All posts by dumblehole

Hens

A trio of Legbars

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Now hold it girls.....!
Now hold it girls…..!

Here are three of the five hybrid hens I hatched last year from a mating of a White Star/Cream Legbar hybrid cock and pure breed Cream Legbar hens. They lay gorgeous greeny-blue eggs and look like pure breed cream legbars. Their sisters however are white with ginger breasts and one lays a blue egg, the other a pure white one.  It just goes to show a) you never really can be sure what you’ll get when crossing hybrids with pure breeds, which is what makes it exciting and b) just because you see a cream legbar hen, don’t assume it’s a pure breed! However, the other lesson learnt is if you select for egg colour (as I did) you do stand a good chance of getting good coloured eggs from the offspring. I did this mating to see if I could replicate the really good quality eggs I was getting from the Ludlow Legbar hybrids I had hatched the previous year from a local supplier, and so far I have.

Machinery, Pigs

Go Go Weaners

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Joe came to pick up all 8 weaners today. Now moving pigs is either straight forward and it takes no time at all, or it’s a nightmare. Today turned out to be the latter.

Initially we followed defacto plan A, i.e use a bucket of feed and walk the weaners plus Sultana up into the yard where they can be enclosed in a small space. Back the trailer up and walk everyone into the trailer. Normally works a treat. two problems today a)  Joe planned to put the weaners in the back of his truck and b) the pigs didn’t play ball.

Half of the weaners wouldn’t cross the boundary where the electric fence normally is. The others were in the yard and caught one by one to load into the truck. Now weaners at 8 weeks are quite small and you can ‘pop them in the car’, however these are 13 weeks. As soon as one was put in another escaped. Re-think required.

OK plan B, let’s get all the weaners and Sultana back in their paddock and then encourage them into the ark. Once in the ark they’re contained and we can carry them one by one into Joe’s truck. Hmm… the truck isn’t working let’s use our livestock trailer to avoid any more escapees. There’s quite a dip from the yard into the field but the Defender should manage it.

An hour in and things are going our way. I won’t say it was easy catching wriggling muddy weaners but it was working. However it’s a little unnerving being in the ark with a squealing weaner when Sultana comes barging in barking, to see what’s going on. She was very good about the whole thing and a few pounds of pig nuts pacified her.

 All we had to do now 2015-01-06-moving-weanerswas drive out of the field back to the yard. The Defender tried her best but it’s very muddy a steep slope and the trailer is quite heavy. Massey to the rescue. First tow the defender out. Second pick the front of the livestock trailer up on the 3 point linkage; I don’t have a tow bar on the Massey.  Third drive back to the yard.  It all went like clockwork, honestGnome-Face-Wink-64

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Sorry no photos of us with weaners in our arms; all of us were fully occupied no spare hands to take any snaps.

Weather

Sunrise

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We’ve had some cracking sunrises and sunsets over the last couple weeks. I don’t think my snap does them justice.

It’s starting to feel like Winter with the temperature getting below zero. The taps in the fields have frozen a couple times so far. If you want to build a stalagmite like mine,  then don’t quite turn the tap off overnight.

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Machinery, Pigs

Kiwi & Sultana take up Winter residence

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With the porkers gone we’re free to move Kiwi, Sultana and her litter plus 2 arks to the other end of the field for the Winter. Straight forward you’d think. Plan was straight forward, move one ark, move Kiwi, move second ark and then move Sultana and the piglets. It’s a good plan however remember the quickmud? The quickmud didn’t really want to release the ark nor us once we were in it’s grip. The wooden floor I made and the Porkers never used other than a toilet was wedged tight inside the ark. After 45 mins of pushing, pulling, swearing and Amanda losing her welly(lol), we managed to get it free. A photo or two would have been hilarious but in Amanda’s words “Due to the difficulty of taking photos whilst trying to lever a large ark out of mud, without a) releasing the ark so that you have to start levering all over again and b) loosing your boots which are firmly stuck in that mud, we have only one rather uninspiring photo of lots of bits of wood under the ark, which in no way convey the sheer frustration of trying to move the bloody thing, or how long it took!” …not a happy bunny.

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Kiwi checking on progress
Kiwi checking on progress

While all this was going on Kiwi was happily grazing, rattling a few pig nuts and she was in her new quarters. Ark number two was a lot quicker, without a floor and less mud it was down the other end of the field in no time. All we had to do now was to walk Sultana and her piglets down. Shouldn’t be a problem after all the piglets will just ‘follow Mum’ … err no that wasn’t what they or Sultana had in mind.

