RIP White Hen

Bit of sad news -- White Hen (picture above is from when we first had her when she wasn't even fully grown yet) died...  She'd been being mopey for a while, plus she was about three years old, which in the grand scheme of chickens, is getting on a bit.

She was the only one who made it past the first winter from the original three chickens we bought (thinking they were all hens) -- one turned out to be a cockerel and one turned out to have various deformities that prevented her from eating properly.  She will live on though as she is the ancestor of all our present hens (except for the bantams) and several generations on we are still getting the odd one with the extra toe which is all down to White Hen's Dorking genes...

In other news -- that black ewe lamb that Curly had that I was so excited about -- that's the one in the back here -- and it turns out that she is not really black, unlike the (ram) lamb in front who is.  I know it's possible to have black ewes because I have one, but all my theoretical black ewe lambs turn out to be brown!  Perhaps No Name Lamb's ewe lamb will stay black...

 

 

The older lambs are starting to get friendly -- possibly a little too friendly -- I sat down, and three of them promptly started trying to eat my trousers!

 

And in the world of cross-species communications, it seems like Freya and the chickens have finally agreed to share the back garden!  :)

More lambs!!!

Let's start with a lovely shot of Freya camouflaging herself into the wall in the evening sunshine...

 

Actually, what she's doing is supervising lambing because mere hours after Shy Ewe gave us this ewe lamb on Monday afternoon...

...No Name Lamb went and had a lamb of her own!  As expected, teenage sheep don't make good mothers.  I watched her lamb unassisted -- and then she just lay there with the lamb on the ground behind her -- so I had to go and move the lamb to where she could see it and THEN instinct kicked in and she started licking it clean...

They ended up spending a couple of days in the barn because every time the lamb went to suck the bloody ewe turned round again so she could keep licking!

Here they are out in the field -- yes, it's another black ewe lamb.  Sadly, I won't breed from her because her parents are half-siblings, and the other black ewe lamb turns out not to be black (more about this later), so the quest goes on...

Fingers crossed this is now the end of lambing 2024 because 10 lambs is WAY more than enough!

 

 

In completely unrelated news, these are the remnants of some old hay bales that I had stacked up in a corner to provide some shelter for the sheep months ago during the winter winds.  They have sprouted quite a variety of mushrooms, some of which I don't think I've ever seen the likes of before!  

 

Don't worry, I'm not eating any of them, but if any of my mushroom friends would like to ID any, it would be much appreciated...

The things that give my life meaning...

 

Starting with the chick pic as promised, here she is teaching the little ones how to eat!  It takes a bit of looking, but there are six chicks in that photo -- can't wait to see what they look like when they grow up!  And also, the eggs were all from our hens, but our hens are such a random assortment now -- so is the difference in colour because they are just from different hens with different genetics or have we inadvertently created a sex-linked cross?  Watch this space and find out...  :)

Here's the little ewe lamb who I thought might not make it -- she is certainly quite healthy now -- and so is her titchy brother -- who is still small, but gaining weight rapidly!

 

And in some slightly unexpected news -- back in December, Brown Ewe's ram lamb -- the one who I thought was dead -- managed to get the wrong side of a fence for about six hours.  I duly noted down the date in the diary just in case.  

Just went out to find that Shy Ewe has had a lamb.  Now, the earliest possible date that I calculated for Dead Lamb's lambs was Wednesday -- date of tupping +147 days + 5 days extra.  So one of two things could have happened here -- she could just be seven days early (possible) or Pete could have got her through the fence (also possible)...  Will go check in a bit to make sure there's not a twin, but somehow we now have 9 lambs this year despite all my efforts to have fewer than we did last year (7)!

Lamb and ewe both seem fine; will have a closer look and catch the lamb tomorrow after they've had a bit of bonding time.

Here's a progress shot of the roof -- yes, those are polycarbonate panels -- so I am thinking that inside we can do something like the Ninfarium at Aberglasney...  Or at least a lemon tree or two!

