Deja vu ?

Like most we have some snow ! and the weather is bitterly cold , 6 miles up the road they recorded the lowest temp since records began for Wales -18C ! that is cold . At 10am it was still -7!

We have moved the boys back into their field , which is earlier than I would have liked , another couple of weeks and the pastures would be cleaner , but then the cold weather will help, however the forecast is for blizzards on Tues and their field provides much more natural shelter since they refuse to use the shelters!

The mums and babies are all doing well , plenty of fresh hay and they are happy. We have been getting the barns made up to house them on Tues , they really don't like to come in , but I cannot stand the stress of having them out when the weather is really bad.

The chickens are pretty unimpressed with the weather , I have a few who are snuffly and have sticky eyes , but a dose of antibiotics should be sorting that out , except for one of my legbars , who has a truly terrible eye . If you are squeamish read no further ! She has had the eye closed now for 4 days , after the first day I started antibiotics for the whole flock , since I felt it was more than just a cold , and I started to wipe her eye twice a day. It still sealed itself between wipes and began to swell to massive proportions , recently I cannot see the eyeball which is obscured by a thick , foul smelling cheese like gunk. I have been washing this out as best I can - chickens do not make good patients and continually twitch and try to get away - so far a huge amount of this 'stuff' has come out , but I think their may be an end in sight , it seems to be less each time ( albeit is still a huge amount and foul) I just hope her eye is OK underneath . I am loathed to visit the vet , the cost being so much more than the chicken ! but equally I don't want her to suffer unnecessarily , what to do? At the moment she seems to be quite bright and is eating and drinking , not quite as perky as the rest of the flock , but not sickly unless you see her eye.

OMG

- snow already . I know they said it was coming , and we are as ready as possible , the pacas have been moved so that they have access to the barn - which they will hardly use , but makes me feel better- all the bits are in the right places ie . buckets and hard feed and hay to hand , but still it fills me with dread . After last winter I really cant face another one this soon , the pipes are frozen in the new part of the house , well outside actually , 'cos DH didn't get round to burying them , clearly he doesn't take the weather forecast seriously!

Anyway, we are ready but I still hate it !

Where does it go ?

I have been lucky enough to have a few days away in London , purely pleasure , very relaxing and I have come back a new woman!

Meanwhile , DH has been left running the kids and the animals , and now he needs a holiday too!

Just before I went away I had a routine visit from the vet , to get microchipping and ear tagging done . I know I could do all that myself , but I am a bit squeamish about chipping . However , having had a tutorial from the vet , next time I shall try myself , and I will definitely do the ear tagging. Anyway , All the alpacas are correctly tagged ( per the new legislation which will undoubtedly want tagging ) and identified .

The weather has deteriorated fast over the last week . We had snow on the hills on Sunday night , and the last few nights have been so incredibly windy I haven't slept very well .Luckily we are all still in one piece , and only minor casualties - a gate has come off its hinges - but the animals are fine.