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Monday night I forgot to close the doors of two…

Monday night I forgot to close the doors of two of the Chicken Houses. It must have been on my mind as I woke at 5.am Tuesday morning realising what I had done. On checking the Chicken House close to the Kitchen door all was OK with the eight Chickens that live in it pecking around the Lawn. On my way to the other house my worse fears were justified as I came across white Chicken feathers. There were some of the Chickens including Asbo walking around but not in the place that they normally should be and not greeting me in anticipation for their morning feed. On checking the House inside was the remains of a Light Sussex hen. The Hen was the Mother of three Chicks that she had hatched over six weeks ago. The Chick were OK and at an age where they would no longer rely on their Mother. They were already usually on their own so loosing their Mother would not be to much of a hardship. By the side of the Chicken House I found parts of another Light Sussex and a trail of feather around a large area but no sign of an other Chicken. After a count it was two Light Sussex Hen that had been killed. Another of the Light Sussex looked as if had a very luck escape with the amount of feathers that was missing from various parts of it body.

On this occasion I am quite sure that it was not a Fox that had killed the Chickens. Recently on quite a few occasions when I had checked around the Farm Buildings last thing of a night I had disturbed the Badger Cubs with an adult Badger just by the stables within ten metres from the Kitchen door, I am sure it was them that had killed the Hens. They had found some old Emu eggs that I had left in a bag and had been trying to break into the eggs for a food source. That day I had collected the remaining eggs and had put them in the dustbin for the Dustmen to take away, it had made the Badgers look elsewhere for another food source. The other reason for blaming the Badgers was what remains where left of the Hens. I would have expected a Fox to have taken the Chickens away. The remains of the hen in the Chicken House had been only partially eaten.

Asbo and his family usually house themselves very early at night compared to the other Chickens, but last night not surprisingly they did not want to return to their House. It took a long while and not before nearly 10pm did we get most of them shut up in their house, and that only with the help of one of our Holiday Guests and a large fishing landing net. I must admit I nearly gave up trying. The Light Sussex that had a lucky escape and a Leghorn found another place to roost and were found this morning.

The Welsh Assembly got put in their place yesterday by the High Court for the proposed Welsh Badger Cull. The Judgement was that the cull would be unlawful. The better news is that there will not be an appeal against the Law Lords decision. It puts it even more in doubt that there will be a cull in England. Not that I expected this new Government would have wasted any money with an English cull.

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Starting from number six there are five new photographs on…

Starting from number six there are five new photographs on the Photo Page.

A few pics, for you, I came across in my Photos.

The Sloth was at a Wildlife Park near Burford, Oxon. Peter

Bit early for the bird’s yet, won’t be long though. Peter

Swans were local to me. Peter

The Black Silkie that was on the Photo Page last night is a big hit with our Holiday Guests. She looks as someone said on the Forum to have attitude. She tries very hard to be friends with the other Chickens but unfortunately for her it is all to do with the pecking order and she is bottom and gets bullied. As she is on her own since the White Silkie was taken by the Owl, she tries too mix with the other Chicken but they chase her off. It has made her quite friendly quickly with the Holiday Guests as she hangs around with the Chickens outside the Cottage doors hoping for a crumb. Being small and cute as someone said last week she tend to be given extra crumbs which keeps her around the Cottages for longer.

We have two Silkie Chicks a Gold and a White that when they are older will be able to be housed with her. There are also over 30 eggs in the incubator waiting to hatch. There is a good selection of different colours. White, Gold, Black and Blue and the intention is to breed them next year once they reach egg laying.

We find lots of the word associated with Chickens not to be very nice. Poultry, Fowl, Pullets, Poults and even Chicken itself is not that nice. We tend not to use the words other than Chicken. There must be a few more that you know. Maybe regional names.

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Starting from number six there are five new photographs on…

Starting from number six there are five new photographs on the Photo Page.

Today Chris and I took my Stepson to the Bristol Museum where there is an exhibition by Banksy, the infamous Bristol Graffiti Artist.
It was incredible – and FREE!! We queued for nearly an hour to get in – and it was quite surprising to see people in the queue whom you’d NEVER expect to see there!!

An artistic Monkey – it blinked as it looked at the canvas;

Beautiful Statue – out on the town with a fag and a drink!;

Princess Bunny putting on make-up;

Someone moved the painting…..so the water ran out!!;

This is one of my favourites – taking a break!;

Some of the photos are a little blurred, this is because, although photography was allowed, flash photography wasn’t.
It really was a great exhibition, so clever and original!

