Maternity Mayhem

A first tiny turkey emerges.

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

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

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

2 turkeys now for the 2 Mums

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

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

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

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

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

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

Swarm lure box gets some interest.

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

Hum Drum

It's a bit of a 'same old same old' week this week, finishing up on a drizzly Sunday where all of us are now sitting indoors at midday, all dogs snoozing, cats asleep in various beds, Mum still in the dressing gown playing on the computer, Dad resting in the easy chair. It might be a good opportunity to describe a typical day here on the 'farm'.

Nobody uses the alarm clock any more, except on special occasions, so we now wake up (That's Dad and I) at about 0730 as the day starts to brighten. We head downstairs, where pups and kittens now have free run of the kitchen and dining room with a mission to unlock the back door and get everyone out into the yard before anyone does their 'I've just woken up' wee or poo. We leave the back door open but the kitchen door shut so everyone stays out for a few minutes. Dad chases round the various livestock releasing and feeding chickens, and throwing a handful of 'meusli' to the rabbits and a handful of 'nuts' in each of three buckets for the sheep. By then the kindergarten have all done the first 'business' and they (and I) all get breakfast. Dad takes the chance while 5 noses are focused on 5 food bowls, to clear up any overnight presents in the dining room etc, but there are very few these days as the kindergarten are all approaching 5 months old.

Then we take a cup of tea up to Mum and open her door so that she can been invaded by lots of excited, well breakfasted, wide awake animals, which she loves, of course! Soon she's been woken up enough to come down and have breakfast and start the day. For Mum, work is now all the domestic goddess-ing you'd expect plus , food shopping and lately a battle with the hedge between the front lawn and the 'Primrose Path'. For Dad it is what ever's come up next in the allotment gardening, path-laying or chain-sawing depts, or a chunk more digging of the enormous pond. In between this the sheep now get an hour's 'out' morning and afternoon, grazing the front lawn and browsing bramble leaves, ivy and herbs in the woods.

There's a break for a lunchtime sandwich of soup around 1 p.m. and around 5 p.m. Dad lights the range. Supper is around half 6 after which, recently, we've been enjoying quiet evenings in watching our way through our boxed set of the US political TV show "West Wing". Interspersed between all this is also some playing on the internet, Facebook, chat forums on poultry, emails and blogging, for example on the Cambria barge blog.

It's all very relaxing and settled after the hectic hard work of the house build.
We love it.
Deefer

Kindergarten at 3 Months.

On 3rd September the pups and kittens all make it to 3 months so this is an un-ashamed excuse to publish a few cute pup and kitten pictures. I can also include Buck Rogers in this group as he is nearly as young. He is developing bizarre tufts of fur on his cheeks and his head. We have heard of a type of rabbit called a 'lion' variety, so we wonder whether this is maybe what that is all about. Buck is a bit small yet to be looking after his ladies, so Dad is taking Anne and Simon up on an offer to allow their bigger, meat-breed buck, Peter to do the deed first time round. Peter is a Californian White, a breed commonly used in rabbits-for-meat enterprises.


Also 'we' successfully fledged a family of three baby swallows from the nest in the Tígín. They flew around an returned a couple of nights but now seem to have left the nest for good and may be among the birds wheeling around and gathering in our telegraph wires preparatory to the long migration to Africa.

In the two pup pictures, Poppy has the sticky-up ears, Towser's are still a bit floppy. Nobody minds this. They may stand up eventually (His Father's (Maxwell's) apparently took and age) but Dad thinks he looks quite cute anyway and we can easily tell the bu**ers apart, anyway! Mrs Silverwood is rather meanly calling them Poppy and "Floppy" on Facebook. Poor devil will probably end up with a complex.

