Sorry!

Can't believe it's been so long since I've posted. But I think I'll have another bash. I have quite a few things to keep a tab on at the moment so what better place to do it.



I have developed a definate poultry obsession in recent weeks and there is so much going on! Ever since we moved to Wales I've had a few chooks, but it's now progressed.



I now have quail! I currently have five, i picked up what was meant to be five hens and one cock from my cousin. Sadly I lost one hen and one turned out to be a cock. So I am off to pick up a few more hens tomorrow. This photo is of Dude with three of the girls.





This is Woody, my fab little broody;

She's sitting on Runner Duck eggs! That will hopefully hatch into something like this;

(Photo coutesy of lovely Ebayer from who I purchased my eggs, thank you)

Unfortunately I can't stay away from Ebay and spotted this;

It's a Cayuga Duck

Well I was smitten. I've never seen them before so I called my cousin for some info only to find he has a friend who keeps them! I am picking up some eggs tomorrow when I go for the quail! I'm having to borrow an incubator because mine is full already!

In there are some Black Copper Morans I am hatching for a friend. But also 7 pheasant eggs that my neighbour found. They are fertile but I think the nest had been abandoned and I am not sure if they are still viable. But you have to try!!

So there is a lot going on and the eggcitement starts next weekend when the Runners are due to hatch. So I will try to be good and keep posting.

Nice to be back! Again!

I'm back!!

Well, I've had a break! But I'm back now, I don't know if I'm refreshed, but I'm back anyway!!

Lots of things have happened, but I won't tell you about them all now, that would take far too long!!

It turns out I don't have Cealiacs after all. What I have got remains a mystery!!

The girls continue to ride, and are now joining pony club. It really is a good deal you know. At the moment I pay £10 each for half an hour's lesson, and £5 each for half an hour stable management. For £22 a year they can join Pony Club (without their own horse) and once a month meet up for the day, ten til four, ride, learn and have fun. They can take riding tests, earn badges, compete and camp!! Ideal if you ask me! Just wish I was under 21, I wanna join! Find out more here.

I have also started riding again, yay!! A lady just down the road from me has three horses, Ippy, Echo and Gayly, that I and lovely girl have been exercising and also I have been riding for a woman locally who has ride and drive horses. Advertising time!! Felicity and her husband John have a beautiful holiday home in a very secluded and beautiful spot in the Welsh countryside. Felicity also runs driving courses, check it out here. Felicity's five year old is a bit fizzy so I accompany her on hacks on her old faithful, Champ, who provides a calming influence to help Archie settle. There is also Belle, a three year old who will be broken to drive this summer and also, hopefully, I will be helping back her too.

This weekend I am hoping to take Gayly on a fun ride, The Llandinam Mountain Event. Weather permitting of course, becaue it really has been quite crap, hasn't it?

Apart from that, well, we have new chicks in the fold after a broody hen got a present of fertile eggs. She hatched seven out of seven, we lost two but the rest are coming on fast.

Sadly we lost Bella, one of the battery hens. But Cinnamon has integrated wonderfully and is now living in the big house with the other girls.

Jedi has been to school camp, and had a wonderful time, abseiling, cayaking, orienteering, caving and a world of other things!!

The cats have been bringing me headless rabbits on a regular basis (eewwww!), I haven't seen my husband in just over a month, oh and I took this cracking pic of Harley;

Nice to be back :)

Chickens, Gardening and Springfever!!

The last couple of days, while I've had a week off (Ihave such a great job, that means I get all the school holidays off!) I have been doing a bit of gardening. I thought it was time time to tackle my overgrown borders before everything starts growing in again. Trouble is the soil is terrible, it is practically pure clay. It makes digging it twice as hard as other soil. Every fork full weighs a ton, it sticks to the fork and mostly stays in large clumps. In about a total of five hours digging I have dug over and weeded such a small amount.

It does look amazing though, it lifts the whole look of the garden. I've dug in well rotted chicken and rabbit litter and tried to convince the girls not to feed all my precious worms to the chickens. I am hoping the more compost I dig in the better the soil will get, but I am also guessing it will take some time.

