Not Safe in Taxis

Bird survey form (top section only).

Regular readers will know that I spend some of my time out observing local wildlife and I am quite keen to add any observations to the National Biodiversity Database. As part of this I count the birds on this 'farm' through the winter months and survey bumble bees on three walk-routes in the summer. This week is change-over week, when the birds finish (the survey only wants winter residents) and the bees start.

Last year's bee survey map. My three 'transepts'
are arrowed. I have to walk these three walks
at least once a month from March to October.

As well as these formal multi-month surveys, I also record any mammals I see (including road-kill), any birds and amphibians anywhere in my travels and input these to the database(s). I enjoy doing this 'observing' anyway (always have been a bit of a naturalist) and the database thing gives it an extra flavour of usefulness.

The sheep are currently on the front lawn - they have almost
eaten the East Field bare. This is Myfanwy. 

We have 'breaking news' in the pig department, though no photo's so you will have to put up with some wet sheep. Our breeder (Adrian) had a bit of a set back when one of the sows (Plum), who was due to 'farrow' in January failed to do so. She was last heard of being shipped back to Wicklow to be put back with the boar to either accept him (a sure sign that she was not pregnant) or to farrow a bit later than planned (just wrong dates recorded back in October). These things happen and it is always "in the lap of the gods".

(L to R) Rosy, Polly and Lily NOT enjoying the constant rain.

We (and Sue and Rob, who are also in the market for piglets) had to stand down and wait for the 2nd sow (Iris) which was due in March. Well, better news this time, says Adrian - Iris is due on 5th March (tomorrow) after her 3 months, 3 weeks and 3 days and she is showing all the signs, restless nest-building, full of milk etc. Nobody count any 'chickens' just yet as nothing is certain but we MIGHT, just might, get word and a photo soon and then a collection date for our gilts at the end of April. Woop woop!

Polly is unimpressed by the rain. The ewes are on the front
 lawn for the grass but there is no shelter-building for them
to retreat into. 

Meanwhile, Friends of the Blog will know that I had been trying to introduce our three young ducks to the established adult pair, who happen to be their biological Mum and Dad. I gave them a couple of hours (loosely) supervised a couple of days ago while Liz was at work and the drake (William (of Orange)) spent as much of it as possible chasing his 'children' around intent on mounting them and giving them the benefit of his amorous appetites.

Puddle Central here at present. 

When I reported this to Liz via text, she clocked the fact that the youngsters are probably not just his children but also his DAUGHTERS, so he is something of a wicked aul' pervert and, as she phrased it, "Not safe in taxis". We'll get round it. New animals always get chased around by your existing adults just as part of establishing dominance and 'pecking orders' and the drake will, in the end, accept the new-comers into his harem. Ducks are known for being a bit boisterous and drakes in particular can be bullies and rapists. It's all part of being a duck. I've not seen any attacks with intent to wound in these encounters.

Slicing up the fallen tree. 

Finally, a 'schoolboy error' with which I have confused Vendor Anna. The tree blown down here by Storm Doris had been cleared from the drive and I have sliced up that section for logs but the top 55 feet or so is still lying on the lawn with its nice cut end looking at you as you walk down the drive. I didn't think, and counted the tree rings on this end before reporting the age of the tree as 53 years. Anna was rapidly back on saying that this must be wrong as her father (TK Max on this blog) planted no trees at any time around 1961, so this must be a self-seed. Unlikely for a black spruce.

The base of your tree is a much more sensible place to count
growth-rings. 

I realised that this cut I was looking at was made 10-12 feet up the tree and would include no rings created when the tree had not yet reached this height. Ooops. Having dropped the tall stump and being able to now see the cut surface of the base, the growth rings are less clear but there are more like 65-70 giving the tree an start date around 1946. That might fit better with Anna's memories of her father's tree planting projects.

That is probably enough for this post. I am sure you do not want to hear about our rain, rain and more rain.

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.

