A Changing Dynamic

Miss Mini-Buff enjoys the indoor life. She is starting to recover
well from the over-amorous attentions of those Marans roosters

We have always been fascinated by our chickens. We could watch them for hours, with their little comings and goings. likes and dislikes, their individual personality traits and their little battles to try to be as high as possible up the 'pecking order'. We love to see the changing dynamics of who joins the small gangs under each rooster and how these relationships change as roosters climb up the rankings or get beaten back down again by their rival(s).

Flood control measures by the local drainage crew.
Sorry you kingfishers and herons.

Regular readers will know that we have been trying to favour the 'Buff Orpington' breed and trying to ensure that only pure bred Buff-Orps were incubated or brooded so that we would slowly but surely evolve into a Buff -only flock. You only have to look at our flock to see how badly this has gone for a whole variety of good reasons plus that fact that we tend to look at the 'misfits' and decide that they are perfectly good, healthy chickens laying perfectly good eggs, so we will keep them. To add another fly in the ointment, we also decided that the breed 'Marans' were also good and that maybe we could run 2 'approved' breeds here just keeping the roo's and purebred hens separate while we got hatching eggs.

Garlic emerges in the tunnel

As a result, as well as the Buffs we have a mad and merry mixture. We have a couple of Buff-crosses, we have a black Marans hen and another black hen whom we think is Araucana x Game. And then there's our belovéd "Enda Vaneera", the only Sussex Ponte (white with black markings) hen left from our first ever Irish batch of birds, bought in 2011. The Marans came as a dozen fertilized eggs for the incubator last year and hatched as 4 roosters and 2 hens. Mr Fox took one of the hens and we had to cull out 3 of the roosters as they were stalking round as a threesome and gang-raping any hen they could catch.

I found this rather lovely shed during a '365' hunt.

Through much of this time we have enjoyed the gentle, dignified dominance of our alpha Buff Orp Rooster who you may recall, was named Lt. Col. Sir Buffton Tuffton. 'Buffers' did a splendid job minding his ladies, seeing to their needs, keeping us in fertile eggs and never indulging in that short-lived behaviour of 'aggression towards humans'. I say "short lived" because sensible chicken keepers do not tolerate such attacks and tend to cull out anyone who shows signs fairly quickly.

The archers take a break for tea and some of Liz's most
excellent polenta, nut and orange cake.

Last year, an upcoming Buff Orp rooster (The Captain) took Buffers on in a spring-time fight and soundly beat him. We have been advised that we should then have culled out Buffers (who was obviously 'fading') but we did not know that at the time, we preferred Buffers to the Captain, and we offed the latter, so Buffers got a bonus year. The Captain was followed by another Buff roo' (The Corporal) and the same might have happened this spring but when Mr Fox came he managed to badly damage the youngster (he died of his wounds a few days later). We are not sure how, but Buffers came through that day unruffled and without a mark on him - we suspect he made himself scarce to the beer tent or to his London Club and watched the action on Cable News.

Walkers

So now, if you are keeping up, we have a depleted collection of girls and just 2 roosters One is 'Buffers' who is/was nominally in charge and would by now be our only source of pure-bred Buff Orp DNA for use in the 'Let's go Buff Orp' campaign. The other is an ever-more magnificent, fast growing Marans rooster who we believe might be the 'Blue' colour variant. He lost most of his long tail feathers in Fox-wars and has only 1 left, but this is surrounded by half-length replacements which are coming on strongly. He struts and marches about and crows like a professional - even letting a few loud cock-a-doodles go late at night if we turn the yard light on and disturb his darkness.

Sausage meat, black pudding and apple pie filling.

This guy, named 'Gandalf' for the blue-grey of his magnificent plumage is starting to be a real challenge to Buffers and we often see him with a good collection of women around him while Buffers is quite often alone. The only fights we have seen have generally had Buffers come out on top but the only blood we've seen was on Buffers, rather than Gandalf. Buffers needs to be looking to his laurels a bit and watching Gandalf closely but instead he has made a big tactical blunder.

The way we shoot, safest thing to wear on your head is the
target! Wouldn't want to be the bloke standing next to me.

He has taking to attacking us, the humans, and particularly Liz. Now, fortunately, he has no spurs (we don't know if this is a Buff Orp thing or just a trait unique to this particular rooster), so his 'attack's involve a lot of 'looming' and some fluttery 'kicks' and wing-butts at your calves. However he needs to know that his sole-Buff-rooster status will not protect him if he starts to annoy Liz to the degree where she gives him the Roman Games 'thumbs-down' or if he loses in a proper fight with Gandalf. There is more than one way, as they say. to skin a cat. We can buy in a replacement rooster or buy in fertile pure-bred eggs to put in the incubator or under a broody. Meanwhile we would just enjoy having a blue-grey roo about the place instead of the old military 'buffer'.

