Annual visitation.

WOW! Has it really been almost a year since my last post!?

Like most of you, a lot of things have changed since March 2012!

I got a new job in the beginning of the year - I finished my contract at the sword place after 3 months - a shame, but I did what I was employed to do and it was time to move on.

Now I work in the yard at AVS Fencing, which is an interesting job - very physical but there are some great guys who work there who make the job entertaining.

Dave the yard Foreman (left) and I

Andy

I get to drive a forklift and sometimes the transit van for deliveries - all very exciting!

Lewes Boccia is still growing with new people coming along and boosting our numbers.

Boccia is a fantastic inclusive sport for disabled and able people and one very close to my heart as my son (seen front of photo with his new pro ramp and a massive cheesey grin) also plays - and to a good standard.

We have many good players and still hope, one day, to enter a competition...maybe this year will be the year!

It's been a bad year for our chickens, losing all but two, a Purple Haze hen and the male I reared from an egg - Star.

I' going to work on the coops and runs this year so future chickens(?) will be safer and better than they are now.

Well, that's all for now - hopefully see you all again before next year eh!?

Stiggy

New Chickens on the block!

We've had a bit of a weird week, so we thought we'd get out the house for a while.
    Putting on our shoes Jo, Kane and I jumped in the car and went to St Martin's Wood to have a look at some chickens and buy some feed. It's a nice drive, only about 20 minutes, but it's enough of a change to clear the head and see some beautiful countryside - sometimes that's all you need!
   Jo had found their Facebook page and discovered that there was a discount, offered by the new owners, for this weekend only. The only way to secure this discount was to mention the new addition to their family, which was an Alsatian puppy called Indy. It all seemed a bit cloak and dagger if you ask me - walking up to the owner and saying in hushed tones;

"You have an Alsatian puppy called Indy"

I half expected him to say something back like "the larks fly at night"! It was a bit weird!

Anyway, we looked around and chatted about what sort of chickens we liked and the gentleman showed us what stock he had in. There were a lot of lovely looking chickens there, and it took a few minutes of looking at each other and debating to find out that we were actually going to buy some then and there.

Jo started to look around and pick chickens while the man tried to corner them and catch them - he said he could catch them first time, but seemed to have more than a bit of trouble catching the ones Jo and Kane wanted. Admittedly they were running around like Usain Bolt!

The chickens were put in a large box with plenty of holes, and then put in the back of the car with Kane keeping a good eye on them. Two bags of feed followed the box into the back of the car. I paid for the lot and also a large water dispenser which I will pick up next weekend as they were out of stock at the time - but we got the 10% discount which was really worth it in the end!

So, to the bit you've been looking forward to - the unveiling of my new 'ladies'.

So there you go - the gentle integration of our 4 new ladies into the family. I put them in with Star and two Isa Reds as Star is the youngest and fittest cockerel and will outlive Rhydian - sounds harsh, but it's how life goes I guess.

Thanks to Jo for those photos, below are the close up pics I took whilst inside the run. We have two Red Rock and two Blue Haze chickens.

Our Blue Haze ladies.

Checking out their new home.

A close up of one of the Red Rocks.

An unsure Star looks on.

I kept an eye on them most of the afternoon, and they kept themselves to themselves mostly, the new ladies taking over the coop, while Star, Queenie and Minnie decided the corner of the run was the best place to watch the new girls. Star tried several times to be amorous, but the new girls weren't having any of it - apart from once. We only have one name so far - as one of the Blue Haze birds has the lightest colouring, but is also heavy - so I thought of calling her Stone to start with (cos of the weight and colour) but Jo came up with Joss - as in Joss Stone. I'm happy with that!  

Then in the evening Kane and I spent the second night in a tent in our garden - next post I expect!

Chicks move into their new home!

I thought it about time the chicks went outside and started to realise what the big, bad world is all about, so I put them out in their new coop, with their little run.

Now the run isn't as big as I would have liked, but it's enough for the little chicks to scratch around, and for mum to get some fresh air.

We have 3 types of chick. Their father is the same - Rhydian, but their mothers vary. Two brown eggs hatched, then two of the white Silky eggs hatched.

From the brown eggs came the brown chick with the striking markings it's a typical brown Isa I think, with tan legs and skin and brown feathers.

From the other brown egg came the white chick. This chick has the same type of feathers like the brown Isas except they are white, but has black skin like the other Silkies.

