The 8-Ball

Sussex Ponte young rooster

Cast your mind back, if you would, to my post of 28th April this year (http://deefer-dawg.blogspot.ie/2013/04/of-hatching-chicks-and-flying-geese.html) and those little multi-coloured fluffy chicks hatched out under Broody Betty on her first sitting of the year. Those little mites are 'all growed up' now and most of them are bigger than the existing hens including BB herself. They are 16 weeks old now and approaching that significant poultry keeper's milestone 'Point of Lay'. Here even the ones which are very difficult to sex like the white Silkies we had back in Kent, and the black Jersey Giants we have here now, should either lay an egg or shout "Cock-a-Doodle-Dooo!" and give the game away.

La Bresse cross with a Buff Orp (head obscured)

There are 8 of them all still surviving and they have formed a tight-knit group who range around the 'farm' quite independently of the 'grown ups', always together. We call them "The 8-Ball" because they remind us of a group of golfers wandering round a golf course bantering with each other about who is playing with Top Flite balls because there's one here in the rough, who's sneaked onto the green, who's just played a blinding wood shot and inventing spurious scores to "card" (a well known 'verb' known only to golfers and sports commentators).

Jersey Giant (black) and Mini-Buff

The 8-Ball were hatched from eggs which came 5 from our own (Sussex Ponte) birds and 7 as a generous donation from Mentor Anne and Simon; a mixed bag of the main breeds they stock - Buff Orpingtons, Jersey Giants and a La Bresse cross. As luck would have it, only one of our 5 eggs hatched but all 7 of Anne's managed to. The 8-Ball now comprises one SP, 2 Buffs, 2 JGs, a La Bresse cross and 2 of a cross between Buffs and something smaller and possibly bantamised; these two are way smaller than their siblings and a lovely dark golden colour - we call them the 'Mini-Buffs'.

Buffs, the Sussex rooster and the La Bresse cross

As I said, some chicken varieties are hard to sex till they are at point of lay. Anne and Simon who are way more expert than us are not even prepared to take a punt on the Jerseys. Others start to show shape differences much sooner, so that we have known that the Sussex was a boy for weeks - bigger legs and feet, sticky-up tails, more developed wattle and combs and so on. They also seem to start behaving like roosters or being treated like hens by our existing rooster, William. He tries to mount them and we say "Ah ha! She might be a girl then!" Two of the youngsters start squaring up to one another as if to fight, and we suspect they are boys (though Simon tells us that sometimes 2 hens will do this as part of the pecking order process).

The 8 Ball gather round (and on) the keyhole bed.

Taking all this into account we think we have a male SP and a male La Bresse. We think the big pale pure Buffs are one of each. Both the mini-buffs may be hens and we have no idea on the Jerseys. I do not need to tell you that this can be bad new for the boys. You can only have one rooster in this set up and William the Conqueror is filling that slot, though the main rooster can tolerate and become quite matey with a 'buddy'. We quite fancy starting a Buff Orpington group, so we are hoping that William will get on with the Buff we think is a male. All the other boys may have shorter careers, possibly in the catering line. All the girls we hope will join our laying flock.

In other news we have been out this evening observing the Perseids Meteor shower. It was, to start with, a gorgeously clear night of the sort we have only ever experienced in Ireland, clear skies and no light pollution. There was a small amount of cloud low down on the NE horizon, just where we were expecting the Perseus constellation to rise. Liz was on an ironing marathon today and still going strong at 11 pm, so I went out to see what I could see. I took the bat-detector with me and very quickly started to hear the patter and squelch of either lots of bats or one bat lots of times. This was at 45-50 MHz, so we guess pipistrelle.

Sure enough, I saw a quick burst of 6 meteor streaks tracking from North across the Great Bear. Brilliant exciting stuff and I was keen to get Liz out there too, so that she could see some. When a hazy cloud came across from the west I feared she might miss the show, so I interrupted the ironing and called her out but sadly, too late - that was it. The bats kept whizzing around, one so close to my face I could feel the draught from his wingtips, but the haze grew thicker and we saw no more meteors. At 11:45 we called it a night and Liz came in to finish the ironing. There's dedication! Never mind, the Perseids are 'on' for a few days yet and we might get another clear sky tomorrow or the next day.