Ducklings at 2 weeks get that long-bodied shape.

I suspect that this is enough on chickens. Meanwhile the 3 ducklings are the every definition of 'thriving' they seem to feel heavier and bigger each day when I handle them to taxi them outside each morning and back in the evening. They have long since left behind their spherical, new hatch, ball-of-fluff shapes and moved properly into young duck shape; long body with legs at one end and neck and head at the other. At a week and a bit they outgrew the first plastic crate and were promoted to our bigger crate. The new breathing-space did not last long and they are already tall enough to not be able to stand straight under the (cat proof!) mesh 'roof' and starting to look like battery hens on an A4 size allocated patch of floor.

A kitten-box for safe transport.

They are also very very messy as anyone who has tried to brood ducklings indoors will happily tell you. They need a constant supply of fresh water but are very sloppy with it, dipping their heads to dibble up food or to drink and then flicking their head side to side, spraying water everywhere. Their food is mainly a pelletized dry mix (chick crumb) which goes soft on contact with water and with which they are as clumsy and messy as they are with the water. As a result, the food/water end of their home quickly submerges under a grey mush of crumb, other food, water and poo and you have to change their bedding (newspaper is nice and easy to roll up even when sloppy wet) daily.

Those pies get a (lamb) suet crust.

We find ourselves buying the thickest, most page-iferous newspapers we can (Irish Farmers' Journal is good) and snatching up any free 'rags' on offer to meet the demands. The ducklings get evicted as soon as we dare - let them do their messing and water-spraying out on the yard for as long as it's warm enough! At present, that means they go out into one of my 2 x 1 m rabbit runs with a mesh roof and a 'bedroom' at one end. I move them each way in a kitten-basket because they were quickly able to leap out of the open-top feed buckets I had been using.

If you are doing this, I advise never let them even TRY to escape. If ducklings get out they will do what wild ducklings do by instinct every time they are threatened - they scatter (at high speed!) and go to ground hunkered down silent and still somewhere out of sight - a grass tuft or under your enamel bath. They will then stay hidden and silent till Mum sounds the all clear and calls them back to herself. Your problem, obviously, is that these are hand-reared babies so there is no 'Mum' to do this and I am guessing you, the reader, do not speak 'Duck'. You end up having to go stand close to where you think they went, stand very still and silent and hope to hear the first, tentative, piping calls of bored ducklings who think they have hidden long enough and are now hungry.

As Fed as Mice

As fed as mice? Our 3 remaining lambs
and one of the ewes (left).

I chug along here playing 'small holder' and beginning to feel nicely integrated when I am brought up short by a local expression which I have not met before. A local near-neighbour and friend, a beef farmer has called round on an unrelated errand and says to me that "Those sheep out there... they're as fed as mice!" I must have looked at him a bit shocked, thinking that he might be being rude about them ( - mice - small - underfed? ) because he looks at me a bit anxiously and hurries to reassure me that "You can tell when they are nearly ready - the grease (he says it "grace") starts to rise in their wool"

At least it is wearing its seat-belt. Another load of stock feed

Local lore has it that when lambs start to turn yellow with the lanolin starting to rise up through the fleece, they are fattened up nicely. Also, presumably, the local mice are very well fed, plump little things; no "sleekit timorous cowering" rodents this side of the Irish Sea.

Footie with a water melon....... naaah. We'll sniff it a bit then
ignore it. 

While I'm on stock, feeding of, I had read somewhere that it would be amusing to try the pigs out on a water melon. The local supermarket had them at a sensible price, so I picked one up. The theory was that the pigs had great fun playing a rather frustrating game of football while they worked out how to get into this unidentified, new food item. I grabbed the camera and went a-visiting.

Rip it to bits.

Well, my two know that when I arrive un-announced midday, this can sometimes mean an unscheduled food treat, but they had not read the book about the football game potential of water melons. I can only assume that an intact 'closed' water melon does not smell or taste at all interesting. Both pigs raced over to the thing, gave it a quick sniff and an exploratory nudge but then looked back at me as if to say "OK - funny green round item which we might look at later but where's the food?"

Schlluuurrrrrp.

