Our Exbatts!

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As if we didn’t have enough chickens – we already have 3 coop-loads!

One coop is what I refer to our main chooks – our laying chooks – mostly Wellsummers with a couple of marans and a black rock in there – 9 hens & a cockerel!

Our next coop has a few oldies – a cockerel, two marans and a light sussex – the light sussex still lays an occasional egg – she really ought to be in with the main chooks but she kept escaping, so we left her with the others. As time goes by this group gets smaller & smaller as time catches up with them!

We have one other coop – before the arrival of the exbatts – and it contains my young chooks – those that have been hatched out of my incubator – we have 3 hens & a cockerel, plus a couple of stray hybrids that belong to my neighbour who prefers to be with us for some reason.

In total we had 17 hens & 3 cockerels but were getting only 3 eggs a day and we were starting to disappoint a few customers so time to get some more chooks.

Through Twitter I heard about the “great cull” of ex-battery hens that was due to happen at the end of 2011 as they made way for new cages and new birds and thought “I could have some of those” and signed up to collect 8!

So, on 29th December, I went over to BHWT, which amazingly is in North Devon, to collect my 8 girls! Of course I didn’t just pop over – I had my appointment time and was amazed at how well organised they were and they had cars coming through every five minutes or so to collect the girls that had been “rescued” the day before!

Unfortunately, the weather was atrocious when we got them home and I suspect that they wished they were ducks or had been taken to a home that had indoor space. No, they were housed in a spare coop with their own run, shelter underneath the coop to keep out of the rain, and were thankful for the fresh air and opportunity to stretch their legs!

Today though, some 9 days later, the sun shone, their run had dried out, they can all get themselves in and out of the coop & are already into the routine of the smallholding – they know when the corn is coming and get excited about it. You can see new feathers starting to grow and it won’t be long before they’ll be as strong as all my other chooks!

And for me, best of all, I get 2 or 3 eggs a day from them!

Good girls!

Happy New Year

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We’ve had a holiday – I stopped working on the evening of the 23rd December and it wasn’t until today that thoughts turned back to work. I’ve been busy today, sorted my VAT return out, organised a few shipments of infrared heating panels, and cleared out a bunch of emails from my inbox!

We’ve had a good time – quite relaxing really, family were down – too much food, didn’t really do alcohol to excess, and whilst we had a few late nights feel sort of refreshed for the new year 2012.

I hope you all had a great break, or if you were working didn’t have to work too hard, and we would like to wish everyone a prosperous 2012 and hope it brings you everything that you have wished for.

Parkham carol singing!

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I’m not sure when it started – 5, 6 or 7 years ago – but we have an annual carol singing evening in the pub!

Yes, in the pub, the two churches in the village bring along the hymn sheets, a trumpet and we have an hours worth of carol singing – we get to sing all the traditional carols, a rousing, out of tune, sing song!

The pub hands out mince pies & mulled wine – the vicar gets to mingle with her flock that don’t turn up on a Sunday to say hi, and we all have a great time!

Christmas has well and truly started now – time for me to put the tree up now!

Knee update!

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A few months ago now, I did something really nasty to my knee, ouch it hurt that much that I went to see the doctor, who wrote a letter to a consultant who after seeing me wrote a letter to a physiotherapist who is now helping to make my knee stronger.

Apparently, I have an irritable kneecap, which is not helped by having a few weak tendons that need some muscular support and the muscles have themselves become weaker and they need strengthening first so that they can protect my tendons and then they’ll stop my kneecap being irritable!

Today was my 3rd visit to see the physio and as per the last 2 visits I have come back and my knee hurts more than when I went in to see her, but I guess it’s no pain, no gain!

My left leg is definitely smaller than my right leg – the size of the muscles are smaller than those in my right leg – mind you you wouldn’t notice unless you got up close and had a good look as does the physio, but when she points it out, they are different!

Anyhow, between the last two visits we have had no nasty flare-ups and the knee is behaving itself, no longer that irritable, and the physio felt I was ready to start the next set of exercises and in the New Year to join the exercise group for a weekly “circuit” of strengthening…stuff!

Ducks or no ducks?

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A year or so ago now – probably 2 years ago – we got ourselves a few ducks – drakes (Charlie, Francis & Quackers) – but unfortunately over a period of a couple of months they were all got! At least two were got by a fox, the other…never really figured it out. Unlike our chooks, we could never get them to go in a coop at night, so they were a bit helpless if anything a bit peckish popped by!

I’d quite like to give ducks another go – egg laying ducks this time – but am a bit unsure as they can be very messy.

The do like to puddle up the grass and turn it into a real quagmire, even more so than our chooks. We do have a big pond in one of the paddocks, but there is no fencing or protection from predators. The pond is big and the field big but I would prefer to keep them up near the workshop & chooks – we can better keep an eye on them there.

Decisions decisions!

We’ll wait I think until we we can build a few fences/enclosures for them! Or should we go for some now?