Cockfight and Dogfight

No! Don't worry, no real cause for alarm and we've not been up to anything illegal, but as well as the signs of spring and sap rising in the local flora, the local birds have been putting in their bids for their own sap rising and the breeding season coming up to full steam. Last spring, it occurs to us, we had just the one rooster (William), so it all passed off quite peacefully and although we'd seen a bit of sporadic cock fighting at other poultry keepers' places, we had never seen it here and lived in the bliss of ignorance that all 'our' lot would get along peacefully like one big happy family.

William high-kicks Henry in a fast and furious bout.

Well, yesterday our feisty Guinea Fowl cock-bird, Henry, laid that one firmly to rest by taking it upon himself to attack our Sussex Ponte rooster, William. William turns out to be no 'pussy' when it comes to defending his alpha status and gave Henry a good kicking for his pains, but Henry would not take 'No' for an answer and kept running in looping circles returning to William for more. It was fast, furious and noisy. These fights can get serious, we knew, with birds getting badly hurt or even killed and we, as their keepers are responsible for keeping them from harm.

Buffers, before he got involved in the fighting.

However, there is no easy way to catch these two in the open of a free-range system, so we chased around as best we could but basically had to let them work it out. We were relieved when they quickly seemed to, with William 'winning' and driving Henry off. It all calmed down though we did see at one stage, William and our Buff Orpington 'roo' (Buffers, for short) squaring up in that ritualized way - the cocks bowing low to each other, beak to beak, spreading cape feathers wide and displaying wings and tail feathers to make themselves look huge. We supervised and, where we could, a garden boot swung (gently) between the protagonists and waggled helped to separate them.

Blue is back in the ratting game.

It all calmed down and we decided it was over and it would now be safe to go shopping. We were wrong, and returned to what looked like the aftermath of a Hollywood saloon bar brawl. Poor Buffers was well spattered in blood and it had dripped down into his chest feathers. Henry was cowering under the hedge by the 'allotment', unusually quiet and subdued and seemed to have been deserted by his wife, who was now hanging with the hens. William had a few flecks of dried blood on his face and cape, but was strutting tall, presumably the winner.

Hooded crow (top) dog fighting with our Raven.

The boys had obviously been 'at it' while we were away although it now seemed to have been settled. Nobody was badly hurt but everyone needs a good rain shower to clean them up a bit. We have seen no such fighting since. W and B have had a square-off but no more kicking. We are not surprised William came out on top - he weighs easily twice as much as the Guinea cock and has inch long sharp spurs on his legs. Nobody else is armed like that. Later Henry went off into hiding (he was actually just out of sight behind the earth bank but was not about to show his face to William on the latter's turf) and refused to come despite hours of plaintive calling by Min (buck-wheat! buck-wheat!), even to come to bed as it got dark. We tried to shepherd him in the dusk back towards the buildings so we could lock him up safe from Mr Fox, but he was having none of it and kept side-stepping us  and nipping up the Rose Walk or through the car port to his bank. We said a prayer for him and left him to it.

Another egg glut solution - pickled eggs.

I was delighted this morning to find that not only had he survived, but he was sitting outside the chickens' pop-hole, come to collect his wife and possibly a clip round the ear! He's been very subdued today and no-one has tried any more fighting, which is a relief. He shuffles past William with Min in close formation, keeping his head down. Me? Noooooo no no no... I was just going to eat some of this grass. So we HOPE that is it. You get one brew up, one big flash of passion and emotion, everybody sorts out their pecking orders and we all go back to being a happy family. You think?

The passion was also waking up in the wild birds. I had my camera out with the 200 mm lens on it so I'd been able to get the above pic of one of the fights but was also lucky enough to see the local raven (whom we call 'Quoth') harassed by two of the local hooded crows in another noisy, whirling, aerobatic dog-fight. The Raven's loud 'Cronk' calls were being out-shouted by the "Werk! Werk!" calls of the crows as they wheeled their way westward along our ridge top.