They raced back to me and started the usual round of nuzzling my wellies, trying to mouth my ankles and feet, rubbing the backs of their heads and necks on my legs as if I was a scratching post. They are like puppies or cats only they weigh in excess of 50 kg a-piece, so there's a good chance they would trip you or knock you off balance. If I cannot make them cop that this is a fruit which might be nice inside, I have to 'dink' the thing gently on a fence post to make a crack in it which will leak juice, smell and taste.

This year's Buffs at 5 months.

Straight way then, of course, we are away. Both snouts start to bully the melon open and both sets of teeth start to rip and crunch, both tongues slurping delightedly at the sweet, juicy contents. The girls soon have the thing ripped in half and then chopped up completely and emptied of its red lusciousness. I stay with them about 20 minutes and when I return an while later with their proper evening meal I note that every scrap of water melon is gone, green skin and all. Great fun had by all even if there was no 'footie'.

Spot the gosling! The young one is getting increasingly hard
to tell apart from his parents, aunts and Dad.

Meanwhile the birds are also eating well and growing up fast. Our gosling is now very difficult to tell apart from the adults - he is fully feathered and has lost most of his gosling fluff. Because we had to cull out one of the 'aunts' this year when she lost the use of her legs, we have decided that the gosling can stay all the time 'he' does not mature into a gander and cause problems with George, our existing 'alpha'.

The Marans half dozen are feathering up well
at just over 3 weeks old.

This year's crop of Buff Orps are now 5 months old and have decided to be a rooster and 3 hens. 2 of the hens are, we think, pure Buff Orp (along with the rooster) but one is a darker bird with some dark (black) tail feathers. She may have some Sussex Ponte or "mini-Buff" in her - we have one remaining hybrid buff from gifted eggs a couple of years back. Possibly even some Hubbard. This is quite a handy situation because the roo might be able to be our replacement 'alpha' if the 'Colonel' goes sick again next year. This year, if you recall, he went sick and got himself beaten up by our then #2, "The Captain". This youngster has been named "The Corporal", sticking to the naming system. He's looking good so far.

As all these young birds come of age, of course, they start to think about getting hitched and finding out about the birds and the bees. The Corporal and some of the Hubbard roosters have all been amusing us by trying out a bit of 'Cock-a-Doodle-Doo' -ing. Liz amused me a couple of days back by describing one 'crow' as sounding as if the bird was doing it through a kazoo.

Purple loosestrife by the pond.

No such vocalising for the ducks who are also 5 months old - they seem to have gone straight to adulthood without passing 'Go' or collecting £200. I saw them all heading for the small pond in the orchard yesterday and then in a flurry of splashing and quacking, one mounted another while the 4 others raced round in excited circles flapping their wings. It was confusing and fast and I cannot now swear who jumped on whom, but they were definitely going for it despite their lack of obvious sexual differentiation (curly upper tail feathers etc).

This neatly stacked barn caught my eye when I was out 365-ing

That is enough for now. I need to head for the kitchen and gaze meaningfully at some food, see what can be done about supper. Have a good weekend.

Spray Your Hands Purple.

Beautiful! Delicious too. 

We were hoping for better weather for Good Friday. This is the day when houses and barns get white washed. We assume it was always the case that this was the hired hands' only time off. We managed it two years ago in bright sunshine under blue skies and the bright white walls looked splendid. The plan was to re-paint every year and thereby gradually build up a good layer of the wash. There was a hitch last year and it never happened. I don't recall why, but we are determined to get back on that horse this year.

The new book cases are in and filled.

It was a shame then to wake up to splattering rain and the gusty last knockings of that major wind system that we have been troubling us for a few days. It is no weather to be up ladders with splashy, thin paint and it would not dry anyway, so the white washing has been postponed till we get some more pleasant conditions. It was good enough, though to put our sheep-wranging skills to the test.

A pedicure for Feste.

The 12 week old lamb has been a bit lame off and on favouring his front right and a week ago we inspected his feet, could find nothing specific wrong but did notice that the outside edges of his hooves, which grow quite fast like finger-nails, were a bit long. I bought the foot trimming 'shears' and a can of the purple footrot spray. They don't HAVE footrot, but this seems to be the advice - you spray the foot liberally with spray after trimming as a preventative. Since you always spray your hand too, this is apparently how shepherds recognise each other in the pub or at weddings so that they can start up a sheep conversation if it all goes a bit quiet in the snug. "So..... been foot trimming then?"

Like a pair of straight secateurs and just as
sharp. We were amused to note that the spray
is made in a place in Hoo Marina in Kent. 

