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A few of you may have seen one of my…

A few of you may have seen one of my lads on camera 2 today, on the lake, in a dingy. He was towing around four orange sacks. If you did see it on camera, It wasn’t meant to be quite like that. He was trying to submerge the four sacks that were filled with barley straw. We put it in a a precaution against algae.

The lakes are man made, that we put in about ten years ago. We had a small, very wet field, with the overflow of a leet running through the middle of it, It was an ideal site for lakes and would encourage wildlife, it has worked very well. The idea was to fill the lakes with water from a stream that runs by the side of them, before we had time to put a diversion from the stream into the lake it was half full and filling very quickly from underground springs, there was no need to use the stream as the water source. There is a constant flow from the main lake, that is about an acre in size, to a smaller pond of about a third of an acre.

When the lakes were finished we had a nutrient problem that cause a very large build up of the algae. Trying to clear it by hand is a never ending task. The chemicals released from the barley straw as it rots down, acts as a natural herbicide and kills the algae, a wonder fix really. We had not renewed the straw for a few years and I should think that we may not have a nutrient problem any longer, but it is not worth taking a chance.

Any way back to the boat saga, the idea with the bags of straw, is to put a weight larger than the weight of the straw, to take the bags to the bottom of the lake, unfortunately we got the weight wrong and it was not heavy enough to sink the bags, they would have floated around the lake until the straw got wet and the bags sunk, but they really need to be in a certain place.

My lad was in the middle of the lake with one oar, no rowlock trying to get the dingy, straw and concrete weight back to the bank, but the heavy weight was making it difficult for him to move, he was cursing about needing help and that we needed to throw him a line, so that we could pull him in. I hope there were no lip readers watching. What was not seen on camera was my other lad and myself on the bank, in fits of laughter at the site of him struggling to get back to dry land, so much so, we were unable to help him. Needless to say the job did not get finished and it will have to wait until next week. I didn’t have the heart to tell him he was on camera, will he curse when he finds out.

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The twin lambs are doing very well today The Ewe…

The twin lambs are doing very well today, The Ewe is eating the grass and is looking a lot brighter, even calling out for the lambs, when she cant see them. The Ewe lamb has been getting a little milk from the Ewe with one lamb, she will creep up to the Ewe whilst her lamb is feeding, attaching herself onto the spare teat. It does not take the Ewe to long to realise what is going on, and she butts the lamb away, but a least it has been getting a little feed that otherwise she would not have got.

When ever we take Tass and Ky for a walk down the valley, we inevitably come in view of the sheep, more often on the other side of a stream and hedgerow and as far as 300m to 400m away. Without fail, in fear they will run to make a tight flock. It was caused last year, a little while after we got the sheep, when a friend rode through the farm on her horse, she always had in tow three or four dogs. She did not realise one of her dogs had not followed her off the farm and was attacking the sheep, fortunately I had the valley camera on, in a flash across the camera monitor I could see the dog was chasing one of the Portland sheep, I was lucky to have seen it. It took several minute to get to were the attack was happening, seeing me the dog ran off. One of the sheep was just getting up after the attack and ran back to the flock, a Portland was lying as if dead, as I got to it, it got up and ran off in panic to the wood, with blood on its fleece. It took us four hours to find it, it had tucked itself under a fallen tree in the wood, we were taking it back to the farm to treat the wounds when we saw another injured Ewe in the hedgerow, she had obviously been there for the four hours and was in a sorry state.

We had to treat the Ewes for many weeks, but unfortunately the Portland died, the crossbreed lived, she is a very friendly Ewe, but it has taken many months for her to get back to her old self. What I cant understand is that our German Shepperd’s look very fox like, the sheep will sit chewing the cud, spread over a large area in the middle of the night, with Fox walking within feet of them, and they don’t take a blind bit of notice. They see the dogs and they panic.

The annual frog mating period is just about finishing, for the past few nights our drive, that is about 300m long has been full of many hundreds of frogs making their way to the lake to spawn, there are so many on the drive, that to get in our out of the farm we have to walk in front of the car moving the frogs to the side, it can take as long as ten minutes for a minute journey. How many are in the area making the pilgrimage I cant imagine. For the amount of frogs going to the lake, we get very few tadpoles.

