Six Chix

4 more chicks hatch among the duck eggs.

I left you with a bit of a spoiler in the last post. We had just saved the life of the first chick from the broody hen whom we had named "Cat Basket Lady" having found the little mite hypothermic and revived her with the warmth cradled in my hands. She had been returned to Mum and went on to survive the night. We had sat back happy with our one chick. Elizabeth even made the conciliatory comment that she had "always wanted to find out whether that cliché about being 'as fussy as a hen with one chick' really worked". However, the story did not end there - there was plenty more drama to come and a plot twist or two.

Feeding the new babies indoors before reintroducing them to
Mum

On that first day, Mum decided to come off the nest, which is usually a sign that she is done, has hatched all the good eggs and now has to rear those babies and leave the duff eggs behind. Ready or not, those eggs get chilled and die. When you clear the nest they usually prove to be infertile, or part-developed and dead-in-shell, so you find out that she is a good Mum and knows what she is about. This lass, though, is a first time broody, so she came off the nest with her one (we thought) then went back on, and off and on and so on. We just had to wait and watch.

Mid morning, the hen came off properly, fed the one, and went for a sit down elsewhere, so I knew I could clear the nest but wait, another hen had nipped in to lay today's egg, so at least the abandoned eggs would be kept warm. Meanwhile a fully dry, mobile black chick appeared with Mum. It must have been with her all along, but staying hidden under her skirts, perhaps carried between Mum's wing and body. Then there were 2. Eventually, the laying hen finished her task and hopped off the nest, so I was able to clear the old nest. Another surprise was in store.

Mum with 4 of the babies.

When I looked into the nest I could see a fully hatched but still wet baby chick in there and at least 2 more eggs 'pipping' (starting to break open with the baby pecking inside). I decided to gather up all 8 eggs and bring them into the incubator where there was just enough space between the nearly 'cooked' duck eggs. By evening, 2 more had hatched and overnight another bird emerged.

Mum with all 6

We were fairly confident we could introduce these to Mum, giving her a total of 6. Hens do not, in our experience, reject 'foreign' babies in these early days. You would normally sneak them in when it gets dark at roosting time so that Mum would wake up and just take on board that there were a few more mouths at breakfast.

Upside of being woken early by the dogs. This lovely 05:30
sunrise over the East Field.

We went with a slightly earlier (braver?) method. We fed them all indoors that afternoon and found them all to be very quick learners, all happily copying our chop-stick 'pecking' mime at the food. So we went out to the Mum+2, put a plate of food in front of her and our 4 'foreigners' beside her. Like magic, the 4 merged with the 2 and Mum accepted them all seamlessly. We now have a hen-and-six wandering round the yard in the sunshine, and she is mothering them like a pro. Happy days.

Short back and sides? Anything for the weekend, Madam?

On Wednesday, we were back at the sheep shearing, this time, over at Sue and Rob's where Rob was actually in the UK (Mum's 90th!). I knew that if I took my Help-X volunteer, Laura, along we'd be able to give her some real work, not just standing watching the "experts" (ha!) at play. That was exactly what she got - she was as exhausted as the rest of us. There were 4 ewes to shear, those same 4 to be given liver-fluke meds and 6 lambs to ear-tag.

First up was the tagging. I showed Laura how to do the first one but after that I was the only one nimble enough to catch them. I was grabbing them, holding them up for Laura, and she was banging in the ear tags. One for the CV - "I have ear tagged 5 lambs". The shearing went well, too. Laura wound up as chief 'holder', hanging onto the collar and lead that kept each sheep fairly still, whispering 'sweet nothings' into their ears to keep them calm, while I sheared.

I am delighted with this ewe - my 'personal best' ever shearing
job.

I was delighted with one ewe in particular, a 2nd-time sheared Suffolk cross Galway. For some reason her fleece was beautifully clean right down through and she was a big calm lady who stood for the cut as good as gold. The sides came off almost in one piece each and I never needed the trimming 'scissors' (Jakoti hand shears) or nicked her by mistake, even once. I'm calling it a 'personal best'. By comparison the other ewes just got 'normal' treatment and I should confess I made one bleed a little (oops).

Next.....

Sue introduced a bit of mischief into the job by spotting one of the girls with so many squirts of the blue anti-septic spray, she looked like a Dalmatian. Anyone passing their place is going to think I have cut the ewe to ribbons. Sue has told me since, that it was foot-rot spray she was using, so it all washed off or faded in the night, to save my blushes.

Can we go back out now?

What else have we been at? Actually some good honest, Help-X partnered 'garden' tidying. We have cleared through some big nettle patches up what we call the 'Primrose Path', the 'Keet Run' and into the East Field. Sitting here by the Dining Room window I can actually see through into the sheep. Before we did the job, the new nettles almost reached up to the lowest branches of the hawthorn bushes.

Dressed to kill. Laura and the brush cutter

Today we broke out the brush-cutter and did battle with the tall weeds (docks, goat-willow(!), rushes and creeping buttercup) in the area briefly known as my veg' patch. Friends of the Blog will know that I literally "lost the plot" 2 years ago, and then brush cut part of the wilderness and covered it with black plastic last year. This year I am re-attacking the paths and the beds that did not get sheeted over. One of these days I may even plant something in there.

Somewhere out in that wilderness....

The only other 'landmark' worthy of note is that today was the day for the vote on the all-important Constitutional Referendum on the '8th Amendment'; that thorny abortion issue. These referendum votes are only allowed for Irish citizens, so I had to sit this one out, but Elizabeth, of course, went down to tick the box.

