Blog - Page 92 of 109 - Farm Holiday Cottages - Fishing and Wildlife Holidays

The Veterinary came out today to scan Lady to check if she is in Foal, blood test Willow and do her markings for her passport. Breeze was also examined, and he also had to look at Blisse foot.

As we expected Lady scanned in Foal. I was confident that she was, but we needed to make sure that she was not having twins. It is not good for a Horse to be in Foal with twins. If they are it would be more than likely that they would abort within nine months of the pregnancy. If Lady had of been in Foal with twins, one of fetuses could have been aborted.

Willow had to be blood tested to confirm her parentage and also have her markings taken for her passport. The Veterinary marks on a printed pictures of a Horse, both sides and a front picture of a head. all the different marks such as socks on their legs, stars or blazes on their head and whirls on their coats. It is a little difficult to explain, but every Horse will have a different marks that are unique to the Horse. All thoroughbred Horses have had passports for many years, so that they cannot be passed off as another Horse on the race track. Probably a better word would be nobbled. Now all Horses have to have passport, an EU directive, partly for identifying for theft, but also for the European Horse meat market to identify any drugs that Horses may have had for illness.

Fortunately Breeze is not in Foal, we were very worried that she might have been with the extra weight she was carrying. The Veterinary gave her an internal examination that confirmed that she was not pregnant. If she were pregnant the Foal would have been born in October, I really could not think of a worse month for any horse to have a foal in the northern hemisphere. The Foal would have very little, probably no time in the fields in the first important time of growing. Breeze would not have had any enjoyment of her first Foal. I will seriously think about letting her go to a Stallion March next year.

Bliss came in Thursday night, slightly lame. She wasn’t to bad when she went out that night. The next morning she came in crippled. I got the Veterinary to confirm what I had found. She must have pricked the frog of her foot on a sharp stone. It is a little soft and pussy under the hoof, and is very painful for her to walk on. Mind you this is the first time she has ever experienced pain, she sure doesn’t like it. Although it looks like she is in severe pain by the way she is walking, it is exaggerated being her first pain experience. If the puss hasn’t found its way out by the morning we will poultice it to draw the poison out.

We have a farmer very close to Denbury, he has little or no respect for wildlife or the public or other peoples property, when he is out shooting. Unfortunately he has taught his sons to be the same.

Back in the spring I found the son shooting in a wood that is adjacent to my fields, it is owned by Somerset County Council. No one has permission to shoot in the wood. All farms that are adjacent to the wood were sent letter to that effect only months before. He was obviously shooting at Rooks nests to kill the chicks. Rooks do need culling, for the right reasons, time and where you have permission to shoot. Not only was he killing Rooks he had also shot a Blackbird, I found the wounded bird and had no alternative but to kill it, it was not going to live.

This is just one of many incidents with these people. They regularly shoot in the woods without permission, on or so near to footpaths in the woods. Someone will be killed with their indiscriminate shooting. I have come very close myself, a friend of ours was horse riding on the bridel path in the same wood when one of the family who had not been seen by our friend shot their gun within feet of her, causing her horse to be frightened. Both our friend and her horse were fortunate not to have been severely injured.

I also read about the Golden Eagle being poisoned to stop it from taking the Grouse. The glorious twelfth they call the start of the game shooting season. It is any thing but glorious, in my opinion for what it is worth game shooting is the most evil of all blood sports. Worse even than hunting with dogs, that is now banned. Please don’t get me wrong, I don’t condone hunting with dogs, but how that was banned and not game shooting I really don’t know.

Hunting with dogs although cruel, had a purpose to control. Game shooting only to kill. Like it or not there has got to be a certain amount of culling in the countryside. At Denbury we have a problem with Doves. Doves breed all through the year. Try as we might with oiling and blowing the eggs, we have even advertised them to give away. The population just keeps on increasing to an unacceptable amount. The mess they make is not nice, at times what ever you touch you finish up with droppings on our hands. A young lad culls the Doves at Denbury, he takes them home to be eaten. Rabbits, Fox, Deer and Badgers do not give us any problems. Other farmers do find them a problem. With Fox and Deer hunting banned, farmers who would let the hunts control Fox and Deer will now allow shooting on their property, which sometimes results in animals being wounded, rather than being killed outright, they die in agonising pain through infected wounds. As much as I dislike hunting with dogs, it is very often preferable to shooting.