A Nip in the Air

Although we are still in August, after the heatwaves of July, we are feeling a definite autumn chill in the air, particularly after about 20:30. We have been lighting the range some evenings to retain the coziness indoors. My thoughts inevitably start to turn to autumn jobs like stocking up the wood store ready for winter as well as the need to 'finish' some of the livestock.

Patience for the moment though; we are still in summer and we have not yet got through our burst of visits - we are still due, possibly, one from the Sparks and the Dublin crew and, more definitely, one from the Kent 'lot', Mazy, Diamond and John. I am also due a quick trip over to the UK in early September. We will worry about autumn jobs after that. The Hubbard chicks, seen here doing a fine impression of "dunhill chickens" will be around even longer, not due to make their 84 days to target weight till late in October.

The 2CV has had something of a reprieve; we have decided to spend some money and keep her on the road, if we can. She has been into the garage getting her corrosion and bodywork issues sorted and the electrics/lights fixed. Aaron at the garage also tried to fix the emissions but in turning down the carbon monoxide to the ridiculously low level of 0.03 % by volume (which is a pass), managed to rocket the hydrocarbons up to 1500 ppm (which isn't!). That used up my re-test "wriggle room" but at least we know that this is all that is wrong with the car and how to fix it. We need a Solex carb service kit at £29 or so which includes the long tapered needle-valve required to allow fine tuning of gas mixtures. Unfortunately I have to then re-submit the car for the full test, which means they could find something else, but we feel like we are getting there.

I have created the sheep feeding trough pictured out of the planks salvaged from the old TK-Min kitchen internal door. This door spent some time as chicken house door before being retired when K-Dub renewed all our outbuilding doors. Recycling to a band playing! This wood gets several jobs before finally going into the range to make heat.

I believe I have missed mention of another visit which happened before the Silverwoods, this one from a very long time friend of mine, Anna P from Sardinia. I have known Anna since college days, when she was the penfriend of a cousin of mine who found herself living in the same city as I was for a while, Cambridge. She is a linguist and language teacher, I was doing some research sponsored by the then MAFF (now DEFRA). Her work and language skills take her all round the world. She has spent time teaching in China (she speaks Mandarin) and Russia but now lives in Malta where she teaches Italian. She has made friends all over the place (including me, of course) and often jets around catching up with them. This trip was to an Athlone-based friend, Neil, and brought her to within an hour of us, so she phoned me and we invited them up to eat. She had a good look round and saw all the animals including the mini-horses on their final day.

It occurred to me that we had not recently posted a picture of the two of us, so here are Liz, myself and Julie B taken by Dave B at our picnic in Kinvarra harbour. There you are - curiosity satisfied?

The Green and Red of Mayo.

Oh the Green and Red of Mayo
I can see it still
Its soft and craggy bog-land
Its tall majestic hills
Where the ocean kisses Ireland
And the waves caress its shore
Oh the feeling it came over me
To stay forever more
Forever more

The lyrics there from one of our favourite songs by local boys, The Sawdoctors, "The Green and Red of Mayo" to celebrate the fact that our lambs are all from Irishtown County Mayo and therefore entitled, (Nay! Expected! Compelled!) to support Co. Mayo in the 2013 All Ireland GAA football competition. This is the nearest Ireland comes to an FA cup final, although half the country would say that actually the GAA All Ireland 'Hurling' competition is WAY more important. As well as being split into counties, Ireland seems to be split into hurling supporters and Gaelic football supporters and ne'er the twain shall meet. In the football side, Mayo are doing rather well, having creamed the defending 2012 champs, Co. Donegal a couple of weekends ago in the quarter finals, to make the final four.