And finally, if I can sneak in a quick bit of sad to tie up a loose end, our tiny chick 'Lonely Roads' had showed no improvement in his leg so we decided to cull him out. It's a shame and it's never nice to have to do it, but when we need to we are able. RIP 'Roads', we will miss you but you'd have never thrived here.

Mapp and Lucia

I named my first dog 'Megan', my current boy-dog 'Towser' and our Rooster 'William' but usually it is Liz who names the animals as they arrive here. She seems to have an inexhaustible fund of names based on fictional characters, characters from films and names from funny radio shows. Our 2013 sheep were Constance, Dora and Florence, named for Lord Emsworth's sisters from PG Wodehouse. Last year's first three sheep were Larry, Curly and Mo, the geese were Goosey, Goocie and Gander and the Guinea Fowl are Henry and Min (from the Goon Show).

Bramble jelly from the freezer blackberries.

The pigs we are likely to buy this year are still open to debate but Liz rather fancies 'Mapp and Lucia'. Liz is much wider read and has seen and heard more films and radio shows than me, and these two names were new ones on me - another gaping hole in my education! I felt I needed to at least know who Mapp and Lucia were before I could realistically name our first pigs for them, so Liz nipped to our extensive library and pulled a paperback from the shelves, "The Complete Mapp and Lucia (Part1)", written in the 20's and 30's by one E.F. (Fred) Benson. If you know these characters you will know that they are not pleasant at all! The books are very nicely and cleverly and amusingly written, but Miss Mapp and Mrs (Lucia) Lucas are just awful people.

Kir Royale, Feigh style; Prosecco and home made Cassis

Lucia is the self-crowned Queen of her village and seeks to control and lord it over all social events and who gets invited to what, like a nasty child in the playground. She is nosy, pretentious, manipulative, devious, cunning and such a snob. Mapp, living in a fictional version of Rye in Sussex is just plain nosy and seeks to know exactly what everyone is up to, who is seeing who, what all her friends are about to wear to parties so that she can out-manouvre them, engineers herself into being the focus of all the juicy gossip and dumps horribly on anyone who she imagines has crossed her. Ideal role models, then, for our two impressionable, baby piggies!

Nice marketing idea, Heart shaped Coeur de Neufchatel.

Valentine's Day arrives and we are nearly 'kiboshed' on our plans to create a special romantic meal by an extended series of power cuts born, we guess out of the recent wind storm damage and snow in the skirts of Storm 'Ruby'. Our land-line phone chirrups in its 'You have lost power' way at around 01:00 but I ignore it thinking they normally only last a few hours. It is still out in the morning and we phone around and find that Carolyn is calling it in. Power comes on mid morning while I'm out at neighbour Una's but only for ten minutes. It is lashing rain and blizzarding snow but we are delighted to be visited by an ESB Networks guy in Hi-Viz clothing who wants to look at the power lines that run to the north of our property, He (in a van) is joined by 2 other lads and 2 more vehicles, who scurry around working heroically in the bad conditions. We get power back at midday for 2 hours, then again properly at 4 pm. The Valentine's Day meal is saved and we know we are really very fortunate. There are people out there, especially around Galway and the south and east coast counties who have been without power for days, we only had 13 hours; the freezers stayed frozen and our candlelit supper was by choice.

Home made ice cream made with home made lemon curd.

Meanwhile 2 pieces of news concerning boys called Henry. Henry the Guinea fowl had injured his leg somehow but after a few days of decided limping and looking sorry for himself, suddenly recovered and is now back to full strength and a full compliment of working legs. Our other Henry is 2 years old today (Happy Birthday little fella) and son of Carolyn of the Miniature horses. We are invited down to the house for the party, where an army of friends and relatives have gathered while he is having his mid day nap. He wakes up as bemused and dozy as anyone who is fresh out of bed and copes very well with his house being suddenly full of people plying him with presents and party food. He gets into his stride as the present opening gets into full swing - he's mad for anything car shaped, he loves a big petrol pump to go with his sit-in pedal car, but the winner on the day is definitely a junior-sized but fully equipped drum kit with stool, bass drum with pedal, snare drums and even a cymbal. He is soon whacking 7 bells out of all this lot and doting rels are videoing him on their smart-phones. Brilliant! When we last heard all the grown ups were retired, exhausted and Henry was still going strong. He should sleep well tonight, bless him!

Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness

(Apologies to John Keats, I guess). All the people round here that I know of who were interested in the blackberries have long since taken their fill from the hedgerows, made their wine, jam, cassis, desserts and pies and moved on. There are still many many left in the hedges for the birds and these are now being joined by equally bountiful crops of elder berries and hawthorn haws. The birds and small mammals are going to go into this winter very well fed and good luck to them.

Let's hope they don't need it too badly - so far we are enjoying another 2013 warm spell. Our first two complete years in Ireland really have shown us the extremes of what is possible for the warmer seasons - from the absolute unrelenting drenching of 2012 when we always seemed to have puddles and standing water, to the droughts of 2013 starting with our 19 rain-less days in February. We can't believe that it can do either wetter or drier and we are assuming that all our remaining years will be in between; we think we will be always saying "Ah well, it's wet alright, but do you remember 2012?" Never say never, of course.

The season too for gentle slowing down, die-back, decay and mushrooms. I've been enjoying these guys who come up in their delicate dozens where ever I have spread calf muck about. They are a real early riser of a fungus. At only about an inch across and 3 tall, they stand proud with their new white caps at 07:00 as I do my early morning feed and release rounds, but by 09:00 or so the caps have auto-digested to a blob of black ink atop the stem, presumably dribbling their spores away, their job done. By the time the sun touches them they have collapsed and shriveled back to nothing.

I have no idea of the name but they are a lovely thing to find on these misty moisty mornings. For a while we were also getting edible field mushrooms in the lawn but these now seem to have finished and the bigger mushrooms are all now centred around a long-since sawn off tree stump.

These look a bit parasol-ish so might be edible but I know enough about mushrooms to know that their identification can be tricky to the non expert, sometimes involving detail of cap colour, gill shape and colour, detail of whether there is any kind of skin-collar left around the stem and even the colour of a spore-print left overnight to form on white paper by the spores falling from the cap laid on the paper. Pud Lady used to be very good at it and knowledge-able and we all survived her cookery experiments but we tend to leave them be.

It is also the season when we can start 'harvesting' our meat products so we have been enjoying some meals of young rabbit and also of this La Bresse rooster who was starting to be a problem for William the Conqueror and some of the ladies. He was 22 weeks old and a hefty lad, so that he came out oven-ready as this fine 2.475 kg carcass, at the time, the biggest poultry lump we'd produced. Liz actually jointed him up and just cooked the legs and wings on the day but even that was more than we needed so Liz left a drumstick and me the wing on the side of our plates for cold left overs.

I said the biggest "we'd produced" meaning up to then. We have since had another young goose unexpectedly up and die on us for no obvious reason (possibly another victim of the in-breeding problem we already know about). This one cleaned out at 3.605 kg, not huge for a goose, but not bad for one at still only 4 months old.

On other news, our lambs continue to thrive and we are sure they must be approaching the target 50 kg weight but we have not heard a whisper from sheep mentor, Kenny about coming to weigh them and decide on their dates. Here they are joined at the feed trough, rather cheekily, by some of the Hubbard chicks, our other thriving babies who are 60 days old today. They are reckoned, in a commercial set up, to need only 90 days but we are looking at their huge feet and thinking they might go a bit longer than that and get huge. We should probably take advice from Anne on that one - huge and late may not be good attributes in terms of tenderness or flavour.

Finally we have one of the mini-horses, Falabella 'Cody' back with us for a while. You will remember that we had him and the other two amigos here in the spring time, keeping our grass short and doing a favour for Charlotte and Carolyn when fodder was hard to come by. Cody is the stallion of the gang, being the only one who is still 'entire'. Not for long, it seems. He has been making a nuisance of himself escaping and going in search of mares. The market for miniature foals, along with most other Irish markets has collapsed so that nobody needs the boy at stud at present and his fate is sealed.

