be a shallow tunnel about 2 feet long and when the top was broken open there was the nest, obviously still warm, dry and cared for, and now wriggling visibly with new life. Wearing rubber gloves to minimise the human smell put on the babies, Dad lifted nest-ball complete with babies into a Curver bucket held by Mum and Padfoot had helpfully hopped straight into the cat-basket a few seconds earlier, so Padfoot and the nest could be hurriedly transferred to the calf house and the hutch there quickly bedded with new hay, sawdust, water and food.

Now we just need Pads to stay a good mother for 2 more weeks or so, while the babies are weaned. Then she can go back in with Ginny and Rogers and the bunnies will stay indoors as they grow for a month or so while we decide what to do with them; sale as pet rabbits, or the larder.

In other news, we have blitzed the big overgrown hedge to the east of the front lawn, between the lawn and the "Primrose Path" (Our 2nd driveway, if you like). This had been neglected for at least 15 years and was a mess of big blackthorn, elder and hawthorn poles 10 foot high and 6 or 7 foot thick. Not any more. Now it's a neat 4 foot tall and 2 feet or so thick and, hopefully, thinking about coming back as a nice green reviving trimmed garden feature!

Just for fun, here too are a couple of pictures of the chickens up a tree, possibly trying to get a better view of whether their sister is going to hatch those eggs tomorrow or not. There is also a nice Autumn shot of our lane starting to get nice and colourful with the leaves and, finally a shot of Dora's flank showing her beautiful gingery wool. Like the inside of a Crunchie Bar, says Mum and we are not going to argue.

Connie, Dora and Flo'

In 'Small Holder' terms and exciting and momentous day when, without a lot of warning, we end up owning 3 sheep. Yesterday saw us finally get a visit from the fencing contractor, Paul M (Paul the Fence) who had been 'going to do' our sheep paddock for what seemed like weeks without ever showing up or phoning and Dad was just getting to the stage where he would do it himself or find another contractor, when Paul phoned to tell us the price and ask could he start "tomorrow". It was all agreed and Paul duly showed up Tuesday evening to drop off the wire and posts. He'd be back 'first thing' he said.

On the cattle-fencing job a few weeks back this had taken us all by surprise by meaning 0800 so this time Dad was ready after an 0700 alarm call. Foolish Boy! Of course, Paul rolled in at 11:30 with his tractor mounted post-whacker. Dad and he got stuck in and worked all day round to 6:30 pm creating the paddock, hanging the gate and so on. Very nice it looks too and the puppies and I are interested to note that the sheep wire has smaller holes at ground level and is puppy proof (and grown-up dog proof also). Mum did sterling service catering, supplying bacon sarnies at lunchtime and scones and jam / Greek Stafilia at 4pm. Paul seemed to very much appreciate this and happily piled into the home made bread, homemade jam and lemon curd, and the Greek 'Stafilia' which is a syrupy sweet grape confection.

 With the paddock built, Dad this morning contacted our friend, stilt-walking plasterer and sheep farmer, Kenny O'C (Kenny the Sheep) to let him know to start looking for 'our' sheep, but warned him that with Dad in the UK soon on a  Mon-Fri, to avoid those dates, thinking we'd get our sheep after that. Not a bit of it. Kenny was delivering some of his own sheep to the abattoir today and would happily let us have some of the 'remainder' sheep which had not yet made the required weight. Mum and Dad had decided to go with three ewe lambs this time while we find our feet and Kenny has some Texel x Jacob ewes at around 32 kg which will do nicely.

He was able to deliver them tonight so, a bit sooner than we had all expected, we find ourselves sheep owners. Kenny arrived at about 6pm in his huge shiny 4 x 4 with sheep trailer attached with our three sheep in the trailer and his young son Oisín in the cab  (it's pronounced "Urshin"). This was backed up to the gate in the pouring rain and with all dogs confined to in the house, humans blocked exits and guided the three into the new paddock. They stood around admiring the animals and talking sheep for a while and then retreated to the warm dry indoors to do all the necessary paperwork.

 Since foot and mouth there are now plenty of forms to fill in with every movement of every sheep around the country and each one is uniquely tag-numbered
These ladies are 4 months old and were born in Irishtown, County Mayo. This is only their 2nd address. To the government they are called IE045492600051B, 61C and 62E respectively but Mum has decided to name them after three sisters of the PG Wodehouse character Lord Emsworth, so to us they are Constance (Connie), Dora and Florence (Flo). Good luck girls. You mission is to achieve weights of about 50-60 kg by about Christmas and for Mum and Dad to not fall in love with you (too much)

Deefs