However, readers who really know me will be smiling that I am even trying to write about sport when what I know about UK football after 56 years could be easily written on the back of a postage stamp. Once when Liz was extolling the virtues of Ryan Giggs, I said "If he's THAT good, why doesn't he play for England, then?" (It's because he's Welsh, apparently!). However, the locals round here LOVE their footie and hurling and flying your county flag is a big thing. Ours is the Roscommon flag, Blue and Yellow, but the 'Rossies' get knocked out in the early stages and most people have taken down their Roscommon flags. Mayo is now the thing and the roads are bright with green and red flags, bunting and even big elabourate windmill things with green and red 'sails'. We thought it would be a bit of fun to let our Mayo-born lambs join in the display.

We bid a fond farewell today to our visitors this week, Dave and Julie B, friends from Kent and my old barge-related life. We've had a real blast with them and they have been superb, ideal guests. They seemed to quite fall in love with the place and enjoyed the house, the 'farm', the livestock, the pets, our hospitality and the area. Julie was particularly taken with the pups and (eventually, when she deigned to approach Julie for a fuss), Deefer. Dave is more of a cat-man and made a great fuss of Blue, but also had a soft spot for our silly, one-ear-up-one-ear-down bunny in Padfoot's litter.

We've had some excellent times together and we are now sad to see them go as we dropped them to Knock Airport for their 3 pm flight home. I have since had a text from Dave saying they are safe as far as the M23 and thanking us for it all. Not a bother, Dave and Julie, it was lovely having you and you are welcome back when ever you like. I will be catching up with them soon when I visit UK and stay on board SB Cambria in Saint Katharine Docks as part of the Classic Boats Festival.

We counted the dogs, cats and rabbits after they had gone to make sure none had been smuggled out. We know what these Westie fans are like!

More Hosting, Less Posting

It's been a bit quiet round this blog lately on account of real life impacting upon my cyber-existence (I know! How dare it? The Nerve!). Hot on the heels of our visit from the Silverwoods and the swap out of ducklings for baby chickens under 'Old Mother Hubbard', comes a week long stay by 2 very good friends from my Kent days and the Thames Sailing Barge world, Dave and Julie B. For these guys a first visit to Ireland so we were keen to 'do it right' and being also mad keen fans of all things traditional-sailing-work-boat we knew we could score some strong brownie points by taking them to Kinvarra to see the Galway Hookers. We made a good day of it too, coming home by our favourite Scenic Route, nipping through Galway and Spiddle but then up through Connemara via Casla, the 'other' Kinvarra, Maam Cross, Maum, Lough Corrib and Cong. It never disappoints and yesterday in the patchy sunshine it was bright with the orange Montbretias, meadowsweet and purple "wild" fuchsias growing in the verges and hedgerows. The mountains did their lovely colour-changing thing as the fluffy cumulus clouds blew through and the rangey, leggy, be-horned mountainy sheep were on hand to populate some lovely photo-opportunities.

The tide was only just starting to come in at Kinvarra so there was no hooker-sailing activity but the sun was warm and Liz laid on a gorgeous picnic on the harbour grass. This week high tides were at 0600 and 1800, so not a lot of use, but we were joking with Dave that if he comes back next year we'll consult the tide tables before picking a week, and maybe try to coincide with the hooker races (mid August) so he can see some sailing action.

In other news we have now taken delivery of our 4th and 5th lambs for this year, having decided that the grass is long and lush enough to support the 5, rather than just our first three. Kenny delivered these last night in his big 4-wheel-drive and trailer. Our first three were around the 27 kg mark when he brought them, these are rather heavier, at 33-35 kg but they are the same approx 2 month old and weaned off their Mums. Our mission is the same as last year, to get them up to around 50 kg on a mixture of our grass and a supplementary feed called 'Fast Lamb Crunch' (a mix of corn, cereals, molasses etc).