Bristol is not far from the Farm, if only I had the time I would go. Keep checking the adds. And we could do with some more photographs.

The injured Goose seems to have made a full recovery. She is no longer having antibiotics injections and the pillow case that she has been wearing to stop her from pecking at the injury and her stitches has now been taken off. When it was taken off she ran away flapping her wings and honking as if in excitement. The injury looks as if it has healed extremely well and there seems to be no reason why she should have any problems.

One of the two Silkies that we got last week has been taken. We believe by a Tawney Owl. When we get new Chicken we keep them shut in a small house for a few days next to our other Chickens so that they become aware of the surroundings and noises. It works very well. On letting them out they will usually peck about very close to their house and more often than not jump up into it when they go in for the night. We let them both out on Sunday and they did what they normally do, both staying close to each other. At about 8.30pm when it was time to shut up the Chicken houses the White Silkie was missing. We hoped that she had wandered off a little further, and had settled down away for the night. We looked around for over an hour without finding her. We had hoped that she would be about the next morning but there was no sign of her. Later in the day I found what was probably the remains of some of her feathers. It may have been a Fox or Sparrow Hawk that had taken her. I doubt the Fox as he would have caused a lot of commotion with the other Chickens and Geese.
Although the Doves are sometime taken by a Sparrow Hawk there hasn’t been any sightings of one recently.

The reason we believe it was an Owl is that one has been in a tree closest to the Farm House that is very near to where the Chickens are kept. Last night just before it was completely dark I had to go and check on the Lake and the Owl nearly hit my head as it came from the direction of the Chicken houses to the tree. Its a fair assumption that it was the Owl.

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Since we have been buying a few Chickens we have…

Since we have been buying a few Chickens we have relised what horriablke words a akin to keeping them Fowl, Poultry, Pullets, Poults and even Chicken its self

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Starting from number six there are five new photographs on…

Starting from number six there are five new photographs on the Photo Page.

There are only 3 photographs left for tomorrows Photo Page.

Kew Palace. Janice of Leeds

Princess Diana’s Conservatory.Kew Gardens. Janice of Leeds

Waterfall outside Alpine House.Kew Gardens. Janice of Leeds

Chicken-Rhea-Ostrich Eggs.

Rhea.

Cricket St Thomas gave us three Rhea Eggs last week. They were from proven breeding stock, so we are hoping to hatch Rhea. Rhea eggs take about 40 days incubation. We put the eggs in the incubator 7 days ago so in just over a months time as long as the eggs are fertile we may be hatching the Rhea. The photograph of the three eggs show you the different sizes of the eggs compared to a Chicken egg. The Rhea egg is in the middle. The Ostrich egg would not be a good example on size, it is on the smallish size. The yolk of an Ostrich egg is approximately the size of 22 chicken eggs. Now and then when we bred Ostrich we would get a slightly cracked egg caused when being laid we would give them to a local Pub who would put them on their menu.

Rhea are in the classification of Ratites as are Ostrich and Emu. Rhea do tend to be more docile that the others and unlike Ostrich and Emu they can be kept without the need for a dangerous wild animal licence. The Hens are approximately 4 foot tall and the Cock bird about 6 foot. If we are successful with the hatching we will keep the Rhea on the Farm. If all goes well we will show the hatching on the webcam. From tomorrow the hatching webcam will be on with Bantam eggs due to hatch on Saturday. We have now 16 Bantam Chicks of various type and colours. If I get time I will show them on a webcam as there are some very well marked and coloured Birds.

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Starting from number six there are five new photographs on…

Starting from number six there are five new photographs on the Photo Page.

Getting very short on photographs.

The first Chicken out.

A little later.

Dolly with her Lambs.

Thats Thornton just behind the Ewe in the foreground.

All the Chicken free range.

Thornton has been mixing with the Ewes and their Lambs this evening. It started when I tried to get a few photographs for the Photo Page. A little feed was put out for the Ewes and Thornton decided to join in. The Ram wasn’t best pleased and gave Thornton a few head butts, that didn’t seem to worry him at all. Initially the Ewes were a little wary but soon allowed Thornton to get near their Lambs. We had to make Thornton come back to the Farm Yard as he may have gone into the Woods and got lost. He would eventually have come back on his own, but we couldn’t take the chance. When he decided it was time to return with a little encouragement you could see him jumping and prancing with excitement. Some of you may have seen it on the webcam.