The weather has been quite good for the last couple of days and I am hoping it will stay dry for a while so I can get some more done before I go back to work. The chickens have had a great time digging in the freshly uncovered earth and compost and the cats have been enjoying the sunshine. I think they are starting to feel spring in the air. Little clumps of snowdrops are appearing and everyone seems to have a bounce in their step.

I am also glad it is mild at the moment for an entirely different reason. We didn't have a cat flap, so hubby made a whole in the 'dining room' wall, lined it will tiles and attached a cat flap to the outside. Now, seeing as how he's a builder it was never quite finished. (Anyone who's been married to a builder knows that they don't finish their own house!) But it was perfectly operational and did a good job..... until one of next doors big fluffy cats decided to visit. She came through the cat flap but before she could get out of the tunnel into the dining room she met Harley. Harley was non too impressed and expressed his disapproval of the uninvited guest as only disgruntled cats can. Mocha attempted a hasty retreat and being a rather large puss with a lot of excess fluff, must have got caught up. She ripped the cat flap off and the tiles all collapsed. I now have a cat hole!!. They love it!! Much quicker when you are being chased by your brother!! Stretch (our neighbour) has promised to fix it for us, but for now at least it is mild and dry!

Bethddusuit's Recommended Read

I have decided to give a shout out to all my favourite bloggers so Thursday is going to become;

I am going to go through my reading list, from top to bottom, and each Thursday write about one blog. I do have quite a few, so it may take a while, but I hope you enjoy maybe finding new blogs and finding out what amuses me! So without further fuss or bother I present you with the first blog in my list;


A View From The Green Barn

A View From The Green Barn is written by Don, an elementary school teacher from Michigan. He lives and writes from his little farm, surrounded by chickens, woods and wonderful scenery. Don always posts the most amazing photos of the farm, chickens and other beautiful things, and I enjoy looking at these as much as catching up with hatchings, gardening plans, bread making and general goings on. Don is a friendly chap who always makes the effort to respond to comments on his blog and to leave comments for others. I'n not sure how he has the time though, what with all his fans!

So, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Don for a fanscinating blog and for all the kind comments he has left for me. So why don't you pop on over to Michigan, visit Don and say Hi.

Snow fun

Unfortunately not enough snow for the kids to stay home from school yet, but it has snowed gently, but steadily since yesterday afternoon. Actually I can't remember the last time it snowed for so long without stopping. Apparantly we are expecting more tonight so there is hope yet!

This was taken about half ten this morning, you can see the chickens morphing through the duck stage into penguins!



These are the snow angels that the girls made when we finally got home this evening.

Updates and Adventures

Right, I'm going to try and get back to regular blogging! It's been a really mad start to this year and it feels like it should be about June already!!

Things have improved for Blue quite a lot, she is getting feed and attention at least every other day. Not quite perfect but a damn site better. Her owners aren't spring chickens anymore and I have to hand it to Mrs for going out in the weather we have been having to tend to her. Fingers crossed it will continue. As for the RSPCA they still haven't been back!

Jedi's idea of a good start to the year was to go into hospital on New Year's Eve down in Somerset, when she was staying with my parents and I was stuck up here in Wales suffering terribly from Flu with poor hubby. Just before Christmas she had had a pain in her tummy which went off quite quick and that we put down to trapped wind or something. Anyway it happened a couple of times after that and eventually wouldn't go away, so she was admitted with a suspected apendicitis. She showed all the classic signs and was really quite poorly but when they did blood work there was no evidence of infection. They also did an ultrasound scan and couldn't find anything wrong there either!! I rushed down there on New Years day, still dying myself, and spent a further two nights there with her. They eventually released her with no real explanation for the pain except that it may be a grumbling appendix which may well kick off again. It took quite some time for the pain to go but she is much improved.

Hubby is back in Dumfries, we are on our third week apart :( I'm not sure when he'll be back, he left saying 'see you in February or March!!' He did ask me the other night where in my menstrual cycle I was. I wondered why he was suddenly interested in women's things, turns out he's planning the best time to come home!!! Oh well, at least I know I'm good for one thing, oh and doing the washing he inevitably brings home with him!!!

