New Live stock arrives!

We have some new live stock arrive on the farm this weekend, it all started with the arrival on Friday of four new hens that were rescued and suppose to be free range birds...so you expect healthy fully feathered birds, don't you?

well meet our four new hens....



they look a little worse for wear, and when they first arrived they ate like there was no tomorrow!!
This is how they will end up looking like after a little TLC

meet Kiev....

Although Kiev is from a friend and not a rescue hen...she has all the colourings and markings that the others should have!

They all seem to be settling in nicely ... although they don't mingle much yet.But i am sure they will eventually.

Then on Sunday we collected Sunny... a lovely but incredibly smelly billy goat...
he is very friendly, fell head over heels for Rita...but she is not interested at the moment

Meet Sunny....

huge motorbike style horns, although the previous owner said he can be a bit vicious at times...we have yet to see that side of him, I am sure we will at some point though.

I knew he smelt bad, due to being un castrated, but this morning i nearly fell over with the smell that had hit me as i opened the barn door! it was seriously strong!
To be honest though, i really don't mind the smell.....its just as well really....no the only thing that worried me is ..... how bad will i smell of billy when i go into somewhere like a city for shopping(not that i do that very often, last time was Christmas, i think), or going for a meal in some posh restaurant for instance(not that i do much of that either these days).... I am sure it wont be as noticeable as i think it will be, but to be sure...we are planning on getting a couple of boiler suits so any smell can go on that more than our clothes.

The other thing i have noticed is, the goats seem to love eating my daffodils this year, all the flower heads are strewn in a corner of the paddock, although i have yet to catch them doing this.

Was thinking of putting them outside today, but the wind has got up and there is one huge black cloud looming over head...so they have to stay in for now.

Well i have hay to dish out to the animals....so bye for now

A quiet time

Not too much has happened this last week or two.

Thanks to the lighter mornings, egg production has gone up to four hen and four duck, a day, and with four new hens arriving and two hens still to start laying....we have a glut of eggs! You can only make so many things with eggs, and only have so many cakes for the freezer, my partners sells some at work, which covers the cost of the bird feed nicely.



Goats have bonded well outside,
although they are back in now as the weather has turned, and with the forecast of snow for today....they wont be out for a couple of days by the sound of it.

Hoping the weather will be good on Sunday as we have another goat to collect, this one is called Sunny, he is an un castrated billy goat, so we will start to stink of billy no matter how hard we try not too!
Yes they really do smell, but only when un castrated. they are also less friendly that castrated billies too....so this will be interesting wont it?

The new poly tunnel cover arrived today....means yet another job to do! we had moved the frame for is fairly recently, and had the bent bars straighted, but putting the cover on is another matter....1st you have to dig a trench all the way round...then the cover goes on and you bury the access at the sides in the ditch.... then its down to origami and getting the folds right at the entrance and the back, before you, again bury the access to weight it all down....you got all that?...good....then you can help put it up!
Once its sorted of course, it will be a godsend, especially as its so windy here most of the time, it will mean some veg will have less wind damage.

My partner has been working hard at converting a small damp room in to a wonderful damp free art room, and i have to say he has done a wonderful job.....just don't tell him or his head will swell....anyway....that is were i am off to now....I have lots of crafts that need finishing....and one is a rug made from old towels!

bye for now xx

this last week

Well the last week was a bit quieter I have to say.

We moved some blackcurrant bushes, and split them...so now we have 20ish of them and not just twelve of them!
bought some red currant, gooseberry and blackberry plants .... so hope we will get a nice crop from them too!
Poly tunnels bars were straightened, thanks to a black smith friend, and put into place where they belong, just need to replace the plastic for it now.... didn't realise we were going to get so much wind living up here, with the loss of two goat shelters and a tunnel, we have had to re think where everything will go...hence the move around.

The three goats have sorted out who's in charge(no guesses who it is again)...and are happy in the paddock together.
But we now have this question over our heads....is she? or isn't she? Rita that is, is Rita pregnant or not? we had originally thought not, but she is making a lot of noise and has put on some weight...I think not, just access winter fat that now needs to burn off...my partner however thinks she could be.....my theory is, if i think not then i wont be disappointed if it turns out she isn't, and if she is, then it will be a nice surprise!
Either way, we will just have to wait and see, but if she is, then it will be a May birth!

Well its another beautiful day outside, just done 'seed watch' and pleased to see the Garlic are doing well, there are also a couple of onions poking through, and the rhubarb is also doing well.
We planted the potatoes and peas and now just have to wait a little while.

