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There are two new photographs on the photo page The…

There are two new photographs on the photo page. The Ponies from the New Forest in Hampshire was emailed from Elsie and the Moorhen was sent in by Vicky from Derby.

Elaine and Sue, it did look a little like the Badgers were mating this evening, but they were actually playing. They must have been trying to grab hold of each others rear legs. I have got a long recording of a mating session that took place last year on the feeding place on camera one. It is on a hard disc that I have taken out of a CTV digital recorder. If I can get some one to put it on to a disc, I will show it on the the site. I have a new machine that is a lot easier to work than my last one. There is a few good recording on it, but it is finding time to download .

Robin I didn’t approve your forum entry on Sunday, as at the bottom of the page, in one of links that you gave, were links to a holiday site, that offered Holidays as we do. I am sure that you didn’t realise, and that you will understand. The other link was www.badgers.org.uk/badgerpages/eurasian-badger-64.html The link will take you to the Badger Trust for information on Badger, as Robin was giving in his forum entry.

I must admit the Badger Trust would not be my favorite organisation. In my opinion they do not use the best resources to portray the Badger. Anyone who watches our webcams are able to see the Badgers as they are. Playing as a family group is appealing. One picture is worth a thousand words, the Badger Trust don’t think so. We offered the Trust a link to our webcams to let more people see Badger in real life. They used the link for a few weeks to promote Badger Day a couple of years back. Removing the link immediately after. I am sure a link would have benefited the Badgers, and a reciprocal link would get more of our visitors linking to the Trusts site. Obviously the Trust didn’t think so.

Today we managed to get the most of the equipment up for the camera in the barn to watch the Sheep, hopefully when they are lambing. There is a little more work to do and we will show it on the site. We have decided t put up another pen next to the Sheep to Stable Willow when she is weaned. The new camera will also be able to see Willow and the new Foal. We are not going to wean her until next week when the new Filly Foal arrives. The new Foal that is coming is being weaned today. She will need the company as well as Willow.

Over the past two days the infra-red lamps to show the far end of the valley were installed. At the moment they are a bit of a disaster, just a very small bright areas in and around the trees. I hope that it is just a case of adjusting, although it could be that the beam is the wrong angle, that will mean having to get new lamps.

The aggravation the remote Duck is giving me, it wont be called Daffy or Donald. Its been called a few choice names that I couldn’t repeat as it is. If it sinks, Titanic would be appropriate.

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Thank you Elsie and Vicky for the photographs that you…

Thank you Elsie and Vicky for the photographs that you emailed me. I will try to put them up tonight, but I should think that it will be tomorrow, as I have had an extremely busy day. Tonight’s Diary will explain.

We managed to buy three Horses today. I had been offered two on Friday, After checking their pedigrees I was not over impressed. It made me phone the person from Ireland that had bid on a few Horses at the Tattersall’s Sales in Newmarket last week. I am pleased that I didn’t buy any Horses last week as the three that I purchased today were a little over half the price that I was prepared to pay for one at the Auction.

The three Horses that I purchased are now all living in Ireland. Two will be coming to Denbury this Saturday or Sunday. The other one is being left in Ireland until she goes to the Stallion, very early in February.

We have purchased one Filly Foal by a French Sire called Hellissio. Hellissio is a multiple three and four year old Group winning Horse, including five Group 1. over ten to twelve furlongs. In 1996 it won the French Premier Flat Race, The Prix de l’Arc Triomphe. I haven’t seen the Filly. She was got to keep Willow company, but when we see her we will soon know if she is going to be alright to race. Nothing will be lost if she is not.

The next one that we have purchased, I know very little about, she will be here over the coming weekend. She is about eight years old. She has had three previous Foals, and is now carrying a Colt Foal by Trans Island, that is due in the middle of March. Trans Island was a multiple Group winning Horse over 6 to 8.1/2 furlongs as two, three, four and five year old. The Mare was purchased to keep Lady’s Foal, due in April company.

