Starting from number six there are five new photographs on the Photo Page.
There are quite a lot of photographs to go on the Photo Page. I thought that I had better put these Christmas one from Jannette (Cheshire) on now as it is nearly forgotton.
We woke yesterday morning to 8 to 10 inches of snow and it was cold. Even colder last night, and I do believe the Emu and Rhea must be feeling it as the Emu were very slow coming for their feed this morning. We are giving all of the animals extra feed as with the ground being covered with snow there is no grazing. For the first time tonight three emu laid their eggs in the shelters. Some of them are taking cover in the shelters at night and some do not, The Rhea are don’t take cover at all.
Eight of our Sheep are in the barn with the other ten in the Woods. I don’t suppose we will see them until the snow goes. The Chickens have the Barns to go in during the day when they are let out from their houses in the morning. The Geese don’t seem to mind the snow or cold and they wander around in and out of the barn all day. Dennis doesn’t seem to like the cold and hangs around the Farm House porch. When one of the Buff Orpingtons who lives with Dennis ventured out of his house his feet touched the snow he jumped on a snow free piece of wood and stayed on it until bed time. I don’t think any of us like the snow other than the Horses who buck and jump about in delight.
Asbo is another who is not keen on the snow, but he has done his job very well. Most of the 100 eggs that you have seen hatching previous to the current hatch in progress are Asbo progeny, with well over 90% fertility. The current hatch was from eggs collected when we were having our yard concreted and the Chickens were kept housed for longish periods. These eggs have not been so fertile. We did not expect to get as many Chicks as we have.
The Badger are coming to feed a bit more now that the ground is very hard with frost and they are unable to dig for worms. We don’t seem to be seeing as many rats at the feeding are, with a bit of luck this cold spell we get rid of a few. We hope that it doesn’t reduce the Vole population to much as we heard one of the released Barn Owls last night and Voles are their main diet.
Elaine I haven’t had a chance to look around for Animal foot prints in the snow. I have looked around the Pond next to the Lake to see if the Otter is about. There were no Otter foot prints yesterday or today. There are Deer prints that I can see in the Valley tonight. I must have just missed the Deer. I will try to get down the Valley tomorrow to see what has been about. Trouble is the snow makes the going slow and the days seem to go so quickly that we find it hard to find any extra time.