Kenny was tied up in the evening with a guided farm walk, admiring some Belgian Blue cattle, so it was not till 23:30 that he arrived, so we had to do the unloading in the dark with torches. The new two are a ram and a 'yow' lamb and we have named them Dora the Explorer and 'King Unicornio' just so that we can enjoy saying that these two irritating kids' TV characters are dead and in the freezer. Sorry little Robyn Silverwood (5), I love you madly but a bloke can only take a certain amount of American nasal-voiced squeaky-clean cartoon TV shows and we need our grown up jokes sometimes. Just be grateful these are not (Peppered) Pig and Postman Paté.

The new lambs are now settled in nicely and good mates with their former brothers and sisters and they even came over for a bucket feed when the 3 old-hands did so this morning. I had 2 of the old stagers eating out of my hands this morning, which is good progress in the charm offensive.

Ah well, more 'hosting' today, as we take Dave and Julie to the Museum of Country Life up in County Mayo.

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.

...and.... Relax....

As Mrs S pulled up in the car for this latest visit, she joked "Stand by to repel boarders!" We finally managed it at around 2 pm yesterday, bidding a fond farewell to all the Silverwoods till next time. We love them all dearly but Mrs S will not mind me saying we also like the quiet bits in between. They are always easier in the event than in my worried forebodings. I see 4 'children' arriving and I worry about noisy mayhem, doors left open so that livestock escapes or is got at by dogs, livestock harassed by small hands and running legs wanting to do the 'petting zoo' thing, stuff damaged in high spirited play and so on - probably all the things that 'farmer', childless Uncles and Aunts all worry over.

In the event everyone is sensible and careful, no damage is done and all the livestock are unscathed and all my fears prove groundless. The 'children' are, of course, always older now than I remember; children I first knew at aged 4 tend to stay 4 in my head for years, till someone points out that they now have degrees and jobs and 4 year olds of their own! The 'girls' are now teenagers, happy to do 'cool' stuff, hanging out in the caravan, reading, watching movies and so on, and only sometimes reveal a younger side, J-M happy for hours to scratch up worms for Broody Betty and the ducklings with a piece of stick in the raised bed, Em-J sitting cross-legged by the pond identifying water beetles etc.

They are still young ones, though and it does get a bit loud and riotous as games of snap get tense and having your 'man' in Ludo knocked back to the start by your sister is more than a 7-year old boy can bear!

So, we loved having them and everybody had a ball, it was a brilliant family holiday a bit like the gatherings we used to do on the 8-10 berth narrow boats and Liz loves doing all the cooking and 'galley slave' stuff. We like to challenge the young taste buds a bit so they get given mainly the stuff we eat and have them try it rather than pandering to 'kids' food' like chips; we know that Mrs S does the same. We don't want to be like those Uncles and Aunts who fill the kids with sweeties and E-numbers and then hand them back all a-buzz. The young ones love to get involved in the picking of veg - we had an army of helpers stripping peas from the 'vine' and shelling the peas. They also get to keep, at Mrs S's insistence their 'chores', so most of the table laying, clearing, washing up, drying and putting away is done around us.

But now we're done and the Silverwoods have driven off down the lane and peace has returned to the small holding for a while. Bless them all, on their final morning, after breakfast Mrs S had them all doing a special blitz on the house - She had them stripping beds and clearing the caravan and moving stuff to the car while she whizzed a broom around the house. There is far less for us to do in turning the house around ready for the next guests, than there would have been. Tomorrow two friends from my 'Thames Barge' life arrive for the week, Dave and Julie B. We relaxed (and, in fact, gonked out) yesterday afternoon but today we are back in busy busy mode, especially Liz who is a whirlwind of cleaning, dusting and ironing. These two stay their week, then we have a week off followed fairly quickly by an overnight from Sparks's family again (and possibly Steak Lady and Theo), and then a visit from Diamond, John and Mazy. August is not going to be an easy month for us. Well, says Liz, we did buy a nice place in the country!