The third Horse is named Hearthstead Dancer a 2003 Filly by Royal Academy, another multiple Group winning Sire including two Group 1 at two and three, over six furlong to a mile. The Filly has won one race and two places as a two year old. She has also been placed over Hurdles. She is the type of Filly that I was looking to buy last week, but in Foal. She is the right age to be putting into Foal next year. The Filly will be kept in Ireland and will go to the Stallion very early in February. With a Mares gestation period of eleven months, we will be looking for a Foal to be born in January 2009. A soon as The Filly has been successfully mated she will be bring her back to the Farm, I should think late February. I will let you know more about the two that will arriving at Denbury at the weekend.

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The weather was not as bad as was promised last…

The weather was not as bad as was promised last night and this morning. We were woken in the night with the wind, definitely not the 70 to 80 miles gusts that was forecast. The forecasters managed to get it wrong again. The better way this time. With it being wrong the right way still gives us problems. High wind forecasts make us spend unnecessary time and work with making sure every thing is safe from being blown away. The Telescope Observatory is open to southwest winds, as forecast. If the high winds that were forecast came, it may have been damaged the Observatory, causing the Telescope to also be damaged. The Telescope is far to large to take in and out of the Observatory, so we needed to secure the Observatory with a rope. The rain has been constant for some days now. Today has been really miserable, just very dark and grey with driving rain. The Valley camera make the weather look quite good, but I am able to brighten the picture on my computer. The fields are quite sodden, much to wet to let the Horses out. The fields have been quite dry for a while, so with a dry spell they will soon recover.

I don’t really mind the rain. Horses droppings are not particularly good for grass leys, and we would by now have harrowed the Horse field to break up the droppings. The dry Autumn has allowed us to leave the Horses out for longer than normal, so we have left the harrowing. The rain being as heavy as it has been breaks up the droppings, so we will now probably harrow the field late winter, early springtime, before the grass starts to grow.

Arnie really dislikes being stable during the Winter. His stable has a large opening facing the Horse field, he spends a long time looking out of it towards the field. Last year his stable door got broken with his heavy weight leaning against it. We didn’t replace the door as in front of the main stables is a corralled area that so he is free to come and go into the stable as he wants. Breeze is stabled in the same area, so this year we have left her stable door open, so that she has a bit more freedom. We leave the turnout rugs on because if it rains you can be sure that they will be wet in the morning.

Lady and Willow are stabled in a different stable block that has not been corralled off, that is why you very often see Branston head peering in to Lady’s stable. With the way we have seen that Arnie and Breeze take advantage of the corral, we are going to start to corral in front of Lady’s stable block tomorrow. Lady being in Foal wont be able to go in and out of her stable as much as Arnie and Breeze, but it will give her a bit more freedom during the Winter, when the Horses cant go into the fields. At the moment Lady and Willow spend most of the day in the corral with Arnie and Breeze.

I have posted a new photograph of where the Sheep are now housed. It is the same place that we stabled Bliss and Misty last Winter. It is a gated area of about 30 x 15 feet. A good large area for the two fillies to have a buck and chase about, that they often did, and of course we were able to keep them together for company. I will try to get a camera installed showing the area on Monday or Tuesday.

Elsie, didn’t get your photograph

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I showed the stream on the Valley camera earlier to…

I showed the stream on the Valley camera earlier, to show how much rain we have been getting. We had a bit of a flood in one of the outbuildings. The forecast for tonight is not very promising. Heavy rain and severe gales they reckon.

