chickens always make me smile

Today I went to collect eggs , and just had to laugh. One of the hens had very carefully collected my lemon shaped and coloured egg timer into the nest and was contentedly sitting on it ! Moments like that are just so few and far between , but make life a little bit lighter .

What goes around.....

What a busy weekend . No paying guests so we took the opportunity to do some gardening - well rotivating actually. We ( DH & I ) worked all weekend rotavating and stone picking an area of approx.400m2, and boy did we find plenty of stones to pick ! It is back breaking , shoulder knackering work , followed by rolling and raking . Luckily it is all now done , and fertiliser has been applied , just waiting for the weekend to grass seed the whole lot - keeping the chickens and the children off should be fun!

Along with everything else , I am now on the look out for a puppy ! 2 litters look promising , but we are on a waiting list for both, I am after a black lab bitch , and the people on the list ahead of us cannot decide between black and yellow , so we are holding our breath and praying quietly that they prefer yellow!

The days are beautifully warm and the alpacas are sunbathing a lot which is lovely - get those Vit D levels up girls- and the hens are doing fine as are all the chicks , incubator still purring away nicely -D Day is the 1st May

alpaca make over

The sunny weather just keeps on coming ! A week now and the days are just lovely , the alpacas are doing some sunbathing and so are the hens. It is lovely to see everybody laid out and relaxed after a tough winter.

Yesterday I moved the mums into a new field next to the weanlings and yearlings , in order to clean their field and let it grow for the births in June , needless to say that within a couple of hours 3 alpaca had made it back in with the mums , funnily enough not the ones I would have predicted , all the boy weanlings stayed away , and since they were all mummies boys I'm quite surprised , and Brizo didn't bother either , but her older sister did! Anyway , it became clear that keeping them in separate fields was a bit of a farce , so I let them all in together , amid much excitement ( well 2 mins worth) and then it all settled down and they got on with munching and sunbathing .
Today , we rounded them up and did a bit of toe nail trimming , and a bit of facial hair trimming , Brizo and Binky have fantastic fleeces , with great crimp and lustre and it grows all over their faces , so much so that their eyes were fast disappearing , which in a huacaya is a bit disconcerting ! Anyway I trimmed and trimmed and tried not to go over board , but I fear I didn't make much difference and we may have to repeat the performance tomorrow. I also did a bit of dagging and washing of hind legs for the same two ladies who have a habit of getting their legs gummed up with any twig or bramble within a 5 mile radius and then get into a horrid mess , so a good wash was called for after the worst was cut away - we don't want fly strike , that's for sure.

The school chicks are spending their first night out in a coop without a heat lamp , the day temps have been great and they are all fully feathered so it should be fine ........

Also , I had a bit of a shopping spree and am now the proud owner of ..... 4 cream legbar chicks - all hens ( they are autosexing ) and an incubator full of eggs ! 6 Barnevelders , 6 Buff Sussex , 3 Panteg khaki and 3 dark brown eggs of the Heinz 57 variety ! Hatching date is May bank holiday so fingers crossed .

I have my sister to stay for the rest of the week , and then next week I start halter training and spit-off's for real , with a dose of mating thrown in for good measure . Watch this space !

After the snow ...

came the rain , inches of it all in a very short space of time , we had over 3 inches in about 2 hours today - the fields are water logged ,the animals bedraggled and at one point the stables were flooded! Marriage to a water engineer has its benefits , but sorting out the drains around the stables is clearly not one of them!

On the positive , I have made a great start in the poly tunnel ; today I planted little gems , radishes , spring onions , carrots , rocket and mixed lettuces. So our salad intake is about to go up and our waistlines down I hope , sadly it never works that way for me , maybe I should give up the chocolate and the full fat coke as well as eating salad? No , life is too short .

The cockerel with a penchant for beating us all up has finally met his maker , today he was dispatched by my generous neighbour , he knows that I cannot quite bring myself to do it , and with DH being a veggie ( of strict proportions ) -no hope there , so he does it for me , which is very kind and very helpful too. At least now the kids ( and visitors) can walk around without fear of an attack being launched at the back of their legs - more shocking than painful , but pretty irritating .