He can't have his 'op' just now because the current hot spell has brought the horse flies (locally 'creabhars' or 'craws') out again en masse and it is not fair to create an open, healing wound on a horse with those about, so he is waiting till mid October for his visit from Aoife (Rhymes with Deefer). Our field is secure though, he loves it here because we fuss and spoil him, there is loads of grass despite the 5 sheep, and he is, we are told, OK with sheep. He likes the company, apparently. So he's back among us for now.

That is about it. We are ambling along happily doing lots of tidying, weeding and some planting as well as all the muck spreading in this lovely warm dry weather.

The 'Hin' formerly known as....

Three different livestock stories tonight, just to keep you abreast of things feathered and furry here on the 'farm'.

First up I think I posted a while back that one of our Sussex Ponte 'hins' seemed to be bearing the brunt of the rooster, William's love and affection. He was 'treading' her (as they say) so often that his spurs had scratched away big chunks of feather across her wings and shoulders, leaving her with bright pink bald patches which had us a bit concerned she'd get sunburn in the hot weather. She was nicknamed 'Baldy'. Some people make tough cloth 'saddles' for the hen when this happens to protect her back from his rough treatment, but the better advice is to get more hens and spread the load a bit, naturally. Without really meaning to, that is exactly what we did by obtaining the 2 Marans birds with whom William has fallen deeply in love. He now favours these ladies and has dropped Baldy like a hot potato and, we were amused to note, done her a big favour in the feather department. All her bald patches are now covered in new feathers 'in pin' (still in their sheaths). We will have to keep an eye on Bubble and Squawk to make sure they don't start going bald!

Meanwhile, it being a lovely warm sunny day here in Co. Roscommon we decided to let the new chicks out in one of the rabbit runs, to feel the sun on their backs and get a chance to scratch at some rabbit-grazed short grass. They loved it and their 'Mum' was able to do them some good scratch-training.

If the speed of response by chicks has anything to do with how much their Mum loves them and stays protecting them, then these 8 babies are streets ahead of the 5 ducklings, who wouldn't scratch no matter what she tried. Ducklings just don't. With these chicks one dip of her beak and a single cluck had all 8 whizzing towards her on their surprisingly mobile legs and 8 little beaks diving in by hers to see what she'd turned up. Soon we will be letting the family out properly to free range. We have no fears from cats or the other chickens and we seem to be doing OK so far with regard to dogs on leads, foxes, mink etc. No! Our concerns are actually for dear ol' William the rooster, who is so keen to re-acquaint with Betty after her incubation 'holiday' that he chases her, tries to scrabble on board and would knock the chicks flying as she leapt to protect them. He's a big solid boy, and they could get badly hurt or killed, so we will wait a while till the babies get a bit bigger, tougher and speedier in their evasion runs.

You'll possibly know of the rather thin time we are having of the 'meat rabbits', born to Goldie in mid June. We had about 9 originally but they do not seem to be thriving and, although they look very healthy, one by one they have died for no apparent reason. We just find them lying on their side, stiff and chilled in the morning and up to now have disposed of the tiny bodies and moved on. We were putting it down to some internal, developmental problem possibly born out this being Goldie's first litter, and the fierce heat wave that we had during her final weeks of pregnancy and the babies' first weeks of life. By last weekend we were down to 4 babies left alive, 3 white albino and one dark rabbit-brown. None of the deaths had been foresee-able, they seemed to go from healthy to dead without us seeing any in-between sick stages or symptoms. By contrast the 12 baby bunnies of Padfoot and Ginny are thriving and growing well.

Then we had another death last week while the Silverwoods were here and this time we saw it coming. I went to move the run one morning to new grass and this rabbit was very pathetic looking and lethargic, not bothering to run for cover as I loomed over him. I nudged him into cover out of the rain but later he was back out. We rescued him to a warm dry box in the girls' caravan out of sight of the small children, but by lunchtime, Em-J reported hearing him wheezing and by 1 pm he was dead. We talked to Mentor Anne and she wondered whether liver fluke might be an issue, this ground having been grazed by sheep last year (all be it lambs treated for fluke and that, way back in December).

