Progress

Another lovely weekend , and lots of jobs done , but not quite as many as we had hoped - the change in hour meant that Sunday was a write-off , we were late for football in the morning and then late for riding in the afternoon !

Dh put up a bit more new fencing in the birthing field , which I shall move the alpaca into at Easter ,I am leaving it as long as possible to get maximum new grass growth ! Kirsty is looking very well , but the tension is mounting ( on my side anyway) and everyone else is looking suitably large and healthy , which is great .

The house is coming along at a lick , and I am very pleased with what we see so far . Landscaping is going to take longer than I anticipated judging by how long it took me to turn one compost heap !

Recovering ...

I have recovered my composure about the hen and her chicks , having just been checking fields for grass growth and come across a pile of feathers , at least I know for definite( I had held a slightly romantic view that she may just appear one morning with her chicks fully grown and full of life ) and DH is not confined to the broody coop !

I am also recovering from a very successful quiz night at the school last night , which I helped to organise and thoroughly enjoyed , as did most of the other 75 participants ! Many of us are now recovering from a night of excess and I am off to do it all again tonight - except I know my limitations and have offered to drive !! I am not as young as I used to be and a bottle of wine takes too big a toll these days .

I have filled the incubator with 2 different colours of Brahma eggs and am now waiting for the excitement in 2.5 weeks to see how many hatch.The weather has been quite unpredictable - yesterday was sun , snow , sun , hail.... and so I have been on a tour to inspect the grass growth in the fields in preparation for moving alpaca around . DH is finishing new entrances to fields and I am going to have a great big bonfire and burn all the bits of scrub that are hanging around the place .

A busy afternoon , and then another busy night !

Sad and angry

I knew it was all going too well !

Last night DH ( strike that to H) forgot to close up my hen and her 6 chicks - this morning no sign . Mr Fox may well have had a good night , but I am not having a good day as a result ! I am really pretty hacked off , and there is nothing that can be done to put it right , and whilst I know it was just a hen it irritates me that a thoughtless act has resulted in their loss . I shall try not to go on about it , but I am miffed !

So exciting !!

Everything is coming together at once !

Today I got an email from my friend and co-owner of Teifi Magic , to ask if I would like a couple of other studs to stand with me for the summer !! Yes please! She has offered me Teifi Dreamcatcher , who is a truly stunning half accoyo male , white , and just lovely ; and Suri Bozedown Bartholomew ( Barty ),

who is a fab dark fawn suri stud . I am so pleased , I was thinking about Barty for Riva anyway , but the timing would be tricky since I don't want to move her until she has had her cria , which isn't due until late June , and I will be visiting Sue to collect Magic in May . I was toying with doing all the journeys twice over but it is quite a long way , so to have Barty here is great , plus I can offer him and Dreamcatcher for stud services alongside Magic and West , so I have a beautiful stable of studs - black, white , dark fawn and a fawn suri too . At this moment my cup runneth over as we say in wales .

Plus , I have a dozen eggs coming my way ( courtesy of Royal Mail , pls be careful) which are 2 different colours of Brahma chickens . I am very excited about them too ! They are huge chickens , with the cockerels standing almost a metre in height , that's almost as big as DS #4! and I have buff Colombians and gold eggs for hatching .

What more can I say ...whee!

here they are !

here are the latest additions to our family :-

aren't they so cute ?! And no , she hasn't worked out that none of them are hers !

and here is our house , progressing nicely !

Beautiful weather this weekend means we have all ( animals included ) been sunning ourselves and revelling in the warmth . I have enquiries this weekend about alpacas for sale and also stud services - all good business I hope .

The girls are getting bigger and slightly less spritely , but enjoying the sun no less , and the pastures are beginning to green up .........

Pigs

I have booked 2 weaners who will arrive in 4 to 5 weeks , and live out their happy little lives rooting around in a field . They are Oxford Sandy and Black piglets, which we find to have nice natures and taste delicious - what more could you want from a pig !?

chicks - sort of!

Well, we did get some hatching activity on Tuesday, and I spent all day from first light , popping out to see what was going on . I even had a friend who came to see the progress.It was so exciting ! Eventually one little chick hatched and I couldn't wait any longer so I gave the remaining eggs a little shake and got the dreaded glugging sound which indicates no chick. I gently cracked them one by one just in case I was wrong . 4 exploded with the most foul smell ( obviously they had fertilised and started to develop and then ...) and 2 weren't fertilised . I was disappointed but felt quite pleased with one little chick who was a Barnevelder . Next check of the day , and the clumsy hen had stood on the chick and it was quite dead ! 3 weeks of anticipation and ....nothing!

So i did what any self respecting chicken keeper does and bought 6 from somebody else , which had hatched that morning !1 is an exchequer leghorn , 3 are brown and stripey , so could be legbars or welsummers , and the last 1 is apricot and I hope is a buff orpington ... but time will tell. Anyway , the hen is proving to be a better mother to her adopted brood and they are very cute . I was tempted to try and pass them off as her original chicks for DH benefit ( he doesn't see the point of buying in more when some are due to hatch at school next week ) but Eliane was so shocked at this deceit that I came clean and he was pretty cool about it really.I shall take some pictures so you can see their development.

Oh , and I got my first 2 books for matings to Teifi Magic - the boy is set too work !!