The Three Amigos

The 3 Amigos. Top to bottom, Billie-no-Mates, Little Orphan
Annie and Beeblebrox

I find chickens a constant source of amusement. I could watch them for hours. What fascinates me most is their very different personalities and how the dynamics between them work. Who is the boss and does he have any challengers? How many hens does each rooster 'mind' and how loyal are they to their man? Are they serene, calm and 'decent' to one another or are some a little bit mean and spiteful? Are they fully hand-tame or quite skittish and nervous? How are the youngsters trying to integrate with the main flock? How do they react to the dog(s) or fox? Are any self-proclaimed guard-dogs?

I may be getting my sense of humour back!

Recently I have been able to watch as the group dynamic all re-adjusts following the removal of several key players by the fox. This included the #2 rooster (Corporal), the male "black-baby" (Araucana) and the mother rearing the 4 newest chicks, plus 3 of the chicks. This event left us with three lonely females who have since coalesced, rather nicely, into a tight little gang whom I call "The Three Amigos". These are, in no particular order:-

• The female Araucana who lost her brother/main man. These guys had that Araucana "top knot" of feathers on their heads so looked like they had two heads and were named "Zaphod (and) Beeblebrox" after the character in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. She is Beeblebrox.
• The abandoned poult from down the lane, left behind when the fox took all of our friends' birds except this one. Billie-no-Mates is on long loan to us while our chum decides whether to go back into chickens.
• Little Orphan Annie, the one young Buff-Orp not eaten by our fox when he took her Mum and 3 siblings. 

The Three Amigos spend most of their time together but not with the rest of the flock, but are loosely affiliated to our old original #1 Buff Orp rooster, the Lieutenant Colonel.

Meanwhile, our Christmas progresses and we have the tree up, lit and 'decked'. It turned out to be a good one. I had been worried that a lot of the foliage on one side arose from a single branch growing from so low down the stem that, to get it into my stand, I would need to cut this branch off leaving a well-stood but lopsided tree. We worked it by cutting tight into the bottom of the joint so that the stand would go on and the branch stay attached. We have it in a new position this year as the old slot is now taken by the reclining settee.

We spent a happy hour decorating it while the 'kattens' ran around like children given a new climbing frame and toy. Is this ALL for US? You are SO KIND! Luckily, after an initial flurry of fun, patting low-hanging baubles till they fell of and skittered across the ground, the pair have become bored with this toy and moved on. We made sure to only hang the cheap simple silver balls down there. The more expensive, more unusual decs and those with good memories and stories attached (We bought this in New Orleans or 'Do you remember our friend x gave us this one?).

"We got this in New Orleans!" (see text)

The tree-dec thing is one of our family traditions - anyone who stays to visit at Christmas is bullied into buying a dec for our tree (and they, of course, get one back for theirs).

Lidl's rather good Glühwein

We have started a new 'family tradition' this year, teed off by our visitors Dan and Dan (see earlier post). Dan (the Man) spent a lot of his growing-up time living in Germany, so is quite fond of that German speciality, warmed mulled wine or "Glühwein". Dan told us that the pre-mix currently being traded by Lidl is a rather good one and to prove it, he turned up with a bottle and had us warm it up and try it. We have since bought a couple as part of the weekly shop, so we had one on the shelf as we finished the tree and decided that it would be a very pleasant way of celebrating the tree-wrangling. It was indeed. It is beginning to taste a lot like Christmas.

Up till today, we have had a very nice
rainless and almost windless December

I was amused enough by 2 things this morning to have remembered them long enough to include them here. The first came on the radio when the announcer, interviewing a sports pundit, spoke of a vox-pop competition for the "Best Sporting Moment" of 2016. I'd forgotten all about this but the winning 'moment' involved two Irish rowers (Gary and Paul O'Donovan) from Skibereen competing at the Olympics in Rio. The Irish entry into the Olympics got quickly mired in bad news, controversy and alleged criminal conspiracies - the boxers all under-performed disastrously, there were failed drug tests which got certain big names sent home in disgrace and one of the Team Managers got embroiled in a ticket sales ring.

Blue. You have a good Christmas... or else!

Then, under the 'radar' and emerging from all this, two unknown Irish lads in a "mens' lightweight coxless scull" who no-one had paid any attention to before, started winning.

Even better, when interviewed, they proved to be so down to earth and lacking in airs, graces and sports celeb' nonsense that the journalists  had a field day with their 'blokish' sound-bites and we all fell in love with them. When asked about special diets to maintain fitness they said that as they were in Rio "you could have steak and spuds for breakfast lunch and dinner if you like" and when asked about their strategy for victory, Paul said ""It isn't too complex really, A to B as fast as you can go and hope for the best. Close the eyes and pull like a dog." 'Steak and Spuds' and the 'pull like a dog' quickly became the tee-shirt slogans.

Finally, we were both delighted and amazed to find that the Irish had a word all along for that thing where you have put down the object and you know it is safe but you can't remember where. In our family it was always "It's just on the surface somewhere". My British readers should pronounce it, approximately as "Kyle tash-ka" for that authentic Gaelic effect.