We decided to autopsy the rabbit and the girls decided they would like to see that. Em-J has a scientific mind and is choosing school/college options aimed at giving her a possible career in forensic archaeology. She'd done some biology but never dissected a mammal before. J-M was just on a bit of a thrill-seek and was not going to miss this one! I talked them though how we would open up the body cavity and what would be where and calmed their fears that there would not be blood and gore everywhere. We donned neoprene 'murderer' gloves and in we went. In the event the liver proved to be as clean as a whistle, very healthy looking with no flukes or damage visible as we sliced it up. Lungs, heart, diaphragm, spleen, kidneys and gut all looked normal to me.

The one feature which did strike me and I have certainly never seen (and I've skinned and gutted a few rabbits!) was that the bladder was full with wee, inflated to the size of the top of your thumb, though not inflamed or angry-red looking. It just looked like the boy had not had a wee for a while, but I am no expert and this might be standard for these rabbits. Anne and I were both a bit concerned that the bladder would have emptied in death, so a blocked duct may be indicated and again, this might point to an infection or a developmental issue. We do not know where to go with this but I will probably autopsy any more dead ones we may get. It was an interesting exercise for the girls, too and they were both pleased to have seen it and not to have run out in horror.

We hope, of course, that the remaining three babies make it through.

Dirty Stop-Outs

Ever since we lost that first chicken to a fox back last year because we sat chatting into the evening while they free-ranged till 20:30, we have learned a lesson and tried to get everybody locked up safe by a decent hour. We've done well at this and all the birds have co-operated to such a degree that we have friends on some of the poultry forums and Facebook as well as Mentor Anne, sometimes amazed that we have them "all in bed by 6" or what ever. Everybody else seemed to be struggling to round up last stragglers a good hour or more after we were shut down. I have continued this with the geese and goslings who don't take themselves off to bed, but are happy to be rounded up and shepherded to their 'bedroom' by about 18:30 and are waiting by the gate when I go out to collect them. They all waddle straight in the 'back door' and I shut it behind them, then nip round to the front and give them a handful of grain and rolled barley. So far so good.

It's been a bit of a shock, then to take on these new Cuckoo Marans who are not interested in early nights at all. They are dirty stop-outs by comparison. As I type this it is ten past 9 at night and I have only just this minute persuaded their two reluctant rumps into the wooden 'goose' house and bolted the pop-hole. They are safe enough in these bright, sunny evenings, when the sun doesn't set till 10 p.m. but they don't want to be stretching it out any more, or our little red furry cunning friend will be having them for his supper. We have seen enough foxes to know that they are always about and are famous opportunists.

It was quite amusing tonight to watch the rooster, William, trying to round them up. They have settled in well here and I now release them from the orchard once they have both laid eggs, so that they can go free ranging, meet William and mix it with all the existing flock. It is good to see William now parading his 3 white Sussex Pontes and two grey/black Marans around as a group. But William is one for his early lock ups and generally heads for his roost about 7:30 p.m and then crows vigorously calling his ladies home to roost, till they are all accounted for, generally by about 8 p.m. Tonight at around the 7 p.m. mark we were sitting by the pond and could see right across to the trees of the 'Secret Garden'.

We watched William fretting up and down that bit of sheep fence, moving 6 feet towards 'home' and then doing his excited scratch-the-floor 'dance' to try to draw the Marans closer, then moving another 6 feet and so on. The Marans would seem to be drawn, but then would drift back further away, so he had to back-track and collect them again. Poor William was losing his mind, especially as the Sussex girls had got bored by then and made their own way 'home' without him. It seemed to us that he was desperately inviting the Marans 'back to his place'. We let him off the hook eventually, rounded up the Marans to the orchard and then shepherded William 'home'. He'll get another chance tomorrow. He seemed relieved to no longer have that responsibility. We then had the hour and a half of abortive attempts to drive the Marans to their own house before they finally went willingly at 9 p.m.