The tabby kitten, Blue has grown some rather fetching ear tufts and has in the past also had nice long whiskers but these are currently a bit short due, we think, to his keenness to get onto the dining table and wander close to the candles. This is a battle Mum and Dad are determined to win (they won eventually with a previous cat 'Utsire'). He climbs onto the table and is ejected by the scruff. He climbs back on and gets ejected again. After a couple more warnings he is scruffed into the living room and gets to spend the meal behind that closed door. He'll learn. In the lower picture he fails to notice that a robin has landed on the wall beside him. Dad only sees this as it flies off but it's there in the shot when we go back to look.

Next up is the tortoiseshell kitten Rolo who may not have the fancy ear tufts of his brother but at least he has intact whiskers. And finally let us not forget William the Conqueror, now a magnificent, manly, brave and fearless Rooster with the start of a tail. When he arrived he was fresh out of a large pen in which he lived with 150 'hins' all of whom must have been taking a peck out of his tail as he passed. No respect some hens. He had a rather sore, pink parsons nose from which sprouted two broken feather bases sticking straight up. Now he is a bit meaner and ruffty tuffty and doesn't take any such nonsense from his new ladies, it has started to grow back in a gorgeous iridescent dark green, almost black. It is about 3 inches long now but should form a proud arching 'rooster tail' like on the Cornflakes packet. He hopes. He is doing a good job now marshaling and protecting his ladies and utters low growls at any threat and charges with ruff expanded, chest spread and wings out to make him look as big as possible. He even tries it on Dad but kinda goes off the idea as Dad looks him in the eye!

Strength to Strength

Another of my 'catch-up' posts which rambles around a few subjects never really knowing where it is going to alight next. The kindergarten go from strength to strength as well as increasing in size so that the pups are starting to look like young dogs rather than  puppies. They also discover the delights of rolling in 'muck' and are continuously exploring new bits of garden, so return covered, for example, with goose-grass seeds from the woods. Both can now happily sprint upstairs and get down again safely, un-aided. The kittens look more like young cats now and they too are expanding their boundaries. They find they can climb quite high into the spruce trees. The bark is nicely rough and grippy and the branches wide and horizontal for a goodly length away from the trunk. The picture shows the pair (in red circle). You can imagine Mum was getting a bit anxious! The four-man pic is a try at getting all 4 faces into one shot, with Aoife (Rhymes with Deefer) the Vet, grappling 2 puppies as a favour after she'd injected all 4 animals with their first or 2nd shots.

A ridiculous amount of rain falls over Sunday night; it keeps us awake with its 'roar' on the roof and its hammering against the windows. It falls onto already very wet ground and Dad is horrified to find that his drainage moats round 4 of the 7 new fruit trees are brim-full with water, the poor trees sitting glumly in a mini lake. Dad quickly digs slit trenches out from each moat downhill to allow the moats to drain. This is a worry.

On the Monday is Mum's birthday. She has a lovely quiet 'private' kind of a one in which Dad gets to do all the fussing around, shopping and cooking and Mum gets a good rest. Dad has managed to find a white Hydrangea which Mum has been after for a while, plus a couple of other bits. She is particularly delighted with these pink 'Hunter' wellies sent by Diamond and wears them all of Tuesday and threatens to wear them to bed too. We think they are really cool!

With most of the garden now pretty much under control (at least scythed and mowed) Mum and Dad  turn their attention to the possibility of doing a pond in the bit formerly known as "The bit we don't talk about". Already known to be a bit boggy (hence the not talking about it- it was a mess of rushes) and in a slight saucer collecting the run off from the car port this area will be the same 'geology' as the rest, ie a foot or so of top soil lying over good old yellow Roscommon clay with rocks in it. There is space here, unlike in Faversham to create a tidy sized pond - maybe upwards of 20' by 10' (all be it they will have to dig it by hand!). We hope that the clay will allow us to make it waterproof by puddling the bottom and smearing the puddle stuff up the sides to ground level, across the topsoil to stop the sides leaking. Mum and Dad tentatively mark out a likely position, size and shape using a long electrical flex and then white emulsion paint on the grass. Today they had a bit of a poke about at one edge with the pointy shovel to try to establish the depth of topsoil and to confirm that the clay might be 'puddle-able' and could be made waterproof. There has even been chat on the internet poultry website about a few ducks, possibly even the multi-coloured 'Mandarin' ducks, but don't hold your breath for those just yet.