Cody's 'Op'

William's spurs

I start with a quick word of warning. This post contains a rather graphic image of a veterinary operation on a horse. If you do not like that sort of thing, then click on by and don't scroll down.

First, though, a tough decision we had to make yesterday. Our two roosters had not, as we thought, settled their differences after all the fighting and were continuing to scrap. The Buff Orpington rooster, 'Sir Bufton' was winning all these battles but seemed to want the vanquished William not only off the top spot, but also off the battle field and out of sight. He was giving William no peace. It became obvious that we needed to intervene and remove one of these boys and another factor was also weighing against the relegated William. He had inch and a half long sharp spurs on his feet which were doing quite a lot of damage to any hen he tried to 'tread', particularly to the wider bodied ladies. They were bald of feathers all across the 'saddle' and some had more-than-skin-deep slashes down their thighs. There is a way of trimming spurs, sanding them down and cauterizing them but William's seemed to have the blood filled vein going right to the point. To cut a long story short we decided to cull out William and to go with the Buff Orpington rooster. It was a shame; he's been a good lad and an effective marshaller and protector of the girls. We will miss the old boy.

Blissfully ignorant of what's about to happen.

But today was mainly about the mini-horse. 'Cody' who was scheduled in for his gelding operation. This, nowadays, is a very quick operation done at the owners property and under sedation rather than full anaesthetic. It is a whole lot less risky for the horse than earlier methods. Basically the horse is knocked down by shots of the powerful sedative and, once lying on his side his upper hind leg is tied forward to expose the necessary bits.

With Cody immobilised, Aoife (Vet) moves in for the 'kill'

The vet makes a couple of incisions to get at the testicles, pops them out like buttons through a button hole, and then uses a fancy powerful clamp to scrunch through the blood vessels and connecting tubes, effectively sealing them off while they heal and seal over. It's all over in about 20 minutes. The horse is now recovering from the sedative. The wound is cleaned but left open so that it heals from inside outwards, and there is no risk of the scrotum filling with infection fluids. The horse gets a big old dose of anti inflammatory, anti biotic and anti-tetanus, the ropes are released and the horse quickly gets back onto his feet, all be it rather groggily.

The clamp in position after one 'side' is done.

Cody is a resilient strong boy, famous for being able to take a good amount of sedative and also not being a great fan of being injected, so we actually took more time to get him down onto the lawn grass than it took to operate on him. We had to stand quiet and let his head sag - if we fidgeted or did anything to excite him he would surely stay awake and fight sleep like a small boy at bed time, but we got there in the end. This was all fascinating for Liz and I who have had nothing to do with horses in our former lives and had never seen this operation take place. Liz took the pictures - my job was to hold onto that 'hog-tied' back leg. Cody was only sedated and could obviously feel some of the cuts and was trying to kick out in his drowsy semi-conscious state.

Back on his feet though leaning on Charlotte for support.

Well, he's all done now and, no doubt a bit sore for a while, is back on his feet and liberally sprayed with silver-spray around his nethers. He has to take it easy for a week in his 'Recovery Room' with its nice clean straw bed and should then experience a running down of his testosterone-charged 'Stallion-ness' over the next 6 months or so. He can go back with his two former chums, Bob and Romeo (already gelded) and should cause fewer problems trying to escape to be with mares. His breeding days are over but there is no market in Ireland at present for horses, so it's better that way.

Knackerbocker Glory?

When we go a-visiting these days Liz will quite often bake a cake, but what kind of cake is appropriate to go with the gelding of a horse? Liz put this to her (self proclaimed) "Internet Weirdo" chums on one of her discussion groups and they went into quite a canter inventing something called 'Knackerbocker Glory' and suggesting all manner of ingredients which were to do with the parts of the horse involved ( e.g. Ginger "nuts") and possible 'wet' ingredients which might be relevant - raspberry sauce to suggest blood, cream etc; I don't think I need go into detail here. Pictured is the result, a lovely cold trifle based around ice cream and half peaches. The lychees in Plan A were not available in the local shops.

A basket of mischief. 

Meanwhile with the weather now nice and warm and the Hubbard chicks more feathered by the day, we have been leaving them outside in a rabbit run right round till evening and tonight we decided to risk leaving them out for the night. They are in the nice warm, hay lined, draught free 'bedroom' section of one of our rabbit runs and I have created a pop-hole door to keep out the night air. The gang should be as warm as toast in their little huddle in there.

Finally on geese, I posted earlier that I could have sworn that I heard the thin piping "week week" noises of goslings hiding under Black Feather's skirts. We have neither of us heard anything since and I must have been 'hearing things' (too eager?) because tonight I happened to catch the girl in one of her moves where she stands up among the eggs and shuffles the eggs around her feet with her beak, presumably moving edge eggs to centre and vice versa. I got a clear view of the eggs and can definitely report that eggs is what they were, not a fluffy gosling in sight. It's day 35 now but Anne tells me not to worry. Geese are notoriously variable and we need to sit tight and be patient for a while yet. She has even had Muscovy ducks hatching on day 47, way way later than the books would advise you. Patience is the thing.