Elsie emailed me this as below today. About a Horse that died on whilst being operated on with a Twisted Gut. The first signs was when the Horse showed sign of a belly ache (colic) If you remember this was the first signs of a problems that we had with Woody. There are various reason for Horses to have belly aches. Impaction that is a mass of food getting blocked in the intestine, Spasmodic that is the intestine contracting and Gas is a build up of gas in the intestine. These are fairly easy to cure, if they don’t cure them selves, very quickly. Others that need treatment and can be life threatening are Enteritis, where the large or small or both inflame and the worse type is what Major died of. This is when the gut twists and nothing can pass through. In most cases it needs an operation to cure the Horse . Although I have seen a Veterinary who once rolled a Horse on its back from side to side, untwisting the gut. A lot of Horses that need an operation don’t survive. If a Horse paws the ground, kicks at its belly, repeatedly gets up and down, looking behind themselves and standing stretched out, there is a possibility of a belly ache. (colic) There is a photo of Major on the photo page, not a very good one.

If any of you have any local Animal of Wildlife stories that you think may be of interest, email me the link. No national, as there is a good chance a lot of you may have seen them already. I wont promise that I will put them all up. Also if you have any of you own Wildlife or Scenery photographs, including Plants and Trees, that might be of interest, email me them to me, again I wont promise that they will all be put on the photo page. No family, human or private photographs will be shown.

One of the working shire horses, that are such a popular attraction at Bradford Industrial Museum, has died.
Major joined the Horses at Work team two years ago and, after an initial training period, had started to become a firm favourite among both staff and visitors.
While at the museum he not only provided rides to eager visitors, but worked in Bradford and Keighley on plant watering duties and appeared at the Great Yorkshire Show.
staff called out a vet as Major was suffering from what was thought to be a bout of colic.
This was later diagnosed as a twisted gut and he was taken to a clinic for further treatment. Despite the veterinary surgeon’s best efforts, Major died during the operation intended to save his life.
He worked alongside three other horses, Murdoch – who was one of two brothers named by Telegraph & Argus readers in 2005 – Noble and D’Arcy.
Five days a week visitors can get the chance to be introduced
to the museum horses, both old and new, at 11.15am from Tuesday to Saturday. And at 1.30pm on each of these days and on Sundays, the horses are available for horse-drawn rides. Noble and Murdoch have become old favourites at the museum, but as their training reaches a conclusion, D’Arcy will begin to share the workload.
The horses programme of work changes daily and may include work in singles or pairs, harrowing, long-reining, tram training or pulling the plant watering carts that are used in the centre of Bradford and Keighley.
Bradford Council is one of the few local authorities to still keep and employ its own horses.

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The Father Christmas Webcams are now working We had to…

The Father Christmas Webcams are now working.

We had to get the Sheep in this afternoon. The weather has been awful for the past few days and although Sheep do stay out, bad weather will bring them down. A couple of them looked a bit low, especially the Portland Ram. He is no spring chicken, and wouldn’t have long to go. I really should have kept one of the other Rams that I sent to Market, but I felt sorry for the old chap. If I had kept two Rams there would have been fights, with the young Ram trying his luck, for sure he would have taken over.

All the Sheep are now in the Barn. Unfortunately I sent the only reel of the coax wire that sends the signal for the camera, to a new location that we should be doing in the new year. If I had the wire I would have put a camera up in the Barn so that you can see the Sheep in the barn. The wire should be back with me on Monday, and I should be able to have the camera working by Tuesday at the latest.

I had hoped that the Sheep would have followed a feed bag when we moved them. The Barn is only fifteen yards from where they were fenced in around the lake. Of course being Sheep they didn’t follow the bag. As soon as they got out of the fenced area they got their heads down and starting munching away on the grass. Mind you the grass was definitely greener on the other side, so you couldn’t blame them. At least they didn’t have it on their toes, much to all of our relief. We couldn’t leave them out without being fenced in so we had to move them manually. I hope any of you who manage to see the sorrowful episode, could not lip read. If you did and could, I apologise. I am not very patient when it comes to Sheep. Some of them are very friendly, that being the case, and those that are not, you would have thought that they would have been by now, with me feeding them every day. There are three or four that keep away from me every time that I go in with them with hay. Being Sheep when they run away most of the other run with them. Dolly, Minty and Ramsden are normally are the exceptions.