The youngest two are definitely Silkies - typical scruffy feathers, big black eyes and black skin.

While I was taking photos, mum wanted to get in on the fun too!

Queenie is looking a little tired and bedraggled, but hopefully once they are all integrated she will fluff back up!

Chicks get new home.

Well, I decided in the last few days that I ought to make some kind of dwelling for the chicks and Queenie, so they can get used to being outside and running about in the grass.It won't have a massive run, but should give them a little sense of adventure, while also letting the other ladies and Rhydian get used to them.

The coop isn't finished - I felted the roof today but haven't started felting the outside walls yet. I also started on their run - hopefully tomorrow I shall be able to felt some more and finish the run.

The run is approx 3' x 3' and is 17" high. There is no bottom to the run, as I'm making it for day release only, and they will be securely locked up in the little coop at night.

I must admit, I was quite pleased with it, my favourite bit being the little door that flaps down to reveal a little ladder board for the chicks to get back inside.

Usually when I make things, I make them so they do the job at hand - I'm not particularly great at finishing off, but this time I thought I'd spend a little extra time making sure this coop would last and look nice (must be my age!). I love the pitched roof, as the half that comes off is now hinged to the coop by means of being stuck to the felt - it won't be lifted up that often, so I'm happy with that.

Hopefully the chicks and Queenie will like it - it's not to last them forever - just until they are bigger and are more integrated with the flock.

I will post once it's finished and in place.

Friday chick update.

Well, despite all my fears and worries, things seem to be going ok in the brooder.

Queenie is showing she's a devoted mother type, and the chicks are eating their chick crumbs, and drinking their water nicely.

They seem to be growing quite quickly already and fluffing up well.

Here's a little film made this morning of the chicks at the watering hole - the whole family taking a break!



Enjoy!

Chick update No.3

I say 'chick update No.3' as I put two updates on the bottom of my last post - I didn't want to seem TOO obsessed!

Today's post will comprise of this first bit - then further down at the bottom there will be updated news as it happens (or pretty much anyway!).

Not a lot to report today so far. We still have four chicks, and they are looking cuter than ever!

I had to make sure the remaining eggs were nicely under Queenie, as she seems to occasionally forget they are there - but then again, it's all new to her and she has a lot to cope with right now!

I very carefully lifted Queenie off the remaining eggs, her chicks were peeping out to see what was going on, to put her in front of her food and water. She was very unsteady on her feet, and so would mine be if I'd had been sitting for the amount of time she has - but she managed to eat some, drink some, and leave behind the biggest, stinkiest deposit I have ever seen from a chicken!

...still, you probably didn't want to know that last bit!

;)

Here's what the chicks look like this morning...



And one of the chicks eating her tasty chick crumbs!



Enjoy!

:D

Two chicks have hatched!!

After all the fretting and worrying about whether or not I had done everything right...

...should I have moved the eggs?

...will the hen sit still on the eggs long enough?

...have I provided a good enough brooder for the hen and the chicks?

...it looks as though I can relax just a little bit today, as yesterday was the day the first two chicks hatched out of their eggs!

I realised this morning, that the broody hen was in fact Queenie. Queenie was one of the chickens we rescued a couple of years back, and was and still is, the only hen to actually stand up to Rhydian. I remember when she came in, Rhydian started to boss her around, when she reared up, with all her neck feathers standing on end - it made her look like a spitting cobra - the effect was so dramatic! She has been the one most friendly towards me - I feel awful I didn't realise it was her.

I went over this morning to let the rest of the ladies (and Rhydian) out to free range as usual, and to check on the broody hen and the eggs. Inside the coop I heard some definite 'cheeps', so excitedly I open the door and looked inside - there was a little tiny, white head peeping out from under Queenie's rear feathers!

I snuck inside a bit further and sat down on the hay next to the brooder, when ANOTHER head popped out. This one was a light brown colour with a dark stripe on it's head, and looked so cute!

While I was there I couldn't help but pick one up and just marvel at the whole aspect of a new life starting. This was totally unexpected - and I've only had a couple of days to adjust to the thought of possibly having chicks hatching - I just hope that I can look after them well enough for them to survive and prosper.

As I was sitting there, I filled up the small 1kg feeder with chick crumbs and the coffee cap with water (washed out thoroughly of course!). I then held both in front of Queenie one at a time so she knew that they were food and drink for her babies. Hopefully she will show the chicks how to eat and drink properly - at least that's the plan!