 

Llama experience for Christmas?

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No, we’re not going to do any llama experiences over the Christmas holiday period – in fact we’re not going to do any during the wet winter months, but an idea has crossed our minds – would you like a gift certificate to give as a Christmas gift.

We can do vouchers for £30 (2 adults) upwards depending on the size of the party!

We’ll even throw in the card for you to write.

Please contact us for more information!

The goats are getting a new house!

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Poor old Titan – he’s our stud pygmy goat!

When we first got him we had him in a small enclosure all to himself,which he didn’t like too much. Although he had llamas as neighbours he wanted some goat company, so then we had Jabba & Jedi, the first of his offspring, and come weaning time at 12 weeks they went in to join him. They were wethers by that time and he happily accepted them and like little kids – pun intended – they used to run rings around him.

They’ve grown up a bit now and he has started to get his own back, but also they are running out of space.

Galloway came and joined them a month or so ago, a 7 month old lad, completely unrelated and an entire so we were bound to have issues. During the day they share the big outdoors and have plenty of space to keep out of each others way, but at night they have to be separated but unfortunately, or stupidly, the 3 goats chose the smaller house and Galloway has the larger house, so we needed to get some new housing.

We have finally gone and got something made specially as we just couldn’t find anything that would be suitable on the open market …. and it is being delivered tomorrow! It is sturdy enough to cope with a bit of battering … Titan does like to use his horns for that and he has big horns and will have 3 “stalls” so they will each have their own space at night.

Titan will get his old house back and the three smaller lads will get the new house! Pictures will follow tomorrow!

Just hope it stays dry!

My hayboxes!

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Several people have asked me to post a few pictures of my hayboxes!

Goats outside haybox

This isn’t really a box but one of the problems with outside hay racks is that the hay gets wet when it rains, so here I have added a lid. It slopes so as to stop the goats from jumping onto it.

The other thing I have done here is to add some wire mesh inside the hay rack so that the goats have got to pull the hay through smaller holes. I’m hoping both of these will save me some hay!

Breeze & her hay box

Here is my inside goat haybox – the mesh you can see is the same as I used in the outside box. It is just 6″ deep and I used 6″ * 1″ timber to make the bottom and sides with a bit of left over 3″ * 2″ to fix to the wall.

The goats do have a tendency to stand on top and eat the hay from the top, so I may well put a lid on it!

Llama catch haybox

One of the problems with these types of hay racks is that uneaten hay easily falls to the floor, gets wet or soiled as so goes to waste. This little box catches some of the dropped hay and therefore is still eaten by the animals and less is spoiled. The white wall at the back is is to try and lighten up the shelter as it can get quite dark in there during the day and this spooked the llamas somewhat!

Off the floor box!

This box was my first effort after the catch box above and is at the other end of the shelter.

This can take half a bale of hay and although you can see quite a bit of droppage on the floor this is a lot less than when eating out of the hay rack that can be seen hanging to the left of the picture.

Our llamas do tend to eat with their head over the box and so most of the droppage goes back in the box!

This box is on the floor!

The problem with the box above was getting it to hang on the wall, and I used L shaped shelve supports, so to make it a bit easier I thought I would try making one on the floor.

This was a lot easier but does need a floor to stop the hay from getting wet as the rain does come in under the shelter edges.

This one is also better for the cria & smaller llamas as they do not need to reach for the hay.

A similar box is used up in the boy llamas shelter!

Moveable haybox

This box is moveable – the low box above uses two sides of the shelter whereas this one can be moved from shelter to shelter or field to field!

Originally I made this to store a bale of hay and it had a lid, but it proved a better box for feeding direct from rather than using the hay net above!

I hope that’s helpful!

What a great day!

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Here we are in the middle of November and it feels like August – yes I’m sure the August weather was more like November that we now have, rather than the October weather that I thought we were going to have!

Let’s stop there, I’m already confused!

Anyhow, the weather was 14C, partly cloudy, partly sunny, and a day where we were outside for most of it – still cutting grass, how crazy is that in November – shifting hay, the llamas in particular are enjoying this seasons hay – sorting out new goat houses for our boy goats – although the day was so short the day seemed to finish too quickly!

Normally at this time of year the weekend weather is poor and we tend to sneak out for the day, but no such luck so far, just keep on doing the chores! The people staying in the holiday cottage can’t believe their luck either!

Remind me – will it really soon be Christmas?

A buzzard and no camera!

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This morning while out doing the animal feed rounds, I noticed a large brown buzzard sitting on the fence at the bottom of the paddock! It had its back to me but head was turned around looking into the paddock.

It flew down and aimed for something in the field – a small frog most likely – and then the most amusing site of the buzzard actually running around after whatever it was after – looked funnier than the chickens running!

I got the binoculars out that were in the summer house, but sadly no camera, watched it for a few minutes before it flew up and over the neighbours hedge and away!

Oh to always have a camera with me!