We easily caught Dolly and Minty, and they were carried over to the barn. The others had us running about a bit, it could have been worse. In the end we managed to pen in a few at a time and carried those over to. The weather forecast is not good for a few days, at least, so they will be kept in the Barn until it looks as if it is going to be more settled, for a while. I will make up my mind about it. But it would be good for you to be able to see the Sheep lamb.

I had hoped to have been able to show you the Remote Duck working over the weekend. To be honest I wished that I had never started it in the first place. Believe me I hate the duck. If it was real I would have eaten it by now. The engine is in, and working, but I am having problems with the steering. The propeller and rudder are a special one piece unit. To posh really for what I am doing, but it seemed the easiest way of getting the Duck working. I have had to make various additions to the steering, but every time I go to move it a part comes undone. I think that I have found the solution, well I hope I have. I phoned a shop this morning, and were they helpful. They sell Remote Controlled Helicopters www.buzzflyer.co.uk they really were the most helpful people I have spoken to about the Duck. If get the Duck working I may get a Helicopter to look around the farm with a camera. Buzzflyers are sending me the parts that they think will solve the problem that I am having with the steering. They are no going to charge me either. If you know any one who is looking to buy a Remote Controlled Helicopter, let them know about Buzzflyers. Once I know that the Duck will float and swim around the lake, I will fit the camera. I hope that will be a bit easier.

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The Father Christmas Webcams are now working The Bloodstock Auctions…

The Father Christmas Webcams are now working.

The Bloodstock Auctions are just about finishing and I have not managed to purchase another in Foal Broodmare. I have been glued to the computer for the past four days, with sale catalogue and Stallion guide in front of me, watching the live webcam from the sale. I have been bored to tears. The only times that I have left the computer was when I went to feed the Horses, Sheep and Badgers. That had to fit in to what the sales catalogue was telling me was coming in to the sales ring.

Over the four days I bid on nine Broodmares. When I fancied a horse that was in the sales ring, I would phone a person I know who was at the sales, and he would put in my bids. It is a little bit difficult trying to buy that way, as the video is about thirty seconds behind real time. One Horse that I phoned the person to bid on was sold by the time I had got through to his mobile phone. Another one that I missed was because the Postman knocked on the door.

There were a lot more Horses that I fancied, but I knew that it would be a waste of time bidding, the prices would have been more than I wanted to pay. I was a bit surprised with some of the high prices that a lot of the Horses went for. There is so much over production of Bloodstock, that the market is in for a big crash. The large majority of Horses produced don’t run a race in their life, in fact a lot are not even broken. A lot a this sale were three and four year old Fillies that were put into Foal that had not raced. A lot of the over production is caused by the tax breaks that the Irish Government allows the Breeders in Ireland. The Foal sales a couple of weeks back, saw many that did not get bids on, let alone sell. An Irish person that I know is going to get me a Filly Foal to run with Willow for a year or so. It is going to cost very little money, only a small amount of what the Stallion covering fee would have been, let the cost of keeping the Broodmare. He is also looking out for a Broodmare in Foal for me.

I was unable to place any bids today as the person who had been bidding for me went home last night. There were two that I would have bid for. They went for more than I would have wanted to pay. I would have needed to use a Bloodstock Agent, If I had wanted to buy a Horse today. I try to avoid using Bloodstock Agents, they all know each other and make their profit out of the commission they get through buying and selling in the same auction. They also know most of the bigger breeders. I am sure you will know where I am coming from.