Here's a photo of them clambering a bit under the watchful eye of Queenie.

I also took a few little movies - they can be seen on my Youtube channel here, as well as this one below.



You can hear their little cheeps, but you can also hear Queenie telling the chicks to behave themselves!

I'll be keeping regular updates on these little things, so keep checking back for the latest news!


UPDATE!





The newest addition to our family!



Awwwwww!

NEW UPDATE!!

We now have FOUR chicks!


:D

Mother hen

Today I spent a little time making a brooder for the eggs I found.

It's only a bit of 12mm OSB with some old shelf bits for sides, but it will the new home for (hopefully) any chicks that may hatch over the next week or so. I also covered two out of four of the coop roof vents so the end where the brooder sits is in the darker section, which should keep her nice and calm.

Most of the eggs are Silkie eggs, but two are brown and have come from the hybrid layers we rescued from the farm two years ago. Rhydian is our only male, and he is a Silkie so I wonder what will come out of the brown eggs - will they be hybrid brown colour, will they be white, or will they be a strange mix of the two - it remains to be seen.

The weirdest thing about all this happened after I had made a new nest for the broody hen and the eggs. I had just lifted the hen off the eggs and was in the process of moving them ever so carefully, when I heard a cheep and felt the egg I was lifting move!

To be honest, I nearly dropped the egg as I wasn't expecting it to do that!

After the hen had finished drinking and eating from the containers I had put in the old coop, I put her on top of the eggs, and she nuzzled them as she got herself comfortable. The food and water are outside the brooder so she doesn't make it too dirty, and can stretch her legs when she wants something.

The last thing I did was to make sure the door was shut and locked. She is definitely living the dream of having her own secure apartment!

Small but beautiful!

There's always a lot of fuss over large vegetables. Large vegetables get their own tables at their own shows, but how many times do we think of small vegetables, and how great they are!?

We've had a lot of success with our tomatoes this year, they've produced most the year, and show no signs of slowing down.

I wanted to share todays pick of items that I collected this morning.

First we have the tiny tomatoes, probably only about 10mm (or 3/8") in diameter.



Then secondly, I thought I'd show you an egg from one of our Silkies. They are always small and white, but perfectly formed little wonders.



So next time you go shopping, or pick your produce from your garden, spare a thought for the little things!

A busy day!

Yesterday I set about working in our paddock cutting the grass, trimming trees and hedges galore.

Luckily, one of my ladies was there to make the final inspection on my little tractor/mower to make sure everything was safe and in good working order.

Hmmmm.... too many leaves on the footplates...

...the seat seems the right height...



...yep - that's the right height for cutting grass...



...and everything looks ok down here too!



After she was satisfied the everything was to her high standards, she hopped off and let me continue.

Spider engineering

I find Spiders fascinating - horrible - but fascinating. How they spin that brilliant web, with such engineering skill is just so fantastic.

I managed to find a nice one, and took a couple of shots to show both sides of the little thing.



I didn't realise he was having a little snack untill i went to his underside - and couldn't help stay watching him for a while.




Tree tidy

I also cleared some growth around the bottom of this tree, cutting back brambles and removing low branches.



Then I removed a few dead branches, and almost dead branches from this tree. There was a low hanging, long branch on the right of the tree as you look at this photo, which I removed as it wasn't too healthy, and was starting to foul in the nearby apple tree.



Then lastly yesterday, I trimmed approx 60M of hedge, side and top (although I haven't taken a photo of the finished hedge) and so all I need to do now is the part of the hedge on the roadside.

Before...



...and during...




Because the hedge has grown so high (approx 9 or 10 foot) I had to stand on the seat of the tractor - even with my mighty KM90's long reach and bendiness, I just needed that extra length to get to the top of the hedge!

Overdue update!

Today I thought I'd put some time aside before I start anything else, to update my blog on a few things.

Recently I laid some turf down for our back lawn, it was the first time I had ever tried doing this job, but it seemed to go quite well.

I have had to go back up to twice a day to water some patches that have dried out, but it seems to have been worth the time spent, as the odd strand of green has been seen poking out of the straw coloured turf.

R.I.P Cherie

Unfortunately we found Cherie dead in the paddock the other day - I had let them out in the morning, as is usual, and when I went to put them away, I found poor Cherie lying down.

It seems she may have had the same thing happen to her as one of our older chickens some time ago - although my medical skills are limited, there were no marks on her, and no feathers littering the grass around her - so she must have gone very quick which is a good thing.