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The twin lambs are doing very well today The Ewe…

The twin lambs are doing very well today, The Ewe is eating the grass and is looking a lot brighter even calling out for the lambs when she cant see them. The Ewe lamb has been getting a little milk from the Ewe with one lamb, she will creep up to the Ewe whilst her lamb is feeding and attach itsself onto a teat. It does not take the Ewe long to realise what is going on and she butts the lamb away, but a least it has been getting a little that it otherwise would not have got.

When ever we take Tass and ky for a walk down the valley, we envitibally come in view of the sheep, more often on the other side of a stream and hedgerow and as far as 300m to 400m away. Without fail they will run to make a tight flock in fear. It was caused when a friend of ours rode through the farm on her horse, she always had in tow three or four dogs

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Today we managed to renew the wire to the valley…

Today we managed to renew the wire to the valley camera, it was broken in the high wind a few weeks back. I was surprised how far it is away from the Farm House, the piece of wire needing replacing was a 100m long, The camera is a good quarter of a mile away. I should think there would be a good five miles of cables around the farm making the cameras work. The camera has not been used as much as I would like because most of the interesting events are a little to far away for the IR lamps. With a bit of luck and the weather stays kind we will get a new lamp going tomorrow, that will light up the far end of the valley. I say light up, in fact with any of the lamps going, the area covered is always as dark as the night, the only indication of a lamp is when you look at it with your eyes there is a red tint on the surface.

I sometimes pan the camera around when I get a minute, now and then I show it. You tend to see a lot more Deer, if you catch them when they have just arrived you may see them grazing for up to a couple of hours, they quite often rest down the valley after grazing very close to the sheep if they are in the same field, I hope to see them with their Fawns this year, they should be showing their faces very soon. We have three types of Deer a Denbury, Red Deer that we have seen in herds of up to sixteen, believe me they go through a lot of grass in one night, you would not want that many visiting you to often, especially if it is in your hay grass. We also have Roe Deer, they are a smaller deer, I have seen small herd of six on the Farm but very often they are on their own, just recently there have been three about, twice I have seen them on the main Badger camera. The other Deer we have is the tiny Muntjac, I believe it was originally imported from China, it is no bigger than a large dog, although we do not see them that often, it is usually in the summer with a fawn.

We also see Badgers from another sett running around the field, looking for food, digging for worms and generally playing. The sheep take not notice of them at all, you can very often see them walking in between the flock. You can also see the Tawney Owl and in the summer months Bats.

We have seen the twin lambs suckling on and off all day, the Ewe is a bit more perky, so hopefully she is over the worse of her illness.

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The twin lambs did not look too good this morning…

The twin lambs did not look too good this morning, both were calling out and obviously had not been feeding as they should, The Ewe was definitely unhappy, scouring, pawing the ground and not eating, a good sign that she was likely to have a tummy upset, we gave both the Ewe and the lambs a glucose solution to give them energy. The Ewe is on antibiotics and the lambs will be bottled fed to supplement what the Ewe is giving them. Just before sunset I the Ewe having a little nibble at the grass, with luck she is over the worse. The lambs will have to have a couple of feeds tonight.

On checking the other Ewes none were seen to be getting ready to lamb, I think that the lambing will go on for a month or so, it may well make me to decide next year to separate the Ewes and Rams until I want them to mate. It brings all the lambing work in a shorter period.

I saw nine badgers feeding tonight, none were limping or holding their weight off of their legs. It could say one of two things, it may be that the injury has got better or it may even be that the injured Badger may not have come out tonight and that there are still ten Badgers in the sett.

Woody has got over her illness and is feeling good. Lady’s udder is now starting to get bigger, a good sign foaling is not far away, it is now advisable to check her udder every day, for a good sign that foaling is imminent is that the tip of the teat has a little wax over it, this is natures way of stopping any seepage from the udder for the first milk is colostrum that is vital that the new born foal has within the first six hours. Although you don’t see it every time.

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You can just about see the heads of the Dove…

You can just about see the heads of the Dove chicks emerging today, It may sound cruel but I reckon that they are, well if I say that they are unattractive, it would be an under statement, the real word is ugly, but when mature they are a very attractive bird.