I also had a bad experience on the first and only time that I did use a Bloodstock Agent. I wanted a couple of Yearling for the Horse Partnerships that I was trying to get going. My instructions to the agent were that the Yearling should be from a winning Dam, ready to be trained, be able to run as a two year old’s and attractive Horses. After weeks of trying to buy me what I wanted, the agent phoned me from an auction in Ireland telling me that he had purchased two Fillies for me. We were all very excited in anticipation on what he had purchased for us. I was gutted when the two Fillies arrived. Both were very immature and would never had made two year old races. One also had Sweet Itch, a very nasty condition caused by midges that bite them, as they do us. Some Horses are very prone to the condition, although it is rarely seen in Bloodstock. It causes Horses to have very bad irritation, making them try to get rid of the itch by rubbing. As the midges bite in the tail and main area, the Horses finish up with very little of both. It is also not very nice to see the Horse suffering. The are various potions, lotions, injections and rugs that can be used to try to stop the condition. None are very successful.

The agent got most annoyed when I told him that I didn’t want the two Fillies. They were not what I wanted or asked for. He came out with a load of old rubbish about the Sweet Itch not being a problem, he even got a Veterinary in to look at the condition. The Veterinary sent by mistake a copy of his report to me, that didn’t please the Agent much. The Veterinary tried to cover himself by sending me another report. As one of my Friesian Stallions that I owned, for the funerals that we did for Undertakers had the condition, I knew more about it than most. It would have put the Horse very backward with any training that it did. That is if it could be trained at all. Needless to say I fell out with the Bloodstock Agent. After a couple of weeks the Horses that he had purchased were collected, and that was the last that I heard.

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The Father Christmas Webcams are now working I have put…

The Father Christmas Webcams are now working.

I have put a new photograph on the Photo page. As you can see by the date, the photograph was taken over three years ago. The URL www.watchingwildlife.co.uk is another you can access Denbury Farm from. The Badger is coming out of one of the Sett entrances, very close to the lower feeding site. I may leave the camera on the Sett entrance every now and then.

This was the first part of the Badger Sett that I found when I was looking for a place to set the webcams up. It was the closest to the Farm House, about twenty yards away. There were only three Badgers in the Sett when I first found it. We rarely saw any Badger on the webcam, as the entrance was only used occasionally. Unbeknown to us at the time, the main entrance to the sett was the one that the Badgers still now use the most. It was very well hidden, and over twenty five metres from the lower sett entrance. I found the entrance by putting feed down in the field, that the entrance of the Sett leads onto. At the time before Safeway’s Supermarket was taken over, they use to let me have all of their bakery waste for our Wildboar. How they ever called it waste I will never know. Some nights when we collected the waste, there were as many as thirty black bin liners, full of cream cakes, sticky cakes, bread and other special breads and fancy bakery items, all in date by one or two days. We had the best fed Wildboar ever, we didn’t do bad either. It didn’t take the Badgers long to find the cakes, that led me to the main Sett entrance.

When Morrison’s took Safeway’s over they stopped letting us have the waste and skipped it all, to be put into landfill. Just as well as the Wildboar were obese and I was getting stung many times a day, by Wasps. Within a couple of weeks we managed to find a fruit and veg wholesalers who let us have their waste. Again how they called it waste I will never know. A lot of it was thrown away because of items being over ordered or not sold. One day I picked up hundreds of punnets of perfectly good English Strawberries. This was also a regular occurrence with both the fruit ans veg. The Wildboar diet was a lot healthier, as was ours.

They are not flowers Elsie, they are rain drops, and we are getting plenty of them since I wrote on the Diary how dry it has been. I must have put a jinx on myself. With the amount of rain we are getting, the Horses are coming in every night. It makes for more work having to muck their stables out every day.

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I have posted two new photographs on the New Photo…

I have posted two new photographs on the New Photo page. They are of the Lock of the Lowe’s Osprey nest with one of the parent Ospreys in the nest. I am not sure when the photographs were taken, it could well be when the parent were sitting on the eggs. On the second photograph you can see the camera that are used for the webams and for the security of the Ospreys. There is a very sophisticated security system at the Locks visitors centre to stop the theft of the Ospreys Eggs. Every camera installed is recorded 24/7 and the centre also has 24 hour security staff employed.

