Monday 17th April 2017
Poultry round-up
Today has been the most manic smallholding day it is possible to have had: it began with the joy of seeing our ewe-lamb and foster mum curled up together and feeling a VERY full belly in the former and it ended with the wonderful sight of Parsley and calf back out with the others, minus Sage, who is now on her own in the collecting area, all ready to produce her own calf at the end of the week, we hope!!!
In between times we have moved a ton of woodchip, sorted eggs and broodies, checked two limping sheep, been pecked by Napoleon (turkey stag and yes, the bruise is developing quite nicely) and talked fencing and new field shelters with Mike, our fencing chap!!
The cows gave us the most drama as in moving Parsley OUT of the Collecting Area and Sage IN, our plan had been to avoid them meeting, we thought we had got away with it until Sage leapt a fence….. More on this tomorrow…
The day ended calmly with all animals where they should be, resting and chilling, as we enjoyed yet another fabulous sunset. None were more chilled than Queen Baby Pale (QBP), pictured here in her favourite broody place: in the ‘hospital’ wing of the barn (as yet un-used this year so far!!).
QBP had laid TWENTY eggs before finally deciding to go broody but we have actually taken those away and replaced them with 12 Indian Game eggs that we have bought in! Our plan, as mentioned previously, is to hatch another IG cockerel so we have two unrelated to our hens and then when we hatch our own eggs, to try to hatch as many pure IGs as possible. We have four IG hens and are now down to 14 others after selling yet more of our youngsters to a friend. She also took our Welsummer cockerel as we decided that with our hen numbers getting smaller, we could get away with just one cockerel at the moment (our lovely Indian Game that we swapped for our own boy last month).
Banana (duck) and our Red Leghorn cross are now three weeks into sitting on a nest of duck eggs together, so just two to go!! Having ducklings around really is going to make it feel like spring!! And in even more exciting news, we have our first goose egg. One of our two females (STILL un-named) crawled into one of the chicken nest boxes and laid for us on Saturday. We have created a nesting area behind the nest boxes specifically for the geese but as is often the case with animals, they don’t use what you chose for them, preferring instead to go off and ‘do their own thing’!!!
Finally we have eight turkey eggs, as laid by Victoria. The others as yet have to come into lay, either that or they are laying away from home as it were… Turkey chicks, actually called poults, are seriously sweet, and it will be great to have some again this year!!!
The cows gave us the most drama as in moving Parsley OUT of the Collecting Area and Sage IN, our plan had been to avoid them meeting, we thought we had got away with it until Sage leapt a fence….. More on this tomorrow…
The day ended calmly with all animals where they should be, resting and chilling, as we enjoyed yet another fabulous sunset. None were more chilled than Queen Baby Pale (QBP), pictured here in her favourite broody place: in the ‘hospital’ wing of the barn (as yet un-used this year so far!!).
QBP had laid TWENTY eggs before finally deciding to go broody but we have actually taken those away and replaced them with 12 Indian Game eggs that we have bought in! Our plan, as mentioned previously, is to hatch another IG cockerel so we have two unrelated to our hens and then when we hatch our own eggs, to try to hatch as many pure IGs as possible. We have four IG hens and are now down to 14 others after selling yet more of our youngsters to a friend. She also took our Welsummer cockerel as we decided that with our hen numbers getting smaller, we could get away with just one cockerel at the moment (our lovely Indian Game that we swapped for our own boy last month).
Banana (duck) and our Red Leghorn cross are now three weeks into sitting on a nest of duck eggs together, so just two to go!! Having ducklings around really is going to make it feel like spring!! And in even more exciting news, we have our first goose egg. One of our two females (STILL un-named) crawled into one of the chicken nest boxes and laid for us on Saturday. We have created a nesting area behind the nest boxes specifically for the geese but as is often the case with animals, they don’t use what you chose for them, preferring instead to go off and ‘do their own thing’!!!
Finally we have eight turkey eggs, as laid by Victoria. The others as yet have to come into lay, either that or they are laying away from home as it were… Turkey chicks, actually called poults, are seriously sweet, and it will be great to have some again this year!!!