We let the Ewes and lambs out today, the last Ewe to lamb, who had the single lamb is doing very well, the lamb is already bigger than the twins. The twins are doing fine but not growing as quickly, although I should have expected it, being the breed very rarely has more than a single lamb, the Ewe looked a little down last night, that is why I made the decision to let them out this morning, the grass will buck her up.

A couple of entries on last nights forum, tells of one of the Badgers limping, when it was feeding last night. I must admit I did not notice it, it must have been because I was seeing how many were out, I will check it out tonight, although there is very little that can be done. Some years back, before we did the webcams we found an injured Badger, it was a bit of an experience getting it into the car to take to the vets, I would try to avoid doing it again, as I nearly got bitten. Our local RSPCA is West Hatch, I believe is the largest centre for wildlife in the UK, they told us they would contact us if they were going to release it, we never did hear back from them.

A question also asked last night on the forum, was who was more dominant, the Fox or Badger? The Badger is, their cubs will show themselves in a few weeks time and you will see how aggressive they can be to the Fox.

At this time of year the Vixen does not join in the feeding, as she is looking after her cubs in the lair, every year I tell myself that I will find the lair that is in the woods, close to the main horse field, but I can never find the time. This year I will make the effort to see them when they first emerge, and get them on the webcams.

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Every morning when we start work we are greeted by…

Every morning when we start work we are greeted by a hen Pheasant at the Farm House door, she is always pleased to see us, for she knows that she will get a handful of sunflower hearts that we feed to the birds in the feeders. With this particular bird it started when she would wait under the bird feeders with other Pheasants for the odd seed that the birds dropped, she got a bit wise and realised where the feed came from, near the farm house.

It is good to see Pheasants around the farm, but they are only there because of the farmers who have game shoots on their farms and have released them in the first place. If I had a choice of having them on the farm or of hearing the guns when they are shot, I think that I would prefer not to have the Pheasants. For it is not a very pleasant sport.

We had a year or two back, Wild Boar, one of the supermarkets before being taken over give us their out of date and overs bread and cakes for their feed, within a very short while we had as many as seventy Pheasants in the pen at a time feeding with the Wild Board, they were not to impressed and would mop up all that went over a certain area so that the Pheasant would not get any, it never worked, the Pheasants got pretty fat on the bread and cakes.

Most of the Pheasants are, or will soon get trusting, they have been in contact and fed by humans from day one. At the moment we have quite a few that hang around, either near the horse feed when we feed them or other places that we may at time spill a little feed.

Every now and then we get a Road Runner, who will wait at the entrance of the farm yard, waiting for cars leaving, they sometime do it for months and seem to be always there when you leave. As the cars approach on leaving, it starts chasing by the side and keeps racing at a considerable speed, some times for up to seventy yards, until it must get worn out. I can only imagine that he sees vehicles as a threat. When they stop chasing, we always wonder what happened to them.

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At about 8 30pm last night there was one hell…

At about 8.30pm last night there was one hell of a noise, very close to the farm house, it sounded as if a Fox was killing a Pheasant, it quite often happens, but this was going on far too long for a Fox and Pheasant, so we went out side to investigate and saw that it was two Badgers fighting by the side of the house. We tried to shoo them away to stop them fighting, but to no avail, you would not want to get to close to them in that mood. After a few minutes longer the noise stopped and we thought no more of it.

On letting the dogs out this morning, we could see a pile of something at the entrance to the orchard, finding it to be a dead Badger, it was a young male, probably a last years cub, going by its size. I could not see any serious injuries on it, just a bite on the top of its rear leg.

I cant be sure if it is one from the sett we broadcast from, although it did look smaller than the ones I have seen when feeding, but it is difficult to judge sizes from a live and dead Badger.

It is possible that it was a stray Badger from another sett, that had strayed to close in the territory of the local sett. It would also be about this time of year that the Badgers mate, a stray Badger may have smelt a female from the local sett, that would also have caused the fight that we witnessed. But the dead Badger, if it was one that was involved in the fight, was making his way in the direction of the local sett that we broadcast from, maybe he was trying to get home for refuge after being critically injured. It may also have been that he was being pushed out of the sett by the older Badgers, they do that sometimes, but at his age he would not have been a threat. We will never know.

The sett only consisted of five badgers in the beginning of 2006, with two females giving birth last year the amount doubled. Only about a week ago I had seen the ten feeding, the first time since the late last summer, I had believed that there were nine in the sett. I was surprised so many had survived, as they can often be seen along the lanes as road victims.