The nine Ewes have given birth to twelve Lamb between them. All but two are white, the other being brownish rabbit colour with dark chocolate noses and feet. I tried to get a photograph of them but the Ewe took them away before I arrived with the camera. I will try to get some more photographs over the next few days.

We let the Chickens out of their House for the first time today. The first one came out very quickly, the rest taking nearly half an hour. We have left the Chicken House in one of the Horse areas until we have time to move it nearer to the Holiday Cottages. Thinking that we could confine them to the corral area we put some sheep netting on the fencing. That was a waste of time as they soon walked through the netting. They haven’t strayed far from their House and should be easy to put away tonight.

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Starting from number one there are five new photographs on…

Starting from number one there are five new photographs on the Photo Page.

3 of our new Chickens.

Another three. Well at least you can see another ones head.

Our incubator.

The Higher car ferry, Dartmouth. In June this year to be replaced by a much larger ferry. This one takes 16 cars, the new one will take 32!

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Starting from number six there are five new photographs on…

Starting from number six there are five new photographs on the Photo Page.

THESE WERE ALL TOOK AT RUFFORD COUNTRY PARK NEAR WORKSOP LAST WEEKEND. LYNNE.

On Wednesday night there where ten Badgers feeding at the same time. As one went off to the left another one came out from the Sett. So it looks very much if there are still eleven Badgers in the Sett. The same number as last year.

Tomorrow we are going to a Poultry Show and Auction to hopefully buy a few Chickens. Most of our Holiday Guest ask if we have Chicken and do we have eggs for sale. It will be good for our Holiday Guests Children to be able to feed the Chicken and collect the eggs.

Today we had a incubator delivered so that we can produce some Turkeys and Geese. It is a fully automatic incubator that will incubate up to 190 Chicken eggs. Again it will be good for our Holiday Guests Children to be able to see the eggs hatching. We will also try to show some of the hatching on a webcam. We are having some fertile Turkey eggs delivered, hopefully next Tuesday, and I am trying to get some Goose eggs.

I have in the past incubated Ostrich eggs reckoned to be the hardest eggs to incubate, and was quite successful. That came about after paying someone to incubate our Ostrich eggs, he managed to give all the Birds that was getting on for nearly 100, Yolk Sac infection that caused them all to die. As you can imagine I was not best pleased. The person hatching them wasn’t best pleased either when I tipped out twenty that had died on his doorstep. The cause of the infection was because his hatcher was dirty. I was told what chemicals where used in cleaning hatchers before special cleaners were made. I never had a problem with the incubating or hatching.

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Starting from number six there are five new photographs on…

Starting from number six there are five new photographs on the Photo Page.

THESE WERE ALL TOOK AT RUFFORD COUNTRY PARK NEAR WORKSOP LAST WEEKEND. LYNNE.

On Wednesday night there where ten Badgers feeding at the same time. As one went off to the left another one came out from the Sett. So it looks very much if there are still eleven Badgers in the Sett. The same number as last year.

Tomorrow we are going to a Poultry Show and Auction to hopefully buy a few Chickens. Most of our Holiday Guest ask if we have Chicken and do we have eggs for sale. It will be good for our Holiday Guests Children to be able to feed the Chicken and collect the eggs.

Today we had a incubator delivered so that we can produce some Turkeys and Geese. It is a fully automatic incubator that will incubate up to 190 Chicken eggs. Again it will be good for our Holiday Guests Children to be able to see the eggs hatching. We will also try to show some of the hatching on a webcam. We are having some fertile Turkey eggs delivered, hopefully next Tuesday, and I am trying to get some Goose eggs.

I have in the past incubated Ostrich eggs reckoned to be the hardest eggs to incubate, and was quite successful. That came about after paying someone to incubate our Ostrich eggs, he managed to give all the Birds that was getting on for nearly 100, Yolk Sac infection that caused them all to die. As you can imagine I was not best pleased. The person hatching them wasn’t best pleased either when I tipped out twenty that had died on his doorstep. The cause of the infection was because his hatcher was dirty. I was told what chemicals where used in cleaning hatchers before special cleaners were made. I never had a problem with the incubating or hatching.