Laura joins the ranks of #PigWimmin 

We now have to try to get a night's sleep with only the data from an exit poll at 11:30 pm, as the real count does not start till 09:00 tomorrow morning. The Woman of the House will be glued to that news feed; of that you can be sure. By the time I next write we will all know the result.

Bouncing around like Tigger

Elizabeth heads off to work through the snow.

The plan for this morning was to lead the ewe, Lily, and the surviving lamb out to the front lawn for a look at some first grass, fresh air and exercise. By Day 3 the lamb is bouncing around like Tigger and looking very much like he needs more space than the 20-odd square feet of the hurdle pen. Mum is looking a bit fed up too with this mean old diet of hay and 'crunch' ( a mix of grains etc with a dash of molasses for energy ) even though I have brought in the odd, blown down 'branch' of ivy as greenery.

Please let me out. I want to run around on the grass. 

However, we woke up to a keen, frosty wind, an inch of snow on the grass and more wet snow falling, so the family had to stay indoors today, as they will, in fact, tomorrow with us being involved in a local funeral for most of the day. We will try again on Sunday, praying that the warming-up forecast will come to pass.

Lamb #1 gets some intensive care. 

But "Whoa!", I hear you cry, "Did you say 'surviving' lamb?" Yes, I am afraid I did, dear reader. We have a tragedy to report - one of Lily's twin lambs only just made it through the first 24 hours, fading and dying at around midday on the 2nd day. Readers of the previous post will know that this lamb was born outside - the pictures of her are in that post - and for this reason, and the weather, many have commented that she died of hypothermia (including vet Aoife (rhymes with Deefer)) but I am not so sure.

Last moments for the ewe lamb. 

The story goes something like this. The lamb was born outside onto wet ground in a bitter wind but was efficiently licked clean by Mum and was up and suckling in minutes (no more than 10) . Mum very soon passed the afterbirth so, thinking that this was all, we rescued the ewe and lamb into a shed within an hour of the first ewe being born.

Mum and 'Tigger'. The pen now has extra
draught-proofing. 

This is when the first sign of trouble was seen and both of us were a little concerned for the lamb - I put her down into the pen with Mum but she lay there on her side either shivering or spasm-ing. "That's not good" said Nurse Elizabeth. I picked her up and rubbed and massaged the baby for a while, seeming to help her so that she could stand OK and at that point we went inside for a cup of tea, thinking no more about it.

The 'Easter Island Man' gets a woolly hat.

My previous post shows that the p.m. went fine with the 2nd lamb being born and both then sharing the suckling and seen several times up and about or curled up together as twin lambs will in a 'yin and yang' pair. We all went off to bed thinking all was well and certainly I had no thoughts of the lambs suffering hypothermia.

By morning at first checks, it was clear that all was not well. The ewe lamb was lying flat on her 'tummy' like a frog (which no lamb normally does) and when I tickled her rump she pushed that up in the air with her back legs but her chest and chin stayed put. When I lifted her, her head flopped right round onto her shoulder and she seemed way too floppy, lethargic and sleepy. I started to vigorously massage her to try to get some oomph back into her, and texted Nurse Elizabeth that all was not well.

We took the baby indoors and had a morning of trying everything we knew to warm her plus phoning the vet and Mayo-Liz (our sheep supplier and guru). I whizzed out to buy colostrum formula-powder and a bottle and we tried dribbling some of that across her tongue but she didn't even try to swallow that. Occasionally she would seem to spasm some more, kicking out with all 4 feet as if trying to struggle upright, or she'd bleat loudly and give us a flash of hope. Sadly, these were just spasms and the general direction was downwards. We worked this out at about 11:45 and put her to die in peace, wrapped in a warm coat. She slipped away just after Mid-day. We think she was just not a do-er who probably would have died anyway. It was a sad and crappy day.

Sorry about the dark pic, but it was taken on the pig breeder's
phone. These are the first batch of 'possibly ours' piglets. 

Happily, that was the low point and things have been picking up ever since. The 2nd lamb, the ram, is thriving and risks being named 'Tigger' for his bouncy antics in the pen. In the afternoon of that same day, we received word from our pig breeder that he has started farrowing for this year's piglets, these from his first sow, 'Plum', who had had these three by that point. Since then Plum's sister, Iris has had 10 and 2 other sows in that group have also had 10 each. Lots of choice for mid March when we come to want our class of 2018.

Snowdrops starting to show themselves.

The garden, despite the snow and the sloppy, snow-melt mud, is showing good signs of spring. Daffs, tulips, snowdrops and Muscari are all bursting out of the ground and starting to bud up. Liz is back on the Drama Club rehearsals trail, with the usual Easter weekend (end of March) deadline looming.

10,000 Tweets. 

In the week, I saw that I have now passed the 10,000 tweets milestone on my Twitter account. I am not sure whether this is proof that I am officially become a boring old fart or whether it just means that I ought no longer to reply when asked about this social media that "Ah yeah, Twitter.... I don't really get on there much....". Truth is, I think, that I might be 'done' with my Facebook phase.

If your filing is getting a bit behind and the pending file getting
a bit thick, a cat will weigh it down nicely and it will not look
so neglected. 

FB is OK for proudly putting up a picture of your latest good news (lambs born, piglets bought, foods cooked, etc) and getting a load of old mates 'liking' it but it is not any place for interesting discussions. I think I am losing the love for it and moving on to Twitter just as many friends are moving on from Twitter to the newer, smart-phone-friendly systems like 'Instagram' where I have not yet been. Also not likely to while I am working on an old PC, rather than a smart phone.

One of the cats adds a final touch to this tray of chocolate
fudge brownies by walking across it. Thanks cat!

That, I think, is about the lot for this one. I will just close with a couple more pictures because (as usual), I have them.

May not have needed this many logs.

Bye now.