The Marans, mean time have decided to get a bit creative with their eggs. After a succession of plain mid-brown eggs, we suddenly got this lovely speckled one. Perhaps the late nights are fuel to the creative processes. Talking of 'creative' Liz has been getting on very well with my jumper and is now almost there, working her way around the 'band' which has buttons one side, goes round the back of the neck and then has button holes the other side. (Sorry - probably haven't given you the technical terms - knitting is not actually my strong suit!). This long band has involved 'picking up' around 370 stitches, so Liz has had to invest in a 'circular needle', a continuous flexible loop of needle running from the hard point in her left hand to the one in her right. It's all looking very professional.

Too Close for Comfort, Mister Fox!

These lovely long sunny evenings have us all relaxed. It's still broad daylight and bright bright sunshine at 8 o'clock and the geese and chickens do not want to go 'to bed' half seven at the earliest. Last night I took the big leap of faith and decided that instead of rounding everybody up and locking them in before our own supper (about 7 pm), I would chill out, have our food and then go and round them up. This we did and sat down to enjoy a lovely risotto and cold lamb with the sun streaming in through the window.

Having cleared away the table things at about quarter to 8, I went out to do the honours. The geese had actually been indulging in some late afternoon egg laying, so they were in the goose-house (née calf house) anyway and the chickens had all taken themselves off to their perches in their end of the building. I just had to shut and chain the calf house door, drop the chickens' pop-hole flap and pass the usual handful of sprouted wheat in to the geese for supper, ignoring Gander's harsh, screechy shouts that I was getting a bit close to his ladies' nests.

Minutes later I was on to the next job, taking the dogs out for a comfort stop and romp off the leads in the orchard. I came indoors from the bird-wrangling, grabbed the three leads (dogs are still on leads in the garden because they can not be trusted not to vanish through a hedge) and collared the dogs, before stepping out through the front door, pulled enthusiastically by three westies who couldn't wait to get outside.

That's when we saw the fox. It was only a small young one, not much bigger than a large cat - in fact I first thought it was Blue picking up some gingery low-sun rays. It quickly 'became' the fox. It was in our 'woods' not 50 yards from the front door but seeing us, it shot off down the woods, on down the drive and then nipped through a hole in the hedge to the right of our gate. I was as surprised as he was (but I think he was more scared!). We've not actually seen a fox on the premises before though we know they are about. The dogs regularly get all 'prey focused' on after-dark patrols, swapping their usual aimless meanderings for pulling in one direction, snapping, snarling and nearly choking themselves on the leads in their rush to 'get at' some noise, smell or sight which is lost on me. We know that our first hen was taken by a fox way back, before William was on the scene, and neighbours regularly warn us about our free ranging preferences.

So I did some extra patrols, letting the dogs have a good sniff and scent mark on Mr Fox's trail, I blocked up the coop door with an extra big log, double checked the rabbits, we made sure the cats were both indoors last night and I checked out my poultry discussion website for advice. They advise contacting the local gun club where someone might be willing to stake the place out in the hope of 'getting' him on a return visit. Finally, obviously, I have abandoned the idea of late nights on the tiles for birdies. They will be rounded up pre supper despite their protestations. Most of the chooks actually roost 7 feet up on the top perch, so might have been alright anyway, but we currently have Broody Betty down at ground level sitting on her eggs, and the geese are ground-roosters. He was only a small fox, so might have been nervous of taking on our geese, especially in the breeding season, but he'd not have thought twice about making off with our broody, which would have been especially heart breaking so close to our potential hatching day.

Too close for comfort, Mr Fox. You are not welcome here. Stay away!

Guilty as Charged

On the morning of the 16th, with Liz still in England, we have a near disaster. It is breakfast time and all the animals are fed, the chickens are out free ranging and the dogs are doing what they do. I walk through to the kitchen looking to make my porridge, and I see through the kitchen window, white feathers all over the yard. In the middle of all this eye-catching whiteness a white blur of activity which I quickly see is the rooster being bundled around by the two pups one at each end. The rooster is on the ground helpless.

