Baby rams and sneaky piglets

'They're cunning, those pigs', and indeed they are.  Having worked our how to lift the bottom of the fence with the determined supplication of snout leverage the piglets were happily rootling around in three different fields.  However- and this is the really cunning part- as soon as we approached they all ran back into their field and stood innocently with 'what? us?' expressions.  We weren't fooled.  The solution was to drive more two more fence posts into the bent parts of the fence.  Fortunately this wasn't too hard using a post rammer (which we have used before).  Try and break out of that, little piggies! (and they will).


The pigs in three different fields



Totally unrepentant escapee

While we were herding pigs, another one of the pregnant sheep had decided to give birth.  We legged it across to her field just in time to see a new ram lamb stagger to his feet and start butting for milk.  The mother sheep (number 168) stood proudly licking her new (and slightly orange) baby, watched jealously by numbers (99 and 170) who are yet to give birth.  How about next Saturday ladies?

After carrying the new arrival into a crèche pen, which is full of straw and has high sides to keep out the biting fenland wind, we moved last weeks twins into the next-door field so that their mother could do some proper grazing.

A new ram lamb pops out!

The twin ewe lambs at 1 week old (born 21st March)



The final project of the day (the project as a whole will be ongoing for many weeks yet) was to dig over the vegetable beds in preparation for the rotovator.  The aim is to turn over the topsoil before the beds are covered with black plastic for a few weeks to kill off the grass and weeds.  The rotovator then turns the heavy sods into a fine(r) soil for planting.

Digging over the vegetable beds - these are for brassicas

Finished!  (well, four are finished anyway)

Unfortunately all of our efforts were put to shame by a local farmer's son (14!) who arrived on his tractor to plough the entire potato field in the time that it took us to do one bed each.  That's cheating surely?  Although I am delighted not to have to do it by hand!

   

Spring and more baby things!

We spent a wonderful Saturday putting in our hours at Hempsal's Community farm
So many exciting things happened. First of all I helped move 'number 99', the sheep who had given birth last week, into a field with better grazing- together with her lamb of course!  99 is quite skittish but we carried her lamb in front of her and she followed along the path and into the next field, pretty much keeping nose-contact with her lamb the entire time.


Mother and week-old ewe lamb

 I then started trying to assemble an old greenhouse which had been donated to the farm, which basically meant standing helplessly in front of a pile of disassembled parts.  Ian went over to the veg patch and starting turning over several root beds for planting.  Suddenly one of the other...helpers?farmers?  (I'm not sure what we're called), noticed that one of the sheep was nuzzling a new lamb! Almost immediately a second, much smaller, lamb appeared.  We all gathered round the fence to watch and take pictures, people were telephoned to let them know of the new arrival and names were discussed- pretty much your standard birth, apart from the field.  When both kids were able to stand up, they were taken across the field to a ready-made pen to be out of the wind.   Ben (head farmer) sealed off the umbilical cords with a plastic sandwich clip and sprayed the area with Iodine, (the umbilical cord is a major route of infection into a newborn lamb).  This also allowed him to declare both lambs to have 'lady parts'.

The ewe lamb twins, taken about 2 minutes after the second twin was born

Sealing and disinfecting the umbilical cord.

Were-pig and friends

Smiles from Diva

Voting update

As you will have seen from the earlier post Charles Ryder electioneer extrodinaire, I have decided to let Charles the rabbit guide my vote in the upcoming UK general election and with just under 8 weeks to go I thought it was time for a quick update on Charles' voting preferences.

As you can see we have received offerings from the Labor, the Lib Dems and the Conservatives, all of which have been sampled on their arrival in the passageway.

There's a pretty clear difference between the leaflets with Labor's the most nibbled and the Conservatives and Lib Dems the least.  The problem is, how to interpret these results: Does lack of chewing mean that Charles finds their policies distasteful? Or is he trying to chew up those policies he disagrees with?  And more to the point, can he actually read?

Spring and small things!

We spent the morning at Wimpole Estate, one of Cambridgeshire's National Trust properties.  What a fabulous day to go!  It was a day of teeny tiny things- a tiny baby Bagot goat (an ancient and now rare breed) which must have only been one or two days' old judging by it's knock-kneed stumbling; tiny piglets which had been born in the night, and best of all, teeny tiny tractors for a family tractor race!


baby bagot goat and mum



 

Jones' family tractor race

 

and the real thing!

Take one rabbit hutch...

Last night (after a glass of wine) we decided to take the plunge and carry out a plan we have been musing over for some time- raising chickens for meat.  Why just for meat?  Well, we don't really have the space to keep birds all year round, plus they are an additional species to add to our 'needs babysitting' list.  However, meat breeds can reach full size in 3-4 months which leaves the garden with time to recover. Plus, we will have the satisfaction of knowing exactly where our meat came from, and that it had a good life!

After ordering an incubator online (a Brinsea mini advance ex) - because the plan is to take them from egg to plate- we set about converting the large rabbit hutch in the garden into suitable sleeping quarters.   The hutch was bought a temporary accommodation for our house rabbits Charles Ryder and Sebastian Flyte (now sadly buried in the garden) when our kitchen was being fitted, as the workmen needed to leave the front door open and our house is so small that there was nowhere else for the guys to be.  Now entering middle age, Charles generally dislikes spending extended periods of time in the garden (with its attendant goats), and - more problematically - refuses to go to the toilet outside(!), so the hutch has been sitting empty.



The hutch has three levels, ground, a mid-height rabbit sleeping area, and top terrace.  As a chicken house the sleeping area was too small; however, the pitched roof of the terrace meant that this was a lovely high space with room for perches- if the chickens can reach it.   The hutch already had a ramp from the ground to the sleeping area, but the rabbits hadn't needed a ramp to reach the terrace- they could just leap up.  We were less convinced that a chicken could leap the required height, so after adding strips of bamboo cane 'steps' to the bottom ramp, Ian set about making a shallow ramp (made out of an old kitchen cupboard door) from the old rabbit sleeping area to the terrace and new chicken sleeping area.   This process was significantly hindered by Tiberius and Sibelius sticking their noses under the hammer, next to the saw (they were licking the sawdust!) and at one point both getting into the rabbit hutch.

Health and safety at work guys

Sunbathing Tiberius

Meanwhile I set about making some moveable perches from bits of wood on the log pile.  My smallholding manual recommends that all perches are the same height, otherwise chickens will fight for the highest one.  Unfortunately, nature can't have read this manual because every piece of wood in our log pile was a different diameter.  Much mocking up of perches later and I'm fairly happy that they are roughly the same height.  Our incubator takes seven eggs but as you can tell from the number of perches I'm expecting that we won't have a 100% hatch rate!

chicken perches

Perches in situ