Animals update

Tons going on here lately it seems, and I realised it's been a while since I photographed the animals, so time for an update....

The main thing that's keeping me busy at the moment is putting up the new fence so that we've got a field for Raymond (more about him later) and his girls and another field for Horatio and his girls...

This is Lucky duckie (the big one, right centre) who seems to have recovered fully from Danny's emergency superglue surgery its neck.  The one just behind Lucky was given to us by a neighbour so Lucky wouldn't be alone, and the other three are eggs we hatched under this hen (also from the same neighbour -- the eggs that is, not the hen).  We've tried to get the hen to stop hanging out with them but even though the ducks get locked up separately at night and she is back in the big house with the rest of the hens, she still hangs around with them in the day...

These are most of the ewes that we will be breeding from this year -- have you ever tried photographing sheep?  Either they run away from me or they all come towards me -- but getting them to stand still at a reasonable distance from me doesn't happen!  :)  

These are some more ducklings (and their Mummy) -- from the same neighbour -- who just has too many...  We will give them Mummy back when the ducklings are bigger...

This is Raymond, our other new tup lamb.  He's a Shetland, and he'll be mated with the four ewe lambs we had last year -- Doggie, Eyebrows, Shy Lamb, and Dolly (formerly No Name).  He's got some really lovely colouring so watch this space to see what colours his lambs are in the spring!

In non-animal related news -- I've seen plenty of photos of wonky veg, but I've never seen a Siamese cucumber before!  :)

This is all 24 of our existing chickens -- 13 older ones and 11 that are this year's.  Oldest once are 5 months old now, and the others not far behind -- and none of them have shown signs of being male yet.  Seems pretty unlikely that we've had 11 hens from 11 chicks, but then again, stranger things have happened...  :)

White hen may be dead, but it seems like we managed to hatch an egg from her before she died and we now have a very close replica!

These two cockerels were given to us yesterday by somebody who has too many (common thing with male animals...) so we will be eating one and the other will be next year's breeding cockerel.  Hard to tell in this photo, but they are HUGE.  Will take another photo of the remaining one once he's with the rest of the flock so you can see just how big.  Will make for quite a few chicken dinners!  :)

This is the one of the biggest of the chicks -- but still not showing any signs of being male -- which in a way, I am sort of happy about, because I think the colouring is quite pretty, so it would be nice if it was a girl and we kept her...

And to finish up, this year's ewe lambs.  Titchy is the black one -- she's recovered from being poorly, but she's just not putting on weight like the other four.  She eats, she seems happy enough -- but it's like she's off in a little world of her own.  Have I got a brain-damaged sheep?  Possibly...