And I will leave you with the lovely view I had post-swim this morning while I drank my coffee -- practically tropical!  :)

May update

 

 

Yes, that is a bad photo, but we have chicks in assorted colours!  I haven't seen them all yet, but Danny tells me that there are six chicks (which means all the eggs hatched) and three are black and three are white.  The weather today has been rather wet, so hopefully tomorrow when it is sunny she'll bring them out and I'll get a better photo. 

Here's Cookie enjoying her best life and relaxing from the hard work she's been doing...

 

...helping us re-roof one of the barns!  :)

 

 

As per usual, I failed to take a before photo, but here's the old roof -- you can see why it needed replacing.  Danny did quite a bit of patching on it when we first came, but when you get to the point of putting patches on top of the patches...

 

 

 

Here's the stripped roof.  We've got the new panels on, but still some finishing work to be done so you'll have to wait a few more days for a finished photo...

 

 

 

Yesterday was Freya's 7th birthday, and she actually consented to pose for photo to mark the occasion!  

 

And here are all of this year's lambs -- getting them all in one photo is not an easy task!

Lamb update

Of course all of this stuff is impossible to capture on camera, but the lamb is now acting quite alive and jumping about and wiggling her tail -- so they are back out onto the lovely fresh grass -- and, as you can see, she has certainly figured out where the milk is now!  

SO pleased that she made it!  :)

 

Lambing 2024

The first three ewes lambed on 13th, 16th, and 17th of April, and since then we've been waiting and waiting and waiting for Greedy.

Friday afternoon I thought she was acting like she might lamb that evening or the next day so I increased the frequency of my checks.  6pm nothing happening.  6:30pm two lambs are out, but as you can see in this first photo, the white lamb is just lying there rather lifelessly...

 

 

She's alive, so I'm rubbing her and holding her inside my coat to warm her up, but she's not really showing much in the way of spark.  I quickly send Danny to the shop for colostrum before the shop closes and I get some in her and she seems to improve a bit, but only temporarily.  Finally I take the decision to bring them into the barn overnight as neither lamb really looks like it would survive outside.

 

Spent several hours trying to warm the lambs and feed them and by the time I decide to go to bed at about 11:30 the black lamb is looking a little more alive but I'm totally unsure if the white one will survive the night -- there were quite a few moments when I just thought she was going to die in my arms and she was being very lethargic and also would fall over on to her left side and be unable to get up repeatedly.

 

 

 

Two days on I am pleased to report that my efforts have paid off and she is now doing lamb things like wagging her tail and jumping.  They'll stay in for another few days yet until both lambs are much more vigorous, but at least I don't have a dead lamb on my conscience...

 

 

Lessons learned for next time: More colostrum sooner...

 

And that's a wrap for Lambing 2024 -- eight lambs from four ewes -- four boys and four girls, and four black and four not black!

 

Roll on shearing!  :)

 

Fishing trip

 

 

We went fishing.  Danny caught a seagull (not pictured).  I photographed flowers and rocks.

Chicken dinner...

Today we harvested the last of hedge hen's cockerel chicks.  This boy is about seven months old and only just started crowing -- we didn't even realise he was a cockerel until a few weeks ago -- is this because this lot of chicks grew up over winter and therefore grew up more slowly?

Deadweight of 1.6 kg which is the biggest so far -- based on weight and body shape, we think that the pheasant may have had a hand in some of the other cockerel chick as well as the phicken -- but this one we are fairly sure is the offspring of the big black Jersey Giant cockerel.  Now, as we get ready to start hatching eggs again this year, how on earth can we be sure that the pheasant hasn't been in with the hens again???!

It never fails to amaze me how the feathers get EVERYWHERE...  Including up my nose!  They are so nice and compact on the bird, but once you pluck them...!

And here's Cookie, in yet another absurd sleeping pose...  :)

Lamb-a-palooza!

Following on from Black ewe kicking things off last Saturday, it has been a week of lambs!

On Monday it became evident that both Curly and Brown ewes were pretty close.

Curly had these two unassisted Tuesday afternoon...