Fingers crossed tomorrow is sunny .

snow again

what can i say ? just as everyone ( alpaca wise) was looking relatively clean and fluffy the snow has come down again and we are back to muddy bedraggled animals who are craving some decent grass and a bit of sunshine .I am really thankful that we don't have any cria just born 'cos that would be giving me a deal of stress , the temp is back down to 2C and we are feeding expensive amounts of alpha pellets and peas , which I thought we had almost stopped , this winter seems to have gone on for ever! Berlioz is looking a little bit thin , as are a few of the others , not worryingly so , but I shall be glad of some good rampant grass growing very soon .

I had hoped to spend Easter weekend trimming toe nails , getting some vaccinations done and checking a couple of pregnancies , all of this in the warm spring sunshine - looks like it will be muddy toes and essential vaccines , the rest will have to wait , the ground is really slippy and I don't want to risk any injuries by testing pregnancies .

The chicks are doing really well , we have built them a large wooden pen in the garage, with a heat lamp , and they are growing really quickly, last sunday they even got to go outside for a couple of hours since the weather was really nice and warm. One of my hens is showing signs of going broody , when I am sure that she is I can crank up the incubator and take a trip to the Wernlas collection for some pure breed eggs - I really would like some cream legbars and also some barnevelders , they are my favourites and my little flock is being over-run with hybrids, time for some new blood!

flashy lawnmowers

It was a lovely day today , and the mums came down into the back garden and did some much needed lawn mowing for me ! They really enjoyed the grass which is looking pretty lush compared to the fields , and it kept them out of mischief almost all day .there is enough for at least another days worth of grazing , the only slight downside is that they are in the garden of the rental cottage and so the alpaca poo will have to be cleared thoroughly before our first guests arrive next week. Like all of us , I am praying for the grass to start growing , the consumption of hay and hard feed is slowly going down , but the grass is not growing nearly fast enough yet.
The yearlings have found a hole in the fences which means that they can get into a field that I was resting , I really need to get it sorted out , but I have so much going on that for the time being they are doing as they please !
This year we must make some decisions about hay - do we have enough space to put a couple of fields aside for hay ? or do we just bite the bullet and buy in ? I need some fences putting up , and fields dividing , bu the fencers are somewhat elusive at the moment , it is lambing time , so we are being patient , but I would like the job done . I really need to switch the yearlings and the mums over for a couple of weeks to get the halter training done , it will be easier in the mums field 'cos the catch pens are better and it will be less stressful for all concerned. , and then swap them back to do some spit-offs and see who's pregnancy has held over the winter , and start some matings for those girls who open . I need to think about getting my beautiful black Teifi Magic to come and do some mating work , I am sure that Athena is open , and they would have a beautiful cria. Bijou and Cerys are both expecting Magic cria in June / July , and I think that I will leave them open and re-align the breeding programme , so that most cria are due in April and May, which is the perfect time for us , being quite high up we can still have some pretty chilly nights and the snow has only disappeared of the tops in the last day or so , and by April /May it is much warmer whilst still giving them a good long season before the winter sets in .

The chicks are coming home from school on Friday- I don't have enough hours in the day to deal with all this and do the housework, guess which isn't getting done?!

for once it's welcome

Finally we have had a little bit of rain , only a really small amount , but just enough to get the grass going , and the ground is so dry we do need it . Luckily with rain comes warmer temps and it has reached 14 degrees today and is still 10 at 8pm . Thats what I want right now . We have had some dreadful heath fires , where acres of mountain have been destroyed , and its only March - god help us in July.

The pacas are pleased with the rain , well I am on their behalf, they will be a bit cleaner soon and I am tired and broke from buying in so much hard feed, luckily we grow our own hay , but even that is coming to an end .

The polytunnel has its first crops growing nicely, I have added a couple of hanging baskets of strawberries to the tunnel , and the 'first earlies' are dong well. All the tomato plants and courgettes are going well in the house , and some capsicum peppers are coming up , so we will be able to make our own ratatouille at this rate - that has always been my goal!