Of Fickle Men and Champagne

Our rooster, William the Conqueror has fallen head over heels in love with the new Marans girls and pretty much abandoned his former regular 'girl-fiends', the Sussex Ponte 'Lovely Girls'. He spends all day with the Marans showing them where to scratch, dust-bathing with them and following them or leading them about. He tries to chat them up into going 'back to my place' in the evening but he has not yet cracked that one and by about 7:30 pm he gives up and goes 'indoors' leaving them to their final hour of wandering till they eventually go to roost in their own house (the former goose-box).

We think he must then dream about them all night and can't wait to find them again in the morning. As I open the pop-hole, he's right there inside and shoots out like an Exocet missile, runs up the cattle race and starts strutting about and crowing near the goose box. As I open the goose box pop-hole, and the Marans wander out to greet the day he sprints over and generally 'nails' one of them within feet of the pop hole. He seems very happy and doesn't appear to give a fig at the 'hard-to-get' antics or down-right vamping by the Lovely Girls trying to get him back. We have to admit to a rather shameful sympathy with him there - we are completely impressed by these Marans who lay one egg each EVERY day, so more eggs, in fact. than all the lovely girls between them (who often score zero, or one; all be it, Broody Betty is currently on broody leave).

The LGs are, you will recall, very sporadic at present; they miss too many days, or lay from height (Lucy Long-Drop), or they lay eggs with only part of the shell, or they lay among the nettles in the woods. They are, in short a frustrating pain in the butt and if you asked us now we would describe them as rubbish 'layers'. Mentor Anne tells us that as 'hatchery hybrids' the Sussex Ponte is designed to lay around 300 eggs a year but under indoor hatchery conditions where everything is controlled - day length, light levels, humidity and definitely nutrition. Furthermore they'd be bred to perform for about 18 months at peak lay before being culled out, exhausted in commercial egg-laying terms. Here they are out in all weathers and real day lengths and eating all manner of protein in scratch in the fields, sometimes ignoring the feed we give them, certainly being choosy and picky around the 'layers pellets' even though these are now Pedigree Foods's finest organic. So, realistically, when the 'Young Ones' (the "8-ball" as they are now known) come of age and decide to be females, they may replace some of the Lovely Girls in our laying flock. We will probably not do Sussex Pontes again and I'd do my best to dissuade anyone who suggested they might. If young Pontes in their prime can be out-layed under a free-range system by 5 year old Marans, then pure-bred are the girls for me and we hope that the Jersey Giants and Buff Orpingtons in the 8-ball don't let us down.

As we come into July, the elder trees in our hedges are all coming into full blossom and with the sun shining warmly our thoughts turned to elder-flower cordial and elder-flower champagne. Liz made the cordial last year and we loved it. As well as using it as cordial you can freeze it in plastic milk bottles for later use and/or freeze it in ice cube trays to be dropped into a glass of chilled sparkling water. The champagne we have enjoyed at Anne's place and we know it is also made by Carolyn so while I went and collected a bag full of 'fully open' flower heads Liz surfed up a recipe and dug out the wine making gear to give it a good sloosh out with Milton's fluid.

Both these recipes use just the flowers, water and juice and zest of lemons (Liz threw a lime in too as we had one) as well as sugar. The advice is that the champagne would get going on the naturally occurring yeasts in the flowers but you can supplement with bakers yeast if it is a bit slow to get going. You can either use swing-lid 'Grolsch' style bottles, or even plastic fizzy drink bottles though you are advised to release the pressure a few times during the in-bottle ferment as it can all get a bit lively otherwise.

In the sunshine too, I decided to have a little tinker with hay making. We have grass, sunshine and breeze, and the local merchants are still out of hay following the spring fodder crisis, so I am very low on bedding for baby rabbits and for layers nest boxes. I scythed down a load of grass and spread it thinly over a couple of my chicken-wire rabbit-run panels  which I leant up at 45 degrees on the orchard fence. It was drying quite well but then, wouldn't you know it? lashed down with rain all night. That's great for the water-butts, but not ideal for the hay making. Never mind. If it gets ruined I have plenty more grass and there will be many more sunny days - next week is forecast to be a hot one.

In the rabbit department, Ginny's and Padfoot's little gangs of babies are now a month old and almost permanently out of the boxes and eating the grass in the runs, so we assume they are nearly weaned. We have not seen any nursing lately. This means it is time for a nice job - that of getting the babies used to handling. If we are to sell any of these as pet rabbits then they need to meet the customers as calm, friendly, cuddly bunnies, not wriggling terrified scaredy-cats, so the plan is to go and handle as many of them as you can catch each day.

There are currently 12 babies to do this to, 7 with Ginny and 5 with Padfoot. Goldie has another 7 on line but they are a bit young yet at under 3 weeks and not out on the grass yet. I seem to be over run in Facebook by friends who are volunteering to come here and hug a bunny!

Meanwhile, finally some good news on the red algal bloom in the big pond. It seems to be dropping out at last, the water clearing so that we can now see the planters on the bottom. The algae themselves seem to fall like dust onto the rubber liner and then are rippled up like a miniature version of beach-sand ripples into rice-grain sized ridges, presumably by the wave action in the pond. Fascinating.