Two more Horses have sold for over 3 million guineas at the Tattersall’s Mare Sale today. These belonged to the late Robert Sangster, who died earlier this year. He was the biggest Race Horse Breeder and Owner, other than the Arabs. Paying this sort of money does not guarantee that you will produce winners.

Every Horses official birthday is on the 1st of January. The nearer that you can get to that date when foaling in that year, the better it is. A Horse born on the 1st of January has the whole year to grow before becoming a yearling, one born April/May time is then four or five months behind in maturity, and is more unlikely to race early as a two year old. Get the breeding wrong and a horse born in December will become a yearling a day or weeks after being born. That happened last year to a Broodmare that sold for over 2 million Guineas at Auction, this time last year. Both Bliss and Misty were born April/May time. Bliss matured much quicker than Misty and will probably race earlier.

We have decided that we are going to name Bliss and Misty with the original names that we chose. Bliss being the star that we think she is, deserves the name LIVE THE MOMENT. Misty is a very showy Filly, ITS ME is all about Misty. We had talked about naming Willow GYPSY when I was lucky enough to get it. As soon as I saw that the name had become available on the Weatherby’s list, when it was emailed to me I had to have it. I should think that Weatherby’s had got a lot of phone calls wanting it. The name suits Willow, I have wrote in the Diary before, that she very often wandered off and was with Bliss and Misty more than she was with her Mother, Lady.

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It is going to be a short Diary tonight as…

It is going to be a short Diary tonight as I am watching the Tattersall’s Broodmare Sale. I have a friend at the sale. If there is any thing that I fancy he will bid for me. If I don’t buy any thing today or tomorrow, I will probably go to the sale in Newmarket on Wednesday or Thursday. At about 5.50pm today, one Horse realised

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We have seen two Little Grebes on the lake for…

We have seen two Little Grebes on the lake for the past couple of days. It is the first time this year that we have seen them. Usually we have a pair on the lake for most of the summer. It could be that we haven’t seen them, for when ever they see us they dive down in to weeds below the water to hide. They seem to be able to stay under the water for ever. When they do come back to the surface they never rise in the place where they dived down, it is always a long way off.

Now that Bliss an Misty are not on the Farm, we are going to start to break Smuggler and Branston. They will not be as easy to break as the Fillies, as they are older and will be a bit more set in their ways. Smuggler is coming five years old and Branstone three.

Before we start to break them, Smuggler will need to come down into the main yard with Branston. Unfortunately before we can bring him down Sonny will have to be sold. Sonny is an 11.2hh Dartmoor Pony that we got in to keep Smuggler company as he was a Colt. Now that he has been gelded, he will be able to go into the field with the other Horses. Sonny is to small for any one at Denbury. He is a very smart little pony, dark bay with four white socks, he will only be wasted here. He will make a great little show or a child first pony.

Once broken we will probably keep Smuggler as a riding Horses. Even as a Colt he was very laid back and easy to do. He should have been broken a couple of years ago, and If we hadn’t been so busy he would have been riding out by now. He will love the attention when he comes down and is being broken. We did try to sell him in the Summer. The money that we were prepared to let him go for was silly money. If any one had bought him, it would have been the best buy that they would have had, he is extremely well bred and will make a very good event Horse. One Women who came wanted both Smuggler and Sonny, trouble was she must have thought we were daft. She thought that we would let her take them away without paying for them, to see if they would be suitable. She was sent on he way with the sharp end of my tongue. We are unsure what we are going to do with Branston. Again he is extremely well bred. We will have to look at all the options with him. Now that we have a camera in the sand school we will let you see some of the work when breaking Smuggler and Branston.

The weather is awful tonight, tipping down with rain and gale force winds. It was nearly as bad last night, it did look a bit like snow last night. The Horses are in and stabled, so we are having to muck the stables out of a morning. I hope that this is not the start of Winter.