We are also clearing an area so we can make another pen....this time to house a couple of wieners(piglets to you)...which will arrive later in the year...and eventually we will invite the two pigs for dinner ;-)

Had a phone call from my son down in Sussex recently...love hearing from him....anyway he and his girlfriend are planning a visit in July ish...i am really looking forward to it...but it does mean i will also have to sort some jobs out on the farm for him...they were brilliant at sorting the barn last time....but this time i have a cunning plan...something i know he will love to help with ....am going to get him to build a clay oven! something we have been looking at doing for some time....along with a thousand other jobs....but have put on the back boiler as it was not a priority, but with him up here...then i can move it forward and my partner can concentrate of the farming side while i concentrate on the livestock side!

well i must dash, will chat soon x

Strange days

Funny, I thought that it was going to be a quiet week this week, thought it would be easier to post a blog note about once a week maybe.
But I was very wrong...it's only Tuesday and its been chaos already....or at least it feels like it.

We had trouble in the garden....the problem was, last year we hatched our first chicks, only 6 of them, but for us it was lovely to see, one died, it was squashed by its mother....the other 5 (3 boys and 2 girls)however, thrived and still are thriving...
but the problem came to light when the hens all came into lay, the two brothers fought, and it got bad, blood every where!
We had no choice, we had to split them up! My partner built a new penned area for the black cockerel(known as BB, short for Bargain Bucket), and we gave him 3 hens to keep him company, the other 3 hens stayed with Beaky, the Orange Cockerel.....first all was well but the hens were restless, they didn't like the change or being separated.... Beaky led them over the wall to the Veg patch, where they kept scratching to theirs hearts content....well till i spotted them and chased them back, this became a game i am sure of it for the birds...i would chase them in at least 4 times a day! it was bad enough keeping them out of the veg beds and stopping them eating the seeds we had planted (thankfully only onion sets garlic and peas, although the rhubarb had also come up, and they had damaged a couple of them)but when they found out where BB was...I was out there even more often keeping the cockerels apart .....again!

Then I heard Rita making one hell of a racket...I remember thinking at the time...whats upset her now....when i went to the sitting room window(the best view of the barn and its open door), i came face to face to face with the twin goats!!
Oh hell they have escaped!
So out i go again...trying to get them into the barn ...which is no mean feat on your own i can tell you....then once in the barn, it was getting them into the pens...Ghillie didn't help! daft dog thought it was a game and herded them back out again Grrr....as i go out to the veg patch to get the goats back in i spy the the chickens in the bed! More grrr!
Goats eventually got the hint, and went to their pen! phew! Chickens, well they carried on for a few days more...until today.
BB went today, no not that way...he has a lovely home with a friend of mine, her cockerel died recently, so BB will be boss of his own flock!

So you would think that would put everything back to normal.....well sort of, I had to get the girls that were with BB back to Beaky....tipsy was fine....i just picked her up and threw her over the wall....Martha was also not too bad..... i had to chase her for about 5 Min's...then finally used the crook of my walking stick to stop her in her tracks and again just picked her up.
No the problem was Bertha...in and out of the trees, in the paddock, out the paddock...all about the houses grrrr after nearly half an hour and a very sore back....i finally got her in!!
All is now quiet and the birds seem a lot happier...but tomorrow is another day!
and of course we will have to plant some more peas!!

All this and there is still the rest of the week to go!! ho hum!

New arrivals!

Well the two angoras went to a new home yesterday, it was someone we know and so we also know they will be well looked after.


My friend arrived about 11am ish with her trailer, and we lined it up with the barn, i had geared myself up for a real fight with getting Daisy into the trailer, and was expecting to chase Banjo around the farm before we got him in, but to my surprise, it went very smoothly, especially as earlier that morning things were not looking too good for me. I had already fallen over and landed in the goat muck while trying to feed the chickens, and had also had to chase the same chickens when they had gotten into the veg patch, unfortunately they managed to break some of the rhubarb spears that had just poked through the ground! Grrrr


Anyway, I was really surprised that as i took Daisy into the trailer, without too much of a fight, that Banjo had followed quite happily!


We drove up the lane and took it easy as we went till we arrive at my friends place, where we unloaded the two new arrivals into their pen, much to the amusement to the other nosey animals.





After a few Min's of getting paper work sorted etc, we were off again, and again with trailer in tow, to the next stop, the new (to us) Saanen goats.
met with another friend who i was getting them from and after a bit of a struggle, we got them safely loaded into the trailer, it was hard work getting them in, so i was dreading getting them out again!
but again i was worrying over nothing, and they came out very easily , and it was quite hassle free.


So meet .........
Penny and Tuppence!

Tuppence is on the right of this picture.

both the goats are lovely, although a little skittish at the moment, Penny more so than Tuppence...Tuppence will come to see who you are, but Penny is the first to look over the fence at you.
Poor Rita looks totally confused with it all...especially as they look like her but a lot smaller! she is constantly just standing...staring at them lol maybe she thinks she is loosing the plot lol
I just hope they all get along ok.