Operation Chick-Swap

Everyone loves a happy ending and here we have a strong possibility. We seem to have swapped out the ducklings at ten days old, with our new 'Hubbard' variety one-day-old chickens in a move so successful that even Mentor Anne and Simon were amazed, both knowing enough about chickens to know all manner of things which MIGHT have gone wrong, but luckily didn't. The general concensus among friends and contacts on the internet poultry forum is that we have, in Broody Betty, one amazing chicken, a 'keeper' worth her weight in gold and worth hanging on to and keeping happy!

To recap the story, BB had already done one brood of chickens this spring, successfully hatching 8 babies who are now 14 weeks old and strolling round the place collectively known as 'The 8 Ball' because they remind us of a gang of golfers wandering round a golf course discussing who's playing with what brand of ball, who's in the rough, and who can invent the most proposterous score card. She'd then gone broody again and , having no fertile eggs to put under her we had borrowed ten Indian Runner duck eggs from Anne, for BB to sit on. She sat tight on those for the 28 days required, successfully hatching 5 ducklings on Monday 22nd. We rescued the remaining eggs and Anne subsequently hatched 3 more in her incubator.

Feeling for poor old BB and not wanting to steal her new babies without giving her something else to 'mother', we hatched a plan to obtain some day-old chicks of the meat-variety of chicken which is used widely in Ireland where birds are free-range or grown organically, the "Hubbard", but we were unable to get hold of these quickly and it was not till the ducklings would be 10 days old that we'd be able to do the swap.

The chicks were duly fetched from up by the 'Norn Iron' border on Thursday 1st Aug (Anne and Simon had gone up to get chicks for three 'customers' including Broody Betty) and delivered at 5:30 pm. With all sorts of apprehensions, Simon and I crept into BB's house, lifted out the 5 ducklings and put them in sight in a box on the floor, in clear view of BB, who was only a bit concerned, being used to me lifting her ducklings down every morning to let them out free ranging.

Then, instead of letting her down we slid in the 8 confused, LOUDLY cheeping chicks who milled around her feet drowning out any duckling noise. Betty then amazed us all by starting to cluck contentedly and gather the chicks to her, the ducklings apparently forgotten in the racket. He who shouts loudest gets heard, obviously!. We disappeared the ducklings in their box to outside the door and watched while Betty clucked and fussed the new chicks into her 'bedroom' and settled down with them on the hay nest, completely enclosing them under her skirts, looking every inch the contented hen. Not for her to worry why her babies had turned from 5 puddle-ducking, wet-loving ducklings into 8 dry chicks (as well as grown younger). Everything seemed right with the world.

We checked on her hourly that evening and brought them all breakfast in the morning (back to finely mashed hard boiled eggs and chick crumb!) which Betty immediately started to show them how to peck and scratch at.

Obviously we are not out of the woods yet, these babies are still only 3 days old as I write this but it's all looking very promising. As I said, so much could have gone wrong. Betty is not even 'meant' to be a broody, a "clocker" as they say here. Sussex Pontes are a modern egg laying hybrid developed by a huge commercial hatchery, where broodiness would just be a nuisance. They try to breed it out of the birds. Then there is the going broody twice thing. Then there is getting them to accept ten duck eggs which they know they didn't lay. Next up, the low chance of a hen sitting for the full 28 days - chicken eggs only take 21. Next is them keeping up the mothering of ducklings for ten days - ducklings are programmed to do all the wrong things by hen standards - they love to get wet and play in puddles, they do not scratch for food and they do not eat much seed and grain. This 'disobedience' can quickly upset the hen who will abandon the babies and go off in disgust. Finally there is the chance of a successful substitution after ten days of duckling fostering by which time mum and ducks will be well bonded and babies are very active. Broody Betty had to not only accept the change, but also almost a start-again-from-scratch (if you'll forgive the pun) with newly hatched chicks. The ducklings, of course, also have to cope with being wrenched from 'Mum' but in this case they were slotted in with their (12) incubator-finished and reared siblings and the multi-fowl life of a bird on Anne's place and appear to have thrived on it.

So, for now Broody Betty is disguised as 'Old Mother Hubbard' and we will report her continuing adventures on here.