Of course, by the time we got back to the lamb he was no longer lame but that was no excuse. I need the practice at sheep wrangling. Any shepherd will tell you that this, like shearing, is best accomplished with the sheep on its back with no feet on the ground - it can try to kick and struggle but cannot sprint off. Getting a sheep onto its butt is another technique which you must quickly learn if you don't want to risk your own back and injury doing it the idiot's way of grabbing the animal round the chest and lifting it off the ground, plonking it down on its bum like a small child lifting his baby brother.

Feste's left hind gets the purple treatment.

In short you trap the sheep against a gate with your knees and grab a handful of jaw in your left hand and a hand full of rump-wool (or the 'dock' (tail cut short) with your right. You then bring your hands together, like trying to fold the sheep in half, starting with the head and neck. The sheep collapses naturally on his left hind, sitting down and you can easily swing his top half upright between your legs. You then control him mainly with your thighs and knees but you can get to all four feet and you have not even tried to lift the weight of his body. Or her, of course.

Mum (Lily) gets the same

While Feste was in there under our control, I also inspected Mum (Lily). I knew I could invert a 12 week old lamb (all be it a big bruiser of a fella) but could I manage a full grown 'yow'? The answer was yes, the technique works for all shapes and sizes. We think now that the original lameness must have been where the lamb stood on a sharp object or thorn, or possibly took a whack (a 'puck' as they say here) from one of the grown-ups in a food-trough squabble. Maybe he had a stone caught in the mud under his pad which was then dislodged in our inspection last week. Anyway, he seems to be all sorted now and our foot trim and foot rot spray cannot have done anything but good.

Some poultry like a low perch. Min likes to be up among the roof
rafters and lighting. 

Meanwhile, in the poultry department the young Buffs have moved, one by one, into the proper chicken house, abandoning the young-bird box, their child hood home. Even The Captain has moved in despite his very 2nd-in-Command status relative to 'Sir Buffers'. He is even allowed onto the lower perches for the night. Sir Buffton seems happy to keep driving him off when he tries to mount one of 'his' ladies without feeling the need to kill him or hurt him. We have the amusing sight every now and then of one of the ladies sprinting for the main flock and the protection of Buffers. The Captain gives chase until he gets close to the boss but then slows down and strolls around nonchalantly, whistling innocently. Me? Chasing your women, Sir?

We have had a lovely result in the garden-buying department. Needing more asparagus crowns, I had decided to try out a new supplier, "English's Fruit Nursery" down in Wexford. These guys mainly do fruit trees and bushes (so we slung in a lingonberry bush) but we also found a green hop and the asparagus. I don't think I have ever seen such meaty, healthy, big crowns. These were €1 each but spread out to a foot diameter when put flat, with an inch-round centre and 10-30 long, plump roots spidering out, at least bootlace thick, and some as thick as an earthworm. The 20 (which turned out to be 24) sat as a hefty weight in a feed sack. I should have taken a picture but they are now planted in two beds and we have great hopes for them.

New Laptop for Liz. 

We end the day with no barns painted but 2 sheep pedicured and a goodly batch of hot cross buns baked, some eaten while still warm from the oven with hot butter spread on them. Fish on Friday this week, so a nice supper of fish and prawns, en croute, I think, but don't quote me on that one. The wine is a chilled rosé.

Happy Easter.

I am the Captain of this Ship

The Captain - our 'back up' Buff Orp rooster.

Of the 'Baker's Dozen' of Buff Orpington chicks hatched in the incubator (  http://deefer-dawg.blogspot.ie/2014/08/the-bakers-dozen.html ) we are now left with just four. One died of natural causes as a tiny chick, we culled out 2 roosters, sold 2 more and the marauding fox took mainly female birds, so we are left with three very fine hens and a lovely cockerel. The hens are in lay now, though not fully grown, and the rooster looks very healthy and well feathered. If you see him on his own, you'd know he was a handsome chap; it is only when you see him with the full grown roo', (Lieutenant Colonel Sir Buffton Tuffton, sah!) that you realise that he has a way to go yet.

The Captain (nearest to camera) is always on the
periphery of the flock. Sir Buffton (yellow circle)
holds the centre ground. 

He is still quite slim and rangey looking and about half the width of Sir Buffton across the chest. He lacks the boss's huge wide fluffy pantaloons and his confident strut. At present he is allowed to hang around at the periphery of the flock as they move around the 'farm', but makes sure he can always sprint off if the boss gets a bit close for comfort. He is always the bridesmaid at the moment. He does get to 'tread' the occasional hen when they have strayed from the group and if they are willing (the Sussex Pontes won't tolerate him!).