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For as long as I can remember I have had…

For as long as I can remember I have had or been been involved with horses, even when I lived in London I had Driving Horses, stabled in the middle of the East End.

For two years I had an antique Horse Drawn Hearse, that I would hire out to Funeral Directors. The Horses we used where Friesians Stallions, jet black beautiful horses, that originate from Holland. Stallion is the preferred to Mares and Gelding as they stay black most of their working life, Mare and Geldings tend to be a dark bay.

When we moved onto the farm the Friesians came with us, but I was so busy that I never had the time to hire out the Horses and Hearse, so reluctantly I sold the outfit. I had various other antique horse drawn carriages they I exchanged for cattle.

It did not take me long to get more horses, once you have had them, they become an obsession. There is nothing like seeing horses in a field grazing.

At the moment we have nine horses, two of them being our riding horses, Arnie and Breeze. The others being bloodstock (race horses) two of those are Lady and Woody, our broodmares that can be seen foaling on the webcams. Lady is only a couple of weeks away from foaling. The others are mostly Ladies and Woodies foals.

If you see the horses in the fields Arnie is the big dark bay horse, he is a 17.3hh Dutch Warm Blood gelding, a bit of a giant, but really kind and gentle. In all the years we have had him, other than breaking doors and fencing rails when he leans against them, he has never done a thing wrong. Breeze is 14.2hh Palomino Arab mare, she again is very kind and gentle and as pretty as a picture, a real Barbie Doll Horse. She can be a bit skitsey and likes to get her own way. She and Arnie have been together for a long while, we will never part them. Whenever Arnie is doing something he should not do, she lets us know by calling out. Arnie is a bit of a Houdini, he gets out of anywhere, worse still he lets out all the other horses. That is just Arnie.

Breeze is the herd leader although most of the other horse are bigger than her, every now and then she will round them up and even baby sits the foals, but she can have her moments. Some year ago we had tenants in one of the cottages, Gemma the girl had a horse named Cedar that she stabled on the farm. They went away for a cycling holiday in France. On returning Gemma went in to the field that all the horses were in, to give her horse Cedar some treats after returning from holiday. We had an area near the gateway fenced off with a low voltage electric wire, so that it was easier to get a horse in if we needed to. Gemma was on the other side of the fence spoiling Cedar and ignoring and leaving breeze out of the goodies, Breeze wasn’t having any of that, she turned her hind legs on Gemma and kicked her on the buttocks so hard that Gemma went three foot in the air, over the wire and landed face down in the mud, believe me Gemma was a large girl. The only part that really hurt was her pride, although her boyfriend told us that she had two large bruises shaped like Breezes hoofs on her buttocks.

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As much as I want to let the Ewe and…

As much as I want to let the Ewe and lambs out in the fields, I look at the lambs, they are so small I worry that they wont survive a prolonged wet spell. The weather forecasts are all over the place, I cant say that I trust them very much. Every time the Ewe hears or sees us she calls out letting us know she is there, it would help her if another Ewe had lambed and was in the stable with her. Well I didn’t count them until about 5.pm today and one other Ewes was missing. It did not take long to find her, she was in the area I would have expected her to be, there she was with her new born healthy Ewe lamb. I will have to check them a bit more than once a day.

The way that the Dove is poking about in the nest, the eggs may well have hatched, they definitely are ugly ducklings until they are mature. We do get a lot of them on the farm. Nature does takes its course, by the Sparrow Hawk taking them. We often see him taking one, not a pleasant sight, but that’s nature.

A couple of years ago a pair Sparrow Hawks nested in the loft above the Holiday Cottages, it got in through a Barn Owl Hole entrance, that we left open for the Barn Owls, when we converted a barn. When the chicks started to leave the nest, they would move about, above the bedroom ceilings, I reckon it was one hell of a noise, all though every person who occupied the cottage found it fascinating and really enjoyed the experience. They only took up residence for one year.

For some reason we don’t get any Barn Owls on the Farm, They tend to like rough, pasture that the Voles like, there is then a plentiful larder for them. As you have seen on the Badger cams, we do have some rough land that we do not manage, so there are plenty of Voles. But the Barn Owls still don’t come. We do get other types of Owls including the Tawney.
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