Cherie was one of five rescue chickens we picked up last year, and she was especially endearing as she had a twisted beak, which is why we named her after Cherie Blair!

She was one of the few hens that let me pick her up, more than the others anyway, so it is especially sad that she would be the one to go.

Rest in peace Cherie - we'll always remember you!

Kane rises the ranks!

Kane has been doing really well at Little Ninjas, he seems to have a natural flair for martial arts.

Well the other week he successfully passed the grading to give him his new belt - the yellow belt with a green stripe.

Every training session he goes to he receives a tag on his belt, and every time he gets 8 tags on his belt, he is eligible to do the grading for the next belt. Kane now does 2 sessions a week, and gets 2 tags a week, this has cut down the time he takes to get a new belt - not that it's rushed or anything - the test is quite comprehensive for the next belt.

Here he is in a fighting stance, with his new belt!

Back to it!

Well, today I received two packages, one containing smoke bombs, and one containing humane mole traps.

The smoke bombs certainly seemed to do wonders - of course they may have just stunned the moles into submission, but who cares when they aren't pushing up as much soil or breaking peoples ankles on their tunnel network...

...WHICH by the way is totally ridiculous! You'd be amazed at how many tunnels these things can do.

Aparrently they can tunnel 4M in one hour...

...that's just over 13 FEET in ONE hour!!

It's not the fact that the tunnels are only about 2 inches in diameter, it's the fact that there are so MANY tunnels, and sometimes they make a sort of junction under the grass, thus making the tunnel into a small cavern underneath - i've lost my footing more than once in these junctions, I can tell you!

So anyway, I got these things in the post this morning, and I will eagerly use them as soon as there is more evidence of moles again - for at the moment everything is quiet on the front line.

I took my mower/tractor out onto the back lawn, and drove around flattening the tunnels and molehills so I would be able to see any new ones, or signs where the little blighter was living and hunting.

So far no signs of life - which may be a good sign that they've moved on.

Of course, it may be a sign that they've decided to breed like mad, then come at me with a whole army of tunnelling little horrors!

Luckily moles are solo animals apart from at breeding time, and very territorial, so I probably actually only have two moles on our land (well hopefully anyway!).

Let's see what happens over the next few days - I'll keep you informed!

A break in the fight.

It's not all doom and gloom at our place, we have a regular visitor that seems to live in our garden - a Green Woodpecker.

It loves to peck on our 'Nothing Tree' - so named by our builder who's family were farmers, and as he walked round telling us what each tree and plant was, on a break from working, he walked past this tree and just said;

"This Tree - oh it's nothing"

So we decided to call it the 'Nothing Tree'!

Anyway, our Woodpecker likes nothing better than to sit on this tree and peck away, probably for food.

It also flies down and gets food from our lawn, and I managed to snap it with my standard lens on my camera. (I'm getting a zoom lens for my Birthday I hope!). It was sitting just outside the window where my PC is.

Here's a close up.

New year chill!

The last year has been very busy for us here, not only have we bought a house and had dramatic changes done to it, we've also moved in last October and had Christmas to contend with, so life here has been non-stop, and quite stressful.

Now it seems, life is slowly returning to 'normal' whatever that may be. We still have a stupid amount of stuff at our other house which we need to move, and all this on top of all the new duties given to us by our new home!

One thing that has made things harder has been the really cold weather - not only for us, but for my ladies in the paddock. Their water has been frozen every morning, the ground underfoot has been like steel, and they haven't been able to go for walks too freely thanks to a roaming fox.

All this is about to change though, with the warmer weather (hopefully) coming, changes can be made to house all our ladies more comfortable, and jobs that I couldn't start last year can be started this year.

I had to take a few photos of the girls recently, probably because I never thought they would have frost on their wings - but one or two of the chickens like to roost on top of the old coop instead of inside with the others in their warm coop - which is packed with straw and is really quite warm considering.



I do feel sorry for them though, so this year their entire enclosure will be changed, moved, made bigger and better. Their runs will have interesting things for them to sit on, and hopefully this year I can get my relationship back with them, because of the lack of time I've had with them, hardly any let me touch them any more - which I find quite sad, but understandable.

Although it has been so cold, my ladies still like to get out and about...

...a few of them even went over the other side of the paddock - which is quite a journey for their little legs, and they probably went back telling all the other girls to go their on their next excursion.