To me there is no justification in game shooting. I have no objection to someone who goes out and shoots Rabbits or Pheasant to put on their table. Game Birds Pheasants, Grouse etc, are bred for one reason, to kill. They are incubated, sold normally at day olds and then hand reared in pens. In the summer they are then released into the open countryside to fend for themselves. Near to Denbury for the first days of the Pheasants release, they can be seen along the lanes, they have no sense of taking cover. Some drivers don’t wait for the Bird to get out of the way and run them down, many more are taken by the Fox until the learn how to survive, by hiding in the artificial cover that is grown specifically for that reason.

In the shooting season organised shoots are arranged. Beaters with dogs and calling to frighten the birds, flush them out of the artificial cover into the direction of the waiting guns, to be shot. Many of the organised shoots are corporate or company events, as a perk to employees, who have never handled a shotgun in their life. They are given minimal training in the use of guns and let loose to the slaughter. And that is what it is. Over the country every year millions of game birds are shot with shotgun cartridges that are packed with small shot that gives a wide spread, so that the birds are hit by even the most inexperienced shot, not really mattering if they have been killed outright, for the gun dogs will find the frightened injured Birds, to be taken back to the guns to be bashed on the head. Many of them are not killed outright only wounded and not found, left dying for days.

At the end of the shoot, the beaters and those shooting, get an unprepared brace or two of the game birds, some are sold to game merchants and local butchers, but vast amounts are dumped. Those taken home by corporate or company employees are also mostly dumped. Their partners take one look at the dead bird, they haven’t the slightest idea of how to pluck or gut them, why should they.

This is only my thoughts on game shooting, I would not expect any one to agree with it, or would I try to influence any person with my opinions. I did have a shotgun and Jade our Springer Spaniel was a gun dog, I went shooting once, but never again. Man is naturally a hunter gatherer, nowadays they can do that in the super market.

Woody has been quite ill for the past two days, so much so, they for the past two nights we have had to keep her stabled, I also thought that I would have to get the Veterinary in to have her put to sleep. She was lying flat out and obviously in a lot of pain, when she did get up she was tucking her legs up, showing that she had pain in her stomach. We controlled the pain and eventually she was able to stay on her feet. We have let her out in the field with the other Horses tonight and she is grazing happily. I will have to make the decision over the next couple of days, but I know that with the pain she is getting, although we are able to control it to a certain degree, I can not let it carry on for much longer.

The Veterinary is coming this Friday to scan Lady to see if she is in Foal, I will get him to check Breeze over to see if she is also in Foal, it wont be necessary to scan Breeze, if she is in Foal the Veterinary will be able to tell by an internal examination. The Veterinary also has to blood test and microchip Willow. Willow being a thoroughbred, it will confirm her breeding.

Willow is turning out to be quite a size. A few of you have commented on the length of her legs. To notice that on a webcam shows just how long in the leg she is. I cant remember any Foal on the farm being as big as Willow at her age. Looking in the Stallion guide her Father, Lucky Owners is 16.0hh about the average for a Stallion, Lady her Mother again is average size, so I really would not have exspected Willow to quite so big at this time. She is also a very good shape. If she continues to grow with the size and shape she is, she will be a very nice Filly.

The Buzzard did pick a good spot to perch this morning. The post it was sitting on was to run the wiring across for the new IR lamp, to see down the farther valley, when I eventually got the time. That changed and the wiring can now be run on the stream bed. I had meant to take the post down as I had another place for it to be used. I will leave it were it is until the Buzzards stop feeding the youngster.

The Bird on cam 1 this afternoon was a Buzzard, I must admit from a distance it did look slightly like an Osprey. Buzzards do come in various colours and sizes, so a lot a people do mistake them from other Birds of Prey. Now that we have made the hay we should be able to see the Buzzards more. We hear their screeching call a lot this time of year, as this time of year they will be teaching their young how to hunt, mostly catching Rabbits. I should think that is what it was eating this afternoon by the way it was ripping at the carcass. Quite often when we go down the valley we see the young Buzzard on a fence post eating what the parent birds have caught for it. It could well be that the close up shot that we saw, was the Chick calling for food. I am sure that the early distance shot was an adult.