Our neighbour came over yesterday evening too, he needed the OH help in delivering a calf...I had rang him earlier telling him that on of the cows seem to be struggling to give birth, about an hour later he turned up and asked for my partners help, he was over joyed to help too, it gave him some idea in what to expect when we have kids from the goats.
so about an hour after he had gone to help, he was back with a big grin on his face...the result was a black calf with a white dot on his forehead!


Today seems a bit uneventful in comparison to yesterday, although i have topped up the pond for the ducks, chased the chickens again, spotted a fox for the first time in this area(will keep and eye out for that one again)....watched the deer play, put the washing on, and out.
Chatted to the neighbour about his calf...and now doing this ...

am off now to do dishes, cut some hedging, chase the chickens...and all before lunch...

We start again!

So we have now started again!

The Poly tunnel is now moved into the walled garden area...and when the support beam is straightened...will hopefully be complete in time to start planting..we are hoping that the tunnel will be more sheltered now....fingers crossed.

One of the hen houses is now in the Paddock thanks to the two cockerels tearing each others faces off!, and poor hens don't know if they are Arther or Martha!

The ducks don't seem very fussed about all this movement and change...although one of the female duck does like to give another female duck a piggy back now and then.....if you know what i mean ;-)

We are also moving all the fruit bushes and trees into the walled garden too....this in theory will mean that we will be able to plant more fruits and there will be less chance of the goats eating them before we do!, It also means that we can have a couple of bee hives in there too, Ideal for the bees as there will be plenty of flowers to pollinate for them...although we will have to fence that area away from the chickens!

If this all works well...we will hopefully put a nice little seating area in there too...so we can sit and enjoy....although that may be a long way off yet, especially as we are making this walled garden area sound huge! when its actually very small! But again its all trial and error isn't it.

The area where the tunnel and the currant bushes were, will be cleared and fenced off...hopefully before June!...then his nibs will build a shelter big enough for two....pigs! yep we are getting just a couple for fattening up for Christmas!

We did the same last year with a sheep called prudence,

she thought she was one of the goats for a while, she was a lovely sheep, and was very tempted to keep her and breed from her, but i put my foot down on that one.... we want to be goat farmers ...so must stick to what we want and not wavier too far off the path.

when we took her to the abattoir, it was hard...we were sad, but by a few days later when we were tucking into lamb chops...we had forgotten about the sadness...and looked at the money we had saved.

We also turned her skin into a lovely sheepskin rug...so she will always be with us!

As well as a pair of slippers for my son!

There is also a new Goat shelter up in the paddock....well it was a garden shed given to us by a friend who decided that it was no longer of use to them...so perfect for our goats, although the goats were straight into it(mainly as we put hay in it), and they learnt to shelter from the wind in it...the minute it rained they screamed blue murder to go in the Barn! Still they are in for a shock too, soon.

Daisy has been sheared and Banjo half sheared....then its the dusting of Louse powder...which smells like liquorice...Banjo is only half sheared as he is so fidgets so much...we still have to do his tummy area, around the delicate bits down to his legs...also the top of his head...so at the moment he looks more like a poodle than a goat!...but we will win this battle with him, whether he likes it or not!

Thursday coming, Daisy and Banjo are off to their new home, the reason we are getting rid of them is because Daisy was just to keep Rita company...Banjo was a surprise...but neither are of use to us...I don't use their wool, but a friend of ours will and that's where they are off to.

Rita wont be alone though, we are collecting two new goats the same day, they are twin Saanen's, so a smaller version of Rita...Also we will be getting a Billy goat too, but he arrives later when we get the pen ready for him...

Why are we getting a Billy instead of borrowing one?.....well... we did borrow one from our vet...Puck his name was and a real gentleman towards Rita...she was with him 4 times in all, then he died...... we hunted for another one, and found one with a friend of ours....her Billy wasn't so friendly ..in fact he didn't even want Rita to go!...but she didn't take...and we rang to re arrange...that's when we found out he too had died! Poor Rita, she was given the nickname "the black widow!"...none of it was her fault...it turns out that Billy goats go sterile about a month or two before they die...and it had just been bad luck.

It was too late to find another billy now, the season was over, and we couldn't find one we could borrow, but then we were given a tip...the Gamrie goat soap lady had a billy, he was no use as he was related to all her goats now, and he was only two!... so no chance of him dropping anytime soon....we went out to meet her and the billy(sunny), and fell in love with him...so we just have to get the pens strong enough to hold him...then we can collect him anytime we are ready....which also means Rita gets a reprieve.....for now at least...