I dash for the door screaming blue murder. Both pups look up and I am relieved to see the rooster jump to his feet and scuttle off through the gate round to the coop, but the flutter and scrabble sets the pups off in pursuit so I am hot on their heels, yelling all the way. I catch and grab Towser before he makes the coop 'pop' hole but Poppy dives inside probably by now thinking the Hounds of Hell are on her tail. Luckily she re-thinks her escape route and nips back out where upon I can scruff her too and the two pups are hauled back to the house, thrown into the living room and the door slammed on them. I never actually hit them but I think they got the message that they had done wrong.

Back outside I could see that there were a lot of feathers and some had blood on the quill ends, so I feared the worst and went to check on William. He was in a sorry state, filthy from being bundled in the wet gravel of the yard, disheveled and very miserable, head down and poked into a hole in the wall, hunched on the floor just inside the pop hole. I've only seen him look as miserable as that once before and that was when he was young and the Lovely Girls were bullying him as a new-comer.

I went in there quietly and talked gently to him so that he eventually raised his head and walked through to where the perches are, and hopped up on one. At least nothing seemed to be broken and I thought him not too injured, no bad bleeding anyway. The Girls were a distance away across the field, so may have been scattered by the attack. I am told that in a fox attack it is usually your rooster who cops it because he heroically dives in to the line of fire to protect his women, so this might have been William being heroic. Anyway, the Girls talked him down and within an hour he was back out free ranging again and preening himself back to a presentable state.

I got hold of him a bit later and gave him a good but gentle look over and could find no broken skin or open wounds and he has since made a full recovery.

The pups were left in the Living Room for the hour while I did 'Sheep Watch', to give them a chance to reflect on their sins. I don't actually think they attacked William with any malice or killer instinct. It was probably more like the kind of game they play with the cat-kittens or each other, boisterous grabbing and rolling around, mouthing up chunks of fur, only being a rooster, these were feathers which came out in mouthfuls and no doubt the distress of the rooster became, to them, an interesting new reaction and game. They probably did not intend to kill but that is what would have happened, I sure, had I not intervened.

Anyway, there was a rapid text conversation between Liz and I and, as Liz put it succinctly, "we have not given them any boundaries". So, they now find themselves grounded during 'chicken daylight' (about 0800 to 1630) allowed out only on collars and leads. They were not used to this and didn't like it much (especially Poppy!) but after a few days at three or four 'walks' a day, they are learning to love it even if only for the chance to get walked and not confined indoors. If we encounter William out with the Ladies on one of these walks he tends to take avoiding action but I think he's basically OK. There's a relief.

Whippets and a Yorkie-Poo (?)

More lunacy from the 2CV camp, this time a pic of "The Alamo", the name the organisers gave to the shack where we all had to book in and register. A marvellous bit of rustic carpentry, and as I said, resplendent with it's armed guard on the chair and even another cut-out one up on the roof. Good fun.

The camp was rich in new dog company. My pic shows 6 month old, very playful whippets Tommy and William seen here with Megan (left) and Haggis (right). I'm out of shot somewhere. It was probably a good thing that this camp was on-leads-at-all-time because these were very fast dogs, and I don't think I'd have been able to out-run them if I'd needed to.

Also on the case was a very soft looking felty, Yorkie in pastel shades which we had to ask about. Turns out he's called Oscar, and he's a Poodle x Yorkie, which had us all inventing those spoof joined up names like "Labdradoodle". The owner chose "Yorkie-Poo" - we couldn't really argue with that although the poor dog is probably scarred for life.

There were plenty of other dogs too, including a couple of other westies, a couple of independent (different families) but very similar looking sandy coloured border terriers, both resplendent in red and white spotted bandanas, there were labs, alsatians, poodles, JR's and many more. 2CV camps are definitely dog-friendly.

More soon

Deefer