Now that the grass has been cut in the valley I will leave the camera down there on more of a nighttime. With grass as long as it was there was very little chance of seeing much. With a bit of luck we should be able to see more of the wildlife in the valley, including the Deer.

I saw a Moorhen on the with a couple of Chicks on the lake yesterday, they were on the straw sacks. I haven’t seen them about today. We are still having a Rat problem around the lake, we saw one under the birds feeders and have had to put the poison down again. All I hope is that a Rat didn’t take the Moorhen Chicks. They normally last longer than the Goslings and Ducklings.

Touch wood the Sheep are staying where we want them, It took a good couple of days to fence the area around the lake to keep them in. There are so many places that they could of got out of, so we needed to make sure that it was all fenced. It is a good area to keep the sheep for they will keep the grass down, hopefully so that we do not need to mow it as often .We managed to catch all of the Lambs. The needed weaning off of the Ewes, and we have put them into one of the stables until we are able to take them to market to be sold. If the Lambs had stayed with the rest of the Sheep they would soon had been through the fence taking the rest of the Sheep with them.

We have guests for dinner tonight, so unfortunately there will not be a Diary other than, the Glorious Twelfth was yesterday, I personally think it any thing other than glorious. On checking the dates of the start of the shooting season I came across the website below. I have not had chance to read it properly, maybe one or two of you may get chance to, and let me know how it reads, for it looks to me at a first glance that restrictions on the shooting season have been relaxed.

http://www.defra.gov.uk/news/2007/070802a.htm

The Dove hatched at least one of its chicks yesterday, I managed to catch it head above the side of the nest.

Rose asked if the Fox is welcome at Denbury. I like Fox. There were as many as six feeding with the Badgers earlier this year. I believe that they are down to two at the moment. I had hoped to have shown some Fox Cubs on the webcams, but this is the first year that I have not seen any. There den is in the woods in the left hand corner of the main Horse field. In other years, I have often seen the Cubs in between the Tree House and the old Oak Tree, in the late afternoon, sunning themselves or playing. They were in the woods this year as we regularly heard them. They could well have been out as usual, but I haven’t seen them. Through the winter when I had the Sheep in the fields, we very often saw them on the webcams walking in between the Ewes, some of the Ewes had lambs. I know one time when the Fox was walking in between the Ewes one was lambing. Very rarely were the Sheep disturbed by the Fox, they just ignored it.

I wonder if any Sheep farmers saw the Fox and Sheep so close to each other. I must admit I was surprised, but it is easy give any animal a bad name. Maybe through the ages it was a good excuse for the Hunts. Don’t get me wrong I do not believe the Fox to be a saint, At Denbury we have had some not very nice experiences with the Fox. My Lads when they were younger had six or so pet Bantams, they were really friendly and would sit on the boys shoulders. One night a fox got into the Bantams hutch and killed the lot, and didn’t take any away. It also happened with some fancy Chicken that the Lads had, although it did not touch the Cockerel. But the worse one was when a Fox had one of our white Geese. We have a pond in the farm yard just in front of the farm house. I was out at the time, when a Fox in daylight, within yards of the farm house and with my Lads watching, jumped over a fence to get to the Geese, it jumped back over the fence with the Goose in mouth and started to eat it with the boys watching. I drove down the drive as it was happening. I had shotgun at the time and I shot the Fox. Believe me I didn’t like doing it, I really did not have an alternative, for sure it would have been back for the remainder of our Geese.

The hay is in the barn now, that is one less thing to worry about. It rained on it a little last night. the hot sun soon dried the little wet there was.

Don’t forget the Meteor Showers tonight from about 10.30pm. It is a bit cloudy here, but I must admit I am so tired I could well be asleep and miss it all.

Sorry about the loss of cam 1 and 2 just after 9.pm, one of our broadband connections went down for a few minutes.

That’s a bit of a worry out of the way, as some of you saw, we baled the hay this afternoon. A couple of weeks back I was getting very concerned that the bad weather would stop us from making any fodder at all, let alone hay. With the hot sun this morning it had made by lunchtime. Just as well as the forecast is showers tonight. It was a bit of a gamble to try to make hay with the forecast for in the middle of the week being wet, but I did not have an option. Mind you I have never not made hay in all the time that I have been at Denbury.

