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.

Unlucky 13

Wednesday saw me driving down to Silverwood-land to collect Liz, have a bite of lunch with Steak Lady and get a first look at the new grave stone on Mr SL's grave. That would have been a perfectly good story for a blog post. I didn't need all the death, destruction and drama shoulder-barging it off the front pages. It would have been fine. A nice peaceful happy post. That would have done. Come home, few days to recover and prep the house for our weekend visitors. Everyone's a winner. However, the best laid plans (as they might have said) of mice and men shall come to naught when Brer Fox intervenes. Let me explain.

Flights of Angels Sing Thee to Thy Rest

Wednesday, as I said, I was off down to Silverwood-land for the 2 hour drive to meet Liz, see this grave, spend a bit of time with the Silverwood gang and a bite of lunch. It was not the best drive ever - I was driving straight at the bright, low sun, on a very frosty morning and the windscreen washers had frozen up, so I had that fine, salty spray off the vehicles in front and was playing that silly game of trying to wipe the windows whenever that car or lorry went through a puddle and gave you a good wet dose of spray. At some points I even had to stop, pull over and get out and wipe it with a rag.

So, I arrived and we drove round to admire the very fine and tasteful head stone (Rest in Peace Theo) and adjourned to a local café for a bite of breakfast. From there round to Silverwoods for a chat with Mr and Mrs S. It was a lovely relaxing day and we headed home in good time to be there for poultry lock-up and to let the dogs out for a 'comfort stop'. So far so good. As we drove up our lane towards our gate, we could see "white stuff" in the verge of our splay and quickly worked out that this 'stuff' was Buff Orpington feathers. Maybe one had got out and been hit by a car?

First inkling of the problem. Feathers in the verge of our splay

No such luck - as we opened the gate and drove up the drive, those feathers were quickly 'joined' by larger puffs  in the drive, on the front lawn, in the 'woods' to the left and then, with increasing horror, the grass around the pond and even strewn across the frozen ice of the pond. We had obviously had a disaster and immediately suspected a major fox strike. In the gathering gloom we could also not see any chickens so our hearts sank; we thought we'd been wiped out, all the birds killed and taken. The sort of thing you read about but you hope never happens to you. The absolute lowest down side of having your poultry free-range.

Feathers on the frozen pond

From that low point it did start to improve. We spotted the geese all intact and could see 2 ducks with them. We started to spot chickens cowering in corners, scattered into surrounding fields, perching high in hedges. Two sad, still lumps of feather proved to be injured roosters who allowed us to pick them up and carry them to safety indoors. Other chickens hearing our voices and us whistling them up decided it was safe to start clucking and to come out of hiding. We shepherded these home more or less willingly. We spotted the old Sussex (Enda) the wrong side of a sheep-fence and helped her over in near darkness. One Guinea fowl started shouting from 30' up a spruce tree in the pig-run and we found his 'wife' (Min) in the rafters.

Brer Fox went this-away? The field
opposite.

As the darkness closed in we had everybody we could safely locked away but could see no sign of the three turkeys, 4 of the ducks, various chickens, one of the Guineas. It was all a bit confusing (as well as upsetting) but we could do no more. We had to leave them be and hope that more birds might be roosting out and might join us in the morning. We also now had a day-time fox who might easily come back for more and who I needed to either have words with or at least show him/her/them that we are now home, alert and ready.

Safe in the Tígín?

By the next day, it was all a bit clearer. Only one Guinea fowl came home - he'd roosted in a tall ash half a field away and quickly replied with his alarm calls when his buddy woke up in the spruce and started calling. Nobody else came home. In our searches in the evening we had found 2 unclaimed corpses, a duck and the old white Hubbard (Miss White). The fox(es) had managed to kill 13 birds and taken 11 of them away including all 3 turkeys, 3 of the Buff Orp poults (the chicks from Dustbin Lady and Crate Lady), 4 ducks, one young Marans cockerel and both the old Hubbards (Miss White and Miss Red). We assume that, though it is possible that the ducks flew away and the turkeys are scattered across the landscape.

Sunrise over the village crossroads

We have also since found the path used by the foxes carrying off the dead ones - they went off across the lane and through that field opposite which we tried to buy and on then through a hedge and diagonally across the 2nd field. After that we lost the scent and could find no more feathers. We are being fairly philosophical about all this and because the fox has not returned (except possibly to collect the last 2 corpses which we threw into a bramble patch) we are not sure what we can do about him/her/them.

Frosty grass is almost Christmas Card-ish.

We are relieved and delighted that we did not lose more birds. We lost no adult Buff Orps and we kept our two old favourite survivors, the old Sussex (Enda) and the even older Cuckoo Marans (Squawk). Our #2 Buff rooster (The Corporal)  is badly injured but is hanging in there and our #1 (Lt. Colonel Sir Bufton Tufton) is so unfazed and immaculate we suspect that he was either in the beer tent when it all kicked off or, possibly, at his London Club. They do say that it is always the roosters that "get it" because they leap to the defence of their women. Buffers does not seem to have read that bit of the rules of engagement.

The kattens are off for their ops.

More on all this fun and games in a future post.

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.