...and the thing that has most made my week is that both of these are girls -- so I finally have an all black girl lamb!  Woo hoo!  Black sheep for the win!  :)

Brown ewe was still acting like she was going to have a lamb but by last light on Tuesday nothing had started.  I was particularly worried about her as she was the only one I had to assist last year plus the weather overnight Tuesday was wet & windy, so I prayed to the lambing gods to let her hold on until morning when I could be there...

Turns out there was no need for my concern as I went out at first light on Wednesday to find that she'd also had twins and they were dry and up on their feet!

These are both boys, so that's potentially two black tups that will be looking for new homes come autumn...

On a side note, the fact that Brown ewe was in my face the whole time I was tagging her lambs is definitely progress on the taming front -- last year, the ewes came nowhere near us when we were tagging!

So that's just Greedy left to lamb now as we didn't put Shy ewe or White ewe with Pete this year. 

Couple of interesting observations thus far:

1.  The ewes are lambing in exactly the same order as they did last year.

2.  Each of them has had one black lamb and one not black lamb.

No idea if there's any significance to either of these....

And here's Cookie -- who came out to help us with the tagging -- NOT!  :)

Lambing 2024 is here!

Black ewe was the first to lamb again this year, but two weeks earlier than last year (same tupping start date).  No warning at all -- on Friday evening she was acting perfectly normal.  On Saturday morning, she'd separated herself from the flock and didn't come for food.  I left her to it and came back an hour later to see this little beauty, already up and on its feet -- and then, as I was photographing them, she turned around and I saw little feet on their way -- twins!

Went away again to give her a bit of privacy and about 10 minutes later the second one was out -- and a beautiful black lamb!

They survived a horrible first night of wind and rain, but the weather is looking a bit calmer and more settled for the next week.

This morning at feeding black ewe came to the bucket and brought her twins with her -- which really amazed me as last year it was a few days after giving birth before the ewes would come to the bucket.  Hopefully this is another step forward towards the goal of friendly sheep!  :)

The mostly white lamb is a girl, and the black lamb, sadly, is another boy!  What is it with me and black tup lambs?!  I want a black ewe lamb please!  :)  But they both seem fit and healthy so that's good.

Three more ewes to go; hopefully none of them have twins or else I will have more sheep than I know what to do with!  :)

Bag the Bruck

Bruck is the Orcadian word for rubbish, and so Bag the Bruck is an annual beach clean event...  

The Selkies did a fairly small area of beach and managed to collect a TON of rubbish in not very much time, the vast part of which is marine waste from the fishing industry...

Spring update

The weather has been a bit back and forth -- not as nice as I want it to be, but plenty of nice days scattered throughout.  I've been swimming more frequently now -- hopefully it won't be long before that's a daily possibility -- had my 18th swim of 2024 today!

We've been taking advantage of the weather as much as we can -- Danny is today replacing the very rotted frame on the back door:

 

The barn doors are also getting rotten wood replaced and a fresh coat of paint.  I considered bright pink but on reflection thought it might be better to stick with blue!

It is fairly amazing how quickly the driving rain removes paint from surfaces -- it's like having everything powerwashed all winter long...

On the egg front, the ducks have finally decided to start laying and the hens have finally gotten into their swing...

After eating several goose eggs, we decided that we want to see if they will hatch us some little goosies -- so Danny built them this little shelter out of pallets and presto, she's started laying in it and they are being VERY aggressive if we try to go near it.  Hopefully in about another week she'll decided that she's laid enough eggs and start sitting on them. 

I did make hamantaschen last week for Purim but totally forgot to take a photo at the time.  Here are the last three -- I am showing such restraint!!!  Once upon a time I would have eaten the whole batch within 24 hours...  :)  Not to worry though -- hot cross buns are about to go into the oven, so we won't starve to death...  :)

We've got a new cover on the polytunnel -- fingers crossed we get a good few years out of this one as getting it on is a major PITA...

And last but certainly not least -- my favourite vegetable(!) is poking its head up!  :)