2014-12-10-Sultana-herding-croppedSultana thought it would be fun to round up the ewe lambs and put then in the lambing shed. Meanwhile the piglets went in all directions except the direction of Sultana. More pig nuts and we have Sultana back with the piglets, temporarily at least. No matter what we tried we couldn’t get all 8 to follow her. Eventually we had 5 and Sultana following the bucket and off we went. So what about the last 3? Fortunately with some ‘sushing’ they went into Ark number 3, perfect.  Amanda backed the Landrover up close by, then one by one we caught the piglets without letting the others escape and bundled them in the back of the Landy. After short drive to the other end of the field they were re-united with Mum and their siblings. Time for a shower and a cuppa.

 

Machinery

Hay making

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Well this is the baler arriving!  Mike has bought a mower (slightly too big for the Massey, but I understand there’s a cunning plan), a haybob and a mower, so we are all set to make our own hay next season. This could be a real saving or a disaster as we have never made hay. All the items were shipped by a huge lorry and unloaded at the farm up the road (thank you Tim!) and then Mike collected each bit and drove it round. This wasn’t completely straight forward as the mower is too heavy and the front wheels of the Massey weren’t doing a lot. He had to reverse it over the brook and up the drive and with no steerage it was a trifle tricky. But it didn’t end up in the brook and it’s all in the barn now and we look forward to using it next year. I am sure it will be a joint effort as the grass will need turning every day, so I’d better read up on hay making!

Pigs

At last the Porkers are gone

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I have to admit the Porkers were driving me crazy. It’s not all their fault but wading 30 yards through a foot of mud being hassled by 6 delinquent pigs each weighing  80Kg twice a day was a game that was ‘wearing a little thin’ shall we say. I thought Amanda was winding me up when she announced the butcher’s couldn’t take them for another week, that’s another 14 trips through the quickmud. What’s quickmud; it’s the clay equivalent of quicksand. If you move  fast enough you can stay on top, any hesitation and you’re up to your knees.  They say revenge is a dish best served cold, my preference in this case is roasted, sliced with crackling on the side Gnome-Face-Wink-64

Pigs

The Perfect Mud Bath

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2014-11-13-all-quietTo make the perfect mud bath you will need;

  • 6 adolescent pigs
  • small parcel of pasture
  • 30 mm of rain
  • a sense of humour

Enclose the pigs on the pasture. Apply the rain evenly over ten days. Feed the pigs twice daily to encourage them to root.

“et voilà” good pasture turned to mud bath in under two weeks.

It might all look calm and orderly in the photo but there’s quite a bit of pushing and shoving at feeding time.  We were feeding the pigs in the middle of their paddock and it was only going to be a matter of time before one of us belly flopped into the mud.

Machinery

Tractor Repairs

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If I can just get this undone.
If I can just get this undone.

Well, the tractor repairs are coming along well, as you can see Mike is concentrating hard. He was disturbed this afternoon however by the 6 porkers escaping. They had piled the mud over the electric and then made a run for it. One went to Mum (Kiwi) and the others thought it would be fun to chase the sheep. Sadly we have no photos as we were too busy getting them back in their run with food. At this rate we will be relieved to see them go in two weeks.

Bought a livestock trailer at auction on Friday. Backed the Landrover up to the trailer to hitch it up to bring it home. Lowered the jockey wheel but it stopped 2inches higher than the tow bar. Unlike a single axle trailer this one is a double axle and balances on the two axles. Three options a) leave trailer and come back another day when I’ve adjusted the tow bar b) raise the Landrover or c) lower the trailer. a) wasn’t an option. I tried bouncing on the trailer but couldn’t get it low enough to hook on. Transferring the pig feed from the Landrover to the front of the livestock trailer narrowed the gap to an inch. Enlisted the help of a passer by, well not quite a passer by, my escapades were blocking his exit from the auction.  With both on us standing on the trailer we managed to get it hitched.

Pigs

Pigs in buckets!

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Here is feeding time with piglets after 1/2 inch of rain. The buckets are supposed to reduce the food waste, but as you can see the piglets have other ideas.  The field has gone from being muddy to looking like the Somme, it won’t be long before we move them all to drier ground. Thank goodness their ark is nice and dry.