I am finally getting eggs!!! Yay! My one youngster that had come into lay before winter has finally started laying again, along with two others. The ex-batts haven't bothered yet, but I don't mind that so much, the eggs are a bonus really. It's so nice to have proper eggs again. I really do hate buying them when I have chickens in the garden.

I promised the girls a picnic at the weekend, and you know what happens when you make promises like that, so last Saturday we wrapped up warm and packed some lunch. We headed off to Llyn Clywedog and Bryntail Lead Mines. It was cold but sunny and we had a lovely day. The resevoir is stunning and the kids loved the lead mine ruins. They found a tiny one room cottage and tried to imagine what it would have been like to live there back in the 1800s. They gathered sticks and made a pretend fire in the old fireplace, and swept the floors and scattered grain for the pretend chickens. All the while waiting for daddy to come back from the mines! It was a great day and the weather held off just long enough.

I'll leave you with some pictures.

Very proud mum!

Well, even though we have all had dodgy colds we made it to the school Christmas show. Because it's not a church school, they have a slightly different take on the nativity and this year was the Xmas Factor. Trouble was an angel of all things and Jedi was Mary. They both did a fabulous job and Jedi's solo brought a tear of sheer pride to her mummy's eye. The infants and junior are split and do their own little show and I have to say the standard was incredible. Those teachers must put so much time and effort in to get all those little ones doing and saying what they are meant to. And some of the juniors definately have an acting career ahead of them!!

Jedi's foot is much improved, her chest is fine and the troublesome child has been removed from the school, so things are definately improving for her.

I am still getting no eggs from my chickens, which is very frustrating but apparently I am not the only one! There was a young fox loitering around the house this morning so I must be vigilant. We have hardly thawed at all over the last few days but we have had no snow. The Bengal Brothers are spending most nights under my duvet and will wake me up, patting my face until I let them in.

I am slowly getting through the Christmas shopping but have disappointed myself by giving in to the kids and putting the Christmas tree up yesterday. Christmas never starts this early in this house! We usually put the tree up the weekend after my birthday, which isn't until Wednesday. I think we just all needed a bit of a boost, and I have to admit that seeing it twinkling by the window have lifted us all. Jedi has been madly wrapping everything in sight, I love wrapping presents but I haven't had a look in, she even offered to write my Christmas cards! The tree brings much joy to the cats of course and Clay has been climbing it every five minutes since it went up! Hubby would hate it but he's not here so up yours with ya humbugs!

All things - updated!!

Website

Right well, feeling a little less stressed now. I've got all my little bugs on the website ironed out. ALL the links work properly now!! I posted about my website on my Facebook and I have just had a very kind offer from an old school friend, who it turns out is a whizz at this kind of stuff. I only wish I knew that three days ago! The last friend who I asked for help wanted to charge me, some friend. Anyway, I'm pretty pleased with myself know, and I am starting to get interest from B&B's too. So fingers crossed.

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Apologies

I have two apologies to make, firstly to all my blogging friends. I have been too busy to read all your posts in the last few days and I seem to be following half of Blogger! I will read them all because I want to!! I just may not comment.


Second apology is to my Hubby and kids. I have been a raging, hormonal stress head in the last few days and have had a very short fuse. That should be easing any time soon, so sorry folks I will try to be nicer to you from now on. I have heard that Evening Primrose is especially good for PMT so I am going to give it a go and maybe next month I can be loving, caring, nice mummy/wife!!

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Children, chickens
and rabbits.

As for the goings on around home, garden and school, these are the updates;

Jedi's problem child has taken to ignoring her, which I have to say is far better than what was happening before. The only time he takes any notice of her is when she plays her guitar. So that's what he needed, some music to sooth his soul! The letter I wrote to the school has been welcomed by the Head and will be handed in at the boy's review today.


