Wednesday 9th August 2017
Thoroughly spoilt
The sheep are a thoroughly spoilt lot! Currently they have access to both 3-acre fields but they also are more than happy to make use of the top double field shelter complete with hay, fresh straw and water AND despite the fact the weather has been a fair bit drier these last few days, most of them choose to sleep in it at night as well!!
Jack understandably gets a tad cross at the extra mucking out she has to do, whilst at the sametime not quite being able to bring herself to shut the shelters off so they cannot access them...
It's the same with the chickens who frequently leave their very large stable 'compete with straw' to come and rake through the straw in the barn. This is usually just after we have cleaned it out and it all looks lovely and neat. Chicken feet are very effective at clearing the ground and so by the time they have finished, the barn resembles a very untidy planet complete with giant craters.
Our hat trick of misbehaving animals is complete with the tale of last night's attempt to give the geese some corn. Not once, not twice but THREE times we tried. The first time the alpacas rushed over to steal it, the second time the sheep came hurtling over (we hadn't actually put the corn down, they just heard the rattle of the jug) and the third time we were interrupted by the goats!! The geese finally got some corn at dusk when everything else was more or less tucked up for the night!!!
Such are the joys of keeping lots of different types of animals together!!!!
The photo is of Bressay and her Suffolk/Mule cross lamb which as you can see now towers over mum (Whalsay is in the background). She is now almost three months old and commercially she could be off to market now (or even earlier). We will be keeping her until end October/November as our Shetlands and Shetland crosses need another two/three months before they are ready for the abattoir. In an ideal world, people aim for weight of 40kg for their lambs. We expect our Suffolk/Mule will easily reach that before the Autumn. Our Shetlands and crosses probably won’t but as we don't breed for large carcasses, that isn’t an issue for us!!!
Jack understandably gets a tad cross at the extra mucking out she has to do, whilst at the sametime not quite being able to bring herself to shut the shelters off so they cannot access them...
Our hat trick of misbehaving animals is complete with the tale of last night's attempt to give the geese some corn. Not once, not twice but THREE times we tried. The first time the alpacas rushed over to steal it, the second time the sheep came hurtling over (we hadn't actually put the corn down, they just heard the rattle of the jug) and the third time we were interrupted by the goats!! The geese finally got some corn at dusk when everything else was more or less tucked up for the night!!!
Such are the joys of keeping lots of different types of animals together!!!!
The photo is of Bressay and her Suffolk/Mule cross lamb which as you can see now towers over mum (Whalsay is in the background). She is now almost three months old and commercially she could be off to market now (or even earlier). We will be keeping her until end October/November as our Shetlands and Shetland crosses need another two/three months before they are ready for the abattoir. In an ideal world, people aim for weight of 40kg for their lambs. We expect our Suffolk/Mule will easily reach that before the Autumn. Our Shetlands and crosses probably won’t but as we don't breed for large carcasses, that isn’t an issue for us!!!