The purple sprouting broccoli in the latest snow.

For the moment we are keeping him as our back-up rooster should anything go wrong with Sir Buffton, but he needs to stay content in that 2nd-in-command position and bide his time. If he gets too much 'sap' rising in the spring and challenges his Father/Uncle he will get mullered for sure. We would have to cull him out. The three girls have now assimilated into the main flock with the 'boss', so they spend all day with him but then adjourn to the smaller coop in which they grew up, with their 'brother' at bed time. Because his boss is called "Lieutenant Colonel" we have decided to give him the rank of Captain, so that is his name. He may gain a promotion through the ranks. I will let you know.

A nice view of the back of the house - the snow nicely disguises
the rusty roof sheeting on the Tígín (outbuilding). 

More pretty snow falls overnight Monday/Tuesday earlier this week. This is all well and good from the point of view of picturesque photos and the sun shines to brighten up the day, but I am on serious business on Tuesday, trying to collect Lizzie from Knock airport, back from her long weekend in Bridport. There is a tense morning when we hear that flights are being delayed and (worse) diverted from Knock to Shannon. Knock is a very pleasant 20 minute run away through the bog-lane. Shannon from here is 2 hours and 12 minutes slog down the N17 (in good weather).

A Ryan Air flight gets instructed to jill around above Longford
before being diverted to Shannon Airport

As well as the airport website these days, you can get up to the minute flight information from websites which track all the planes in the air in real time, and you can find 'your' flight and see its height, bearing, speed and so on. Before Liz had even boarded I could see a Ryan Air flight out of Stansted get put into a holding pattern (see picture) above Longford before being sent south on its diversion to Shannon. Things were looking dodgy.

Liz's flight is well over the Irish sea and still heading in the right
direction as I hop into the car to drive over. 

Liz got re-assuring noises from the stewards on her plane, an Aer Lingus flight - they were "quite sniffy" about Ryan Air's performance. "Well, WE got in yesterday", they said. I watched the flight anxiously as it crossed the Irish Sea and was still aimed at Knock when I ran out of time and had to drive to the airport. Luckily, steward pride did not come before a fall this time, and Liz touched down OK on schedule. Indeed, she was early and the incoming flight almost took the roof off our car as I turned in off the N17. Huge relief all round. I had not been looking forward to a drive to Shannon as even then the clouds were closing in and sleet was falling heavily; I wondered would the airport get shut down with Liz's plane on the ground. Not in the end - that afternoon that weather system was all done, the sun came out and we have now all thawed out, snowless as if it had never been.

Goose egg double yolker. 

2 whooper swans flew over tonight while I was exercising the dogs in the orchard before supper. They were heading east, and I wonder whether they might be our last two wintering birds en route home to the north of Norway and Russia. These guys do not announce their departures like the swallows with their noisy massing. You see them moving about (I watched 4 others fly over about a week ago) and then suddenly on a crisp, quiet, windless clear night you realise that you can not hear the bugle calls any more. They have gone. I have seen just 2 down on the lough for the last week or so and now I see two flying over. Coincidence?

One solution to the egg glut - pickled eggs. 

While I'm on birds, we have moved from a shortage of eggs, without the 'proper' flock coming into full lay, to an egg glut. The young Buffs are now pumping them out and the two 'new' geese have come into lay to join the old girls, so we sometimes get 5 goose eggs in 24 hours. Each goose egg is worth about 3 chicken eggs, so Liz loves them for cooking and they make gorgeous scrambled eggs on a toasted bagel, but I was also able to pickle a batch of the young Buff eggs. 18 just about fitted into our biggest Kilner.

Anyone who regularly hard-boils eggs will know that 'fresh' is not necessarily 'best' - it can be tricky to peel the really fresh ones as the white does not separate  from the shell - the outer layers stick to the shell and you are left with a rough looking 'boily'. Having done 18 of them while taking note of dates, I can happily tell you that the cut off point is 4-5 days. Anthing younger was a problem, anything 5 days or more peeled perfectly.

We finally score some Gubbeen cheese, the subject of our Christmas
gift book. 

Well, there is enough, I think, on chickens, birds and eggs. We finally scored some of the Gubbeen cheese , subject of my Christmas present book. More important, possibly, was that we see from the label that there is an outlet for more of this, within easy range of Sparks. We just need to badger him to dropping by the shop next time he comes down this way. Meanwhile, thank you very much to our 'supplier' - you know who you are. We will be tasting it tonight in a cheese-course we have included in our supper.