Maternity Mayhem

A first tiny turkey emerges.

As is usual for here, our poultry 'breeding programme' has long since left behind the  realm of "a bit organised" and is accelerating towards "Ah well, what harm can it do?" Regular readers will know that we were steadily building up a little kindergarten of Mums, each with a well disciplined band of chicks at foot, all fussing around Mum, coming when called, enjoying being shown how to scratch in the dirt, what was food and what wasn't, how to dust-bathe, where to safely drink and so on.

....and this year's first gosling.

A friend on the Internet who breeds only nice beautiful Buff Orpingtons and 'tweets' as @TheFloofLady has me smiling every morning with a series of 'Good Morning Floofs!' videos which show the same - nice neat groups of Mum with babies at foot. I am in envy of her pens of identical hens and chicks and her organisation.

2 turkeys now for the 2 Mums

Our gang had started with Silvergirl, who went broody in the bad old "Beast from the East" days and hatched 5. They all growed up now but still hang as a little group (of 4, one vanished). This gang were quickly followed, you may recall, by a grey hen who hatched 6, Shtumpy who managed 5, and then Donaldina (in the duck house) who came off with 7 babies. I hope these numbers are right - you do tend to lose  track.

The (now) 7 ducks have now settled on the pond as their
'safe place'

While all that was going on we had a random outbreak of everybody going broody in the Tígín (tool shed) and quickly got out of hand with stray hens climbing on the nests to drop in an extra egg, or climbing in to lay and decided to stay overnight brooding the displaced Mum's original clutch. If Mum was a less dominant hen, she'd just have to sit there clucking her frustration till the usurper would let her back on. One went broody on nothing at all (it's quite common) and I slipped 7 turkey eggs under her. Sometimes you'd see a little pile of 6-7 eggs, apparently abandoned in the nest. At other times there seemed to be 4 hens all piled in there squishing each other out of the way in their keen-ness to contribute some broody-warmth.

You do what you can in terms of sorting them out, pulling the usurpers off, creating private cages round the known broodies, stealing back new eggs which you know were not there yesterday, but it is not an exact science. Luckily, hen maternity instinct comes to your rescue at this point and the Mums do not actually fight over the babies, but go into a Mum-and-Aunt mode, sharing the rearing to start with. Later, one just seems to take over the whole clutch and the other goes back to the flock to rejoin the rooster(s). So, at present, as well as our kindergarten of para 3, we have two hens minding 4 baby turkeys, 2 hens minding one chick. We have also lost ace-Mum 'Shtumpy' to the fox, so her 4 babies, at 5 weeks are now orphans. They will do OK. She was a good Mum and rears them tough. She would normally kick them out at 6 weeks anyway.

A good job tackled gently. Our collection of rather fragile
tubs are getting emptied, moved and refreshed.

The geese are also starting to hatch some goslings and now, with Gander George in charge these are being brought out into the sunshine. Elizabeth is in charge at the moment and tells me there are currently 3. Sorry about the rough pictures of these new kids so far. I will try to get some better, cuter pics for the next post.

Swarm lure box gets some interest.

Finally, on breeding (of sorts), I was delighted to note that my hive-bee swarm lure box has caught the attention of a local swarm (possibly, but by no means certainly, our own). The front is covered in bees and there is plenty of coming and going through the entrance hole. No counting chickens yet - this box now needs to sit for at least 6 weeks to establish whether we have a valid, queen-right colony or just some gang of scouts sniffing about. All good clean fun as our drought and blue skies continue.

Teenagers Leaving Home

Silvergirl with her chicks.

In a story which will be familiar to all parents who have seen their babies grow up to and through teenager-hood, our 5 baby chicks hatched under 'Silvergirl' were sent on their way this week. They are 6 weeks old today and fairly well feathered but still look very tiny and vulnerable to me, but Mum and Mother Nature know best.

A final lesson in sunbathing for the chicks

Two nights ago at lock-up time I found the five in the yard happily milling about as they had every other night, waiting to be led into the Tígín (lambing shed) where they hatched, by their Mum. But where was Mum? Nowhere to be seen. I soon tracked her down to the main chicken shed where she had gone to roost up high on the perching ladder where there was no chance of the babies joining her. They'd been abandoned.

Silvergirl's chicks quite well feathered up

We are used to this, of course, at about the 6 week stage, so I shoo'd them into the 'bedroom' and left them to find a suitable corner to sleep in. They chose the normal corner and huddled up without Mum. It was a lovely warm night. She is not, in fact, as fiercely negligent as this would suggest.

I'd been waiting for some blue skies to show
the flowering cherry off to good advantage.
They finally arrived yesterday.

When I released the birds in the morning, the 5 rejoined their Mum and spent all that day off and on together or happily apart. That evening she left them again and I repeated the bedtime shepherding. By chance tonight they were together at bedtime, so I shoo'd them all in including Mum but I think they are pretty much done, reared and chucked out of 'home'. Silvergirl has come back into lay and may well take up 'Stumpy's baton and go for a 2nd bite at the broody-ing cherry. We'll see.

The pigs have found the ditch.

A couple of bits of catch up news. Remember our recent visit from (Mr) Dan, the "struggling writer" who was over here to write his LSE Thesis? As he flew home he'd not quite finished dotting the i's and crossing the t's but was confident he'd finish and submit by the Thursday 08:00 deadline. Well, he did and sent us a celebratory message through Facebook saying "It's dooooooooooone!" We all have to wait for the marking system in LSE to know how he has done and how well received. He is hoping for, and reasonably confident of, a 'Distiction'. Watch this space.

Funky socks for my Birthday.

Our Ozzie visitors finished the last leg of their tour of Ireland and Facebooked us all (if that is a verb) with various updates as they handed the hire-car back, caught their shuttle-bus to the Departures building (3 pm yesterday), boarded their plane (half past 5), stopped briefly in Abu Dhabi (03:00 this morning) and finally arrived home at 3 pm this  afternoon, sending a final message that read "Home safe and sound! Can barely keep my eyes open so night all". They must be exhausted. Good luck you guys. We may see them again but it won't be for at least 18 months, they think, just for the cost of the flights.

Not easy to 'get' in Ireland. At least, not here in land locked
Co. Roscommon, but Elizabeth found some yesterday on our
wonderful local fish-van. Scrummy.

Not too much else going on. We are in a gap between all those visits finishing and the arrival of our first Help-X student, a German lad named Carsten early next week.

Our always reliable plum tree covered in
blossom.

In the gap, both of us had a serious go at collapsing with chest colds, possibly picked up by me at The Play and generously passed on to the Lady of the House because... you know... sharing. Mine was quite quick - just 2 nights of coughing like an auld git but then followed by a gurgling left ear for 2 weeks which clears and re-blocks disconcertingly.

Latest knitting project is a fancy shawl and
a ball of nice blue yarn has also arrived.

Elizabeth converted this to a more normal "flu like symptoms" with the mandatory runny nose, coughing, aching tiredness and retreating to bed for long naps during the day. Fortunately the naps could be slotted into empty gaps in the schedule and she has not had to take a 'sickie' from any appointments, work or college.

We are both recovering now and should be able to shake it off in time for the Help-X lad.

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.