My poorly chicken has really surprised me. After being really low for a week, she has started to pick up and looks stronger and stronger every day. I was beginning to think her time was up and that I'd have to do the kindest thing. She must have read my thoughts. I gave them some live yoghurt, whether this helped or not I'm not sure. She is not 100% but she is improving so fingers crossed there too, that she makes a full recovery.





And in bunny news, I seem to have forgotten my pregnant bunny knowledge from a couple of years ago!! I had convinced myself that the gestation period for rabbits is three weeks, so had calculated their arrival to be last weekend. Dumbo!! Its actually 28-32 days. I have no idea where I got 21 from! Anyway, I was beginning to wonder if she was just a bit fat, so I picked her up today to have a feel of her tummy and got the loveliest surprise. Her tummy was just rippling with tiny kicks a wriggles! I have never felt that before on a rabbit, I guess because I have always been a bit more sure of the pregnancy and have left her alone. So there we go, she isn't just fat, and she is actually due this weekend or shortly after! I'm just hoping she doesn't go and have a dozen of them!

New things

I am a real animal person, my husband is not. I grew up in a farming environment and have always been surrounded by animals of one kind or another. When I first left home I lived in a bedsit and we weren't allowed pets of course, so I smuggled a hamster in. It just didn't feel right to not have any animals round me. I got found out though and the hamster was evicted, he had to go and live at mum and dad's!

My husband however, is a townie and isn't keen on animals at all really. He is really soft on his cats though, but don't tell anyone, it would ruin his image!! The kids aren't allowed any more pets in the house, but he doesn't seem to mind the things we have outside. So the rabbits don't bother him too much, except for when they create sunrooves for their hutches and I need his expert D.I.Y. skills. He isn't really that interested in the chickens, but he does enjoy their eggs and he did build their house for them.

So I'm thinking maybe some quail would be nice, you know, just a trio, maybe. They won't take up much space and Hubby loves quail eggs too, although it would probably take about 20 to feed him once! So I have been looking around and finding out about them. I found this nice blog here; http://kooringa.com/?p=7482 Allotment lady has quails and has some lovely pics of them.

I also took the girls to see some locally yesterday. The lady was a bit wary of us wanting to sell eggs and compete with her 13 year old son, who's venture they were, not likely, I will be stuffing them down faster than they will lay!! They had four Japenese and one Italian. Very cute and smaller than I expected.

I'm still undecided on the best housing and also a tad confused about their diet, so if anyone has any expert quail wrangling advice I would be very grateful.





As for the brood of chickens I still only have one ex-batt laying, I was hoping that after their vague moult Cinnamon would decide to lay again, but nothing yet bless her. It looks like I only have one youngster laying too, as I have had five tiny eggs from them since Saturday. Mind you, I'm not sure if they lay every day at the beginning or whether they build up to it. Anyone know the answer to that one?

The youngsters (duck-chickens) - all grown up!

A valiant effort. 3 'first eggs' and 1 ex-batt egg

I must start thinking about combining the two pens too. The ex-batts are still separate from the youngsters at the moment, but I want to combine the runs for winter. The ex-batts only have cat box beds right now and I really want them in the main house before it starts getting really cold. They range together (kind of) when they are all out and their pens are right next to eachother, so I'm hoping they will integrate well. I just need to connect the two pens together, then they will all have the run of both. The ex-batts pen is completely covered so it will be better for all of them to have a bit more dry area.

The current set-up. I want to link the two.

Speaking of youngsters, this is one of my bunnies - Butterfly (!!?)

And judging by her current mood swings (eek, psycho bunny) I think she may be pregnant! So we will have some more youngsters in the fold. Should be in about a week and a half, so i'll keep you updated and hopefully have some pics to post.

I apologise if the spacing in this post is all messed up, it seems to do that when I mess about and post photos!

Show Winners!

Wow! What a day Saturday was. We got up bright and early to get ready for the show. We baked Abbie's pizza very carefully, can you imagine burning it at the last minute? One of the cats nearly knocked Jade's layered chocolate pudding of the kitchen worktop, that wouldn't have gone down well either. We then had to get flowers in wellies, chocolate pudding and pizza to my sister's house. There we picked up her and her entries to take to the show.