We made 141 bales, that is with out cutting a small paddock at the end of the valley, that we would normally cut, up about 19 more bales from last year, although the contractor reckons that the bales are tighter than last year. I will try to sell 50 of then. Last winter we used 109, about four a week I would guess. Some people would say tat we feed more hay than we should, but I would rather have fat warm Horses in the winter months.

All going well the bales will be taken from the fields and stacked in the barn tomorrow. So that the bales can be put into the barn we have had to let the Sheep out of the pen, that they have been in for a six weeks or more. The Portlands should have been taken to market this morning for the Rare Breeds Sale, but the restricted movement of Cattle, Sheep and Pigs because of the Foot and Mouth outbreak, the sale was cancelled. I had intended to keep the friendly Texels, so we have put up netting and gates around the lake to hopefully keep them in. All the Lambs have now been weaned off of the Ewes, so we should not get them breaking out of the area we have put them in.

Although the distance from the barn to the lake is only about fifteen metres, it was a bit of a problem getting them to their new area. The first thing that they wanted to do as the passed out the gate was to graze, and they wouldn’t move. Tass and Kye were deliberately put where the sheep could see them, which blocked off one area, just in case they decided that they wanted to go in the direction that I didn’t want them to, I stood on the other escape route. After about ten to fifteen minute, with a little coaxing they went into the lake area. Hopefully that is where they will stay.

It is possible we could soon be looking for a live in Groom to help with the Horses, and other odd jobs on the farm. The person would need to have experience with Horses. If you think that it may interest you, please email me at info@denburyfarm.co.uk telling a little about yourself.

Sorry, but it is going to be a short one again tonight. When we are haymaking the day goes so quick, that other than making the hay we really don’t do much else. Other things to write in the diary just do not happen.

I cant believe after the rotten summer that we have had, that we are now getting so much warm sunshine. So much so that we may well be able to bale the tomorrow. As the hay is making there is a really good smell with it. It doesn’t always guarantee good hay, but it is a fair indication. There only seems to be one problem area, that is a three acre area that was hit by the flood. The field of five acres is dissected by the stream, although further down from the main flood. I hadn’t expected that the field would have flooded as much as it had, until I saw it and thought about it. What seems to have happened is that a culvert under a lane, that parts the five acre field and another about five and a half a from the main farm got quickly blocked with the streams bed stone, this caused the lane to flood about a hundred metres or more both sides, the soil that had come off of the hill with the rain spread on the grass as mud. When the grass was cut it brought up the soil in the grass, making it very dusty. probably forty bales will be spoilt.

I got the telescope computer back this evening and tried it straight away in the observatory, but unfortunately I could not get a remote connection from it to the farm house. It seems that although the computer did have a problem, it was not the reason for me not being able connect to the observatory. I should think that the wire connection from the farm house to the observatory is the cause. I will try to get another wire put in as quickly for the new moon. It would have been good to have had it working for Sunday, as it is going to be a good clear night for watching a spectacular meteor shower. If you look towards the east, this is the bad part, from about 11pm Sunday to 2.am Monday it should be a good if you have never seen any.

I don’t know if any one else counted, but I am sure that I counted sixteen Badgers feeding at one time tonight. The youngsters, both this years and last, are getting too brave when I take the feed up. I have said before that I don’t want to humanise them. I will make some sort of noise that will make them run back to the sett when I feed them in future.

I don’t really have time to do a diary tonight. I have only just finished work on the farm.

We are still being lucky making our hay. If the weather carries on as it is, we should be able to bale it over the weekend.

Woody has be laying down in the field for most of the day. She hasn’t eaten her feed this evening. When we went to put the Horses out into the field, she was laid flat out in her stable, so we have kept her in for the night.

Farm Holiday Cottages – Fishing and Wildlife Holidays

The Veterinary came out today to scan Lady to check…

We have a farmer very close to Denbury he has…

I also read about the Golden Eagle being poisoned to…

Woody has been quite ill for the past two days…

The Bird on cam 1 this afternoon was a Buzzard…

We have guests for dinner tonight so unfortunately there will…

Rose asked if the Fox is welcome at Denbury I…

That s a bit of a worry out of the…

Sorry but it is going to be a short one…

I don t really have time to do a diary…