Chickencloud

In an effort to improve the natural rate of increase of our flock of chickens, we have invested in some bantam chickens.  As things turned out, we obtained a couple of dozen, but we have had the first dozen for a while now.  Since they are a fancy breed, they are quite attractive.  Here is a picture of them settling down for the evening.

Do not be alarmed by their glowing eyes. The photographer was clumsy and the lighting was poor, but the picture does illustrate the variety of feathers which they display.  They are quite good at scratching and turning over hay scraps, so we are looking forward to constructing a chicken tractor, all the better to improve our land.

Our patience has also been blessed by a positive outcome.  Our first bantam chick has put in an appearance, and the mother (the buff lady at the head of the picture) is teaching it all the finer points of chickening.

We have a tiny flock of fourteen tiny sheep, lambs who have survived the journey into this world.  Murphy's Law is alive and well for us, since only two of them are ewe lambs, but that ensures a bountiful harvest of meat in Autumn.

The ewes are patchy as they shed their wool.  Fortunately the weather is warming up, despite a few frosty nights, and they are glad to fill their bellies with fresh grass.

 The lambs delight in their usual sport of forming a flock and racing around as a group.  Some of the more excitable ewes occasionally join them, but on the whole the ewes are more interested in the grains we have taken to feeding them by way of supplementation.

After all the trials and tribulations of the last year, we hope to return some balance to our flock at last.  In the mean time, we continue to wrestle regulation so that we can finally sell the hundreds of bottles of wine we have ready and waiting.

Tiny Triumphs, Tiny Tragedies

As the lambing goes, we do our best to serve our sheepy mistresses, and they do their best to bring their lambs up and into the world.  It is always one of the most heart-warming of sights, watching a newborn lamb rise to wobbly legs, and while the mother licks and grumbles encouragement, totter to the udder for those first nourishing sips.  In our first picture, we see Caroline and her newest offspring, while below we see other new mothers.  There are no few; we already have nine lambs trotting around the pasture.  Somewhat frustratingly, given our need to rebuild our flock, only one is a ewe lamb so far.

Here, more's the pity, is a picture of a ewe lamb who, as it turns out, did not make it.  Sometimes a lamb just does not get the knack of suckling, and we have yet to discover how to educate them on the point.  Her mother is eager and willing, and there's no failure of mothering.  Just a lamb who will not join our flock, nor respond to her mother's calls again.

Thus commences the lambing

At last the lambing opens.  A visitor to the farm had the privilege of holding the first birth of the season - a ram born to Teed's Tlingit, by Silvercat Golden Delicious.  We are delighted by the white markings, a trait we wish to breed into our flock, and the fact that the lamb shows signs of health and vigour.

Here we see Tlingit anxiously leading her new lamb away, before wicked farmers can harm him.  His white blaze stands out quite clearly from a distance.  He is still a little unsteady on his pins, but with the care and attention of his devoted mother, his chances of growing into a beautiful ram are excellent.

Sadly he will truly have her devoted attention since it seems that his twin was a stillbirth.  It is hard to find these things, and yet it is a part of the whole truth.  We strongly suspect that the stillbirth was a result of the stress recently placed on our flock by the dog attack, although that is effectively impossible to prove.

As yet we have no other lambs to add to the tally, although the ewes are broad and languid.  Their languour does not extend to when farmers arrive with treats - to help them recover what condition they may, we are lavishly feeding them hay, with robust supplements of alfalfa, in both hay and pellet form, as well as both oats and barley.  Their feeding is so lavish, in fact, that they are turning up their noses at regular grass hay, but given their otherwise precarious situation we're happy to indulge them.

Cool early Spring

We still have frosty nights from time to time, but the grass is starting to grow greener.

We have yet to lose any more ewes, although we have two sheep in the makeshift clinic on our porch, and one of the rams got too wet to survive.

We have lost a couple of ducklings to owls.  We strung up lines to interfere with owl strikes, but this is obviously not a perfect solution; more so because the ducklings like to wander at night.

To help the sheep, we are supplementing their diets with additional alfalfa, oats and barley.  The idea is to keep them going as well as we can for now, and to actively fatten them during the growing season as well as we can so as to maximise our chances of strong numbers over the next year or two.

The trees are starting to show buds, and a number of the trees we first planted are now over six feet in height.  In the next few years we should see signs of our first crops.  We do have more trees on order, but after replacing a few dead trees and filling in a few blanks on our fields we shall rarely need more.

Some days are good

Some days are good, and some days are less so.

A farmer went to feed the sheep today, and looked over to the paddock where the pregnant ewes are being kept.  There was a dog; a dog from next door, in fact.

In the interests of brevity, we shall gloss over a farmer finding the dead, and the hopelessly mauled dying, and delivering euthanasia.  The heads were too many for careful removal for the USDA, so a simple axe was used against a log as chopping block.

With sunset, the count was nine corpses on the ground, out of twenty-nine ewes.  More were stumbling or prostrated from fatigue and shock - we expect aborted lambs and deaths from shock.  One particularly hard hit one lies on our porch, with hot water bottles and rich feed to try to counteract the shock.  The flock at large have received lavish quantities of alfalfa - rich in both proteins and calcium - to help them recover.

In a few days we shall know more.

Spring is here

It seems early, and yet here it is.  The first ducklings of the season are waddling across the short grass, which is showing the first signs of growth.  Mama duck had cunningly hidden her nest, so cunningly that while we could tell from her behaviour that she must be nesting (as are a couple of others) we could not be sure exactly where the nest might be.  No matter, she hatched a fine clutch of ten fuzzy ducklings, and she shows every sign of being an attentive, careful parent.

We are not the only ones to have noticed the weather. On surrounding properties tractors are firing up and work is commencing.  There is no guarantee, of course, that we shall not get more snow, and we still have frosty mornings, but in general the air is clearing and the weather warming to the point that rather than huddle for shelter, the sheep roam and sun themselves where they will.

Soon it will be time to plant seeds, and to chase new lambs around the paddocks, but for the time being the ewes continue to walk around as if smuggling watermelons beneath woolly coats. We should also obtain another bantam cock to entertain the bantam hens we have, since the first one died sadly in Winter. Since the bantams show every signs of becoming broody at the drop of a hat, this should be a good source of chicken meat. They are a very good way of converting kitchen scraps into new food.