When we got there I was pleasantly surprised by the high standard of all the entries. I was a little disappointed that some of the childrens' work looked very 'assisted'. Most of the flower arrangements in wellies were very over done. We had gone for the wild river flowers and cottage garden look. We thought that it suited the wellies better. Anyway we layed everything out and then the tent was closed for judging, so I took my sister home, unfortunately she had to work.

We returned at two o'clock when the tent reopened to see how we had all done. My sister's baby blanket won third in the knitted baby item class, and the Christening jacket she had made for J many years ago, won her first and best in section! The kids did well too, J got a first for her handwriting, and her chocolate pudding, that we had had to top in the car when we got there! A's pizza won second, which was great because some of the pizzas were very good and it was a class up to 11 years. Unfortunately A's cyprus flag collage didn't get placed which I was very disappointed with because it was very good. And neither did the welly flowers. The judges obviously liked the totally over the top 'manufactured' look rather than country flowers. Never mind, you can't force the judges to think the same way as you do, and the kids had fun anyway.

The rest of the show was great with a donkey derby, dog racing, lots of stalls and laser clay pigeon shooting and archery. Unfortunately S had to work Saturday morning and didn't get there until late and most of the good stuff had finished. He was also shattered and didn't really get into the swing of it. I never did find the bale toss, but I don't think he would have had the energy to pick it up let alone hurl it anywhere!! I think I'll take him to the Royal Welsh next year, if that doesn't get him excited I don't know what will!!

I found a couple selling amazingly cute bantams of varying colours and fluffiness and nearly ended up with a whole heap of new birds. But one of my ex-batts is poorly at the moment and I really need to concentrate on her at the moment. I read somewhere that chickens were very addictive, and who ever wrote that comment was right. Although, being champion of the underdog, I think I will probably concentrate on the ex-batts and not get pulled into fancy breeds, it does seem a little unfair when so many birds need the help.

Anyway the show was great, the kids won some prize money, I enjoyed the tug of war, especially when a local stag party did it in their underwear! And the weather was decent enough to stay relatively pleasant for the day. So I think a good day all round.

Chicken Sexing

Okay this time i'm not just rambling, i need some advice please. Do any of you chicken people know how the hell I can sex my chickens. I keep thinking I know, then one of them looks totally different overnight! I'm estimating that they are around 16 - 17 weeks old. They are Heinz 57 variety so no feather sexing here. I am not about to squeeze their bums either, so please don't suggest vent sexing thank you!

The two that I thought were boys are the two black ones. They are slightly bigger than the others but I thought this was due to the other two being ill early on. They both also don't have such developed wattles as the others, although their combs are the same. One though, has changed his tail shape. It has become longer and less feathered. This chap is also the more dominant one of the group. I am guessing he's a cock.

This one, however looks exactly the same, wattles, comb and all, but has a much stumpier tail, like the others.

So am I just being hopeful, stupid, or is it just too early? I need to find new homes for the boys because J won't let me cook them. We may have found someone who will rehome one, but I need to know if I am giving away the right bird! I don't want to give up my layers! So any ideas gratefully received!

Chickens and bungalows

So, Saturday afternoon, when I was being lazy and helping J with a computer game instead of doing the housework, S turns up unexpectedly, AGAIN! I had spoken to him on Friday and he told me he wouldn't be back for two weeks! Now S does like a tidy house, and wasn't much impressed with the pile of washing up I hadn't quite got round to, so I appeased him with a cup of coffee and two beautiful, tasty, poached eggs! Speaking of chickens, look at these two now, making out that they always liked eachother!


Saturday evening my sister took the girls to the theatre and kept them over night, so me and S had a peaceful night to ourselves. We had to go and get him some food, because, thinking he wasn't coming home, I hadn't bothered to buy him his 'man' food! Me and the girls eat a lot of pasta and rice, S is a meat and two veg man. While we were out we stopped off to look at a bungalow which might suit my parents. They have such a long list of criteria, but all of them quite important. They are not looking to move again, so the house has to be just right. They are both keen gardeners, dad has grown his own veg for years, but the garden can't be so big that they won't cope a few years down the line. My mum doesn't drive but is extremely independent, so the house musn't be too remote, or have an impossibly good bus service! The bungalow, unfortunately, was too far out of town, and would have meant mum would have quite a walk, up a hill, to get the shopping home.