Finally, today, the talk of breeding rabbits has to include the construction of some private 'nursery' hutches in which the lady rabbits can spend their 'confinement' while they 'kindle' (produce their 'kittens'). Dad decides to do this in the calf house using the existing structure of the mangers which you may recall from when we first had chickens and they used to roost there. He does this using left over tongue-and-groove board from the hot press door project, waste span planks from Sparks's attic conversion and spare plywood left from building the log store. Reduce, Re-use, Recycle. Organic, Sustainable Anne and Simon would be proud of us!

The Deefs

Irish Reg' for the 2CV

A landmark moment arrives as Dad finally gets hold of his Irish registration plates for the 2CV. Known as "Clara Bow" because of her C692BOW UK reg, we are not quite sure what to call her now! Dad picks up the plates as he is at our very helpful local garage in Ballaghaderreen and our friendly lady there, Helene enquires how it's all going. Dad tells her he is having the divvil and all job getting hold of a replacement windscreen from the UK due to our good friend 2CV Llew's fairly relaxed approach to getting the one he has onto a courier. Helene suggests she look locally on websites and through suppliers she knows, and (ta daaaa!) finds one (allegedly) available at a place called Sligo Windscreens. The garage will let Dad know the price, get hold of it, fit it, sort the ignition (Clara does not idle very well at present) and an indicator-repeater bulb and pre-NCT it for us. We might actually get her on the road! Dad celebrates by firing her up and taking her for a spin around the west field!

Meanwhile here is a nice picture of the Kindergarten, just because we have taken one. Left to right at nearly 3 months, are Poppy, Towser, Blue and Rolo.

Kindergarten

The kindergarten grows from strength to strength. The pup, Towser, at 10 weeks has almost doubled in weight from his 7 week old arrival weight (1.2 kgs) to 2.2 kg now. The kittens, Blue and Rolo are now 1.2 kgs up from 700g or so and all have come on in leaps and bounds (literally) in terms of their mobility, stairs-climbing ability and pushing back the boundaries of the territory they explore when allowed out. The three of them all play well together, all be it, Towser sometimes gets a bit rough with Rolo, who seems to be his 'best mate'. I am slotting into 'Aunt' role very well, much to everyone's delight and while I never let anyone get tooooooo close (this first picture is a bit of a lie - Towser was in the bed first and this is me trying to 'cuckoo's nest' him out; I would never let him join me in bed if I was already in it!) I do tend and mind them all and occasionally let a bit of scampering play happen, especially if I can cuff the pup and bowl him ovber occasionally. This is just to show him I'm still bigger than he is.

Towser gets into a few scrapes like in the 2nd pic, where he was 'busted' by Dad breaking into the chicken run through a narrow gap under the door. Rolo nails his first shrew out in the yard and then runs around with it in his mouth growling very professionally at all comers including me, who wanted to get a look in. The three of them frequently accompany us out as far as the rabbit run now and here are some pics of various babies meeting Ginny and Padfoot. The buck rabbit 'Rogers' is still with us but manages to stay out of most of these pictures, leaving the camera time to his ladies.

They are all also generally on hand to assist with gardening jobs. We have a heap of soil in the bit of garden still called "The Bit We Don't Talk About" into which is mixed a decent supply of coal and anthracite after the mini digger driver scraped up a load of topsoil when clearing brambles and unknown to him, a rotten pallet of coal bags buried in the grass. This fuel is still useful so Mum and Dad decided to dig through the heap and liberate any useful sized coal lumps and anthracite 'nuts'. Towser decided to help and is pictured here in the bucket Mum was using to gather coal.

Finally just a few pics of babies because they are cute and fun. Enjoy!