It's hard looking for a house when you are so far away, we know, we did ourselves not long ago. They had a couple look at their house this weekend who were really interested, so I think they will end up renting up here for a bit until a suitable house comes up. At least that way they can see what's available and get used to the area a bit more. My dad, of course, was born and raised here, but my mum only knows the area from passing through when visiting relatives.

Anyway, as me and S cuddled up in bed quite late on Saturday night, my phone sounded to say I'd received a text message. I had left my phone in the bathroom and really couldn't be bothered to go and get it.

'Who's texting you this time of night?' asks S

'I don't know, can't tell from here' i replied, snuggling.

After the third reminder that I had a text message, i hauled myself out of bed.

'Damn it, forgot to put the chickens to bed too!' I say as I make my way to the bathroom.

'Perhaps it's them asking you to close the door!' says S from the cosy comfort of the bed.

The joys of summer continued!

Okay, okay, i am now sorry i wished for the rain, i may have stopped sneezing quite so hard but this wetness is all getting a bit depressing. Yesterday was ridiculous, just as i decided it was time to go to town the skies opened. We've had a good drenching and today doesn't look much better. Last night when i spoke to my husband he said they'd had a beautiful day yesterday, but when i spoke to him again this morning he said the rain had come, sorry my apologies to Liverpool, it's all my fault. At least the neighbour's horse is getting some resbite from the flies that have been plagueing her relentlessly.

I lost the lead that connects my mobile to my laptop, so i haven't been able to put any new ones up. My phone takes quite good pics, and i always have it with me, so i use it a lot. At last the lead has turned up. So here's a couple of pics.

These are the youngsters, who all have interesting names, thanks to the kids; Far back; Vanilla (my favourite), in front of her is Eagle, right is Woody and front is Bumble. They are around 16 weeks, and we think the two black ones are both coqs so they will be looking for new homes. J won't allow them to go in the pot!




The other day when i let the ex-batts out, i thought i'd let one of the cats out too. Next door have chickens and the cats don't bother them anymore. I decided on Clay as he's the calmer of the two. At first he ignored them but then thought he'd have a stalk, the chickens had no concept of danger and completely ignored him. This is going to take some work if all chickens are to free range in the future!

Speaking of cats, this is H getting up close and personal with Blue one of our neighbours' horse. H is a bit nervous of Blue, but I caught C lying behind her playing with her tail the other day! She is a lovely old girl, with a wonderful calm and friendly nature.








She loves a carrot or apple and a bit of fuss, unfortunately she doesn't get as much attention as she should, so she loves it when the girls (A left, J right) come and give her some love. Here she is giving J a really good rub. When we first came A was very nervous around horses (or ponies for that matter) she wouldn't even feed her a bit of apple, but Blue has really helped her overcome it, she's a good 16hh but A is confident enough to go in the field and give her a brush, and she has learnt to gently push her away if she gets too close.


These pics, were taken a couple of days ago when we were lucky enough to catch 30 minutes of sunshine! I take it all back, it's July! Please bring back the sun!

Eggs

C didn't lay yesterday and the day before we had a very odd egg. The fat end was normal, but the pointy end was a very obscure shape and paper thin. I'm guessing it was just a blip as we have two beautiful eggs today. I have given them cat food, someone said it was good protein to help them regrow their feathers and it should help with the eggs too. Trouble is because they are battery hens they have never seen anything but mash their whole lives, they have no idea what to do with anything else!

I saw a blog post the other day where someone was claiming that they would only ever eat battery eggs. Why? Because of a particular egg, which had a feather stuck to it! OMG a feather, how disgusting! Grow up for God's sake, no one says you have to eat the feather. Would people really rather eat eggs from hens who suffer horrendously than a beautiful egg (with a feather on it) from happy chickens that free range.