Composting hots up

20th May 2017
Composting hots up
I finally have heat in my compost bins! They have been just sitting there doing very little since last summer. But they got a good watering the other day and I spent a good while turning them and incorporating some of the hovered up horse manure that next door kindly let me have.
I have resolved to be a good composting boy and to turn at least one heap every week - aerating and mixing really is the way to get the bacteria going. So today I turned a steaming heap into the next bin along and filled the vacated heap with a mixture of half rotted material and horse manure. I chopped some comfrey and threw that in too for good measure.

There are three benefits of the heaps heating up. Firstly, the mass of material rots down much quicker and is ready to go on the veg beds earlier. Secondly, the heating up kills all nasties like weed seeds, roots, bugs and diseases. Thirdly, it looks like a proper gardener's compost heap!





The brassica fortress
Well that was a big job accomplished but I still had energy and enthusiasm so I moved on to the next big job, getting the brassica area set up. Brassicas (the cabbage family) get a pretty raw deal since, apparently, they are the tastiest thing on the planet and everything tries to eat them. To compound this, they need to stay in the soil for many months which gives the enemy plenty of time to find a weakness in the defences.

First of all the posts go in to hold up the scaffold netting which goes all the way round. Then the taller aluminium poles which will support the soft butterfly netting (invest in the soft as it is so much tougher that the normal stuff). The ground has already been rotavated several times and the chickens have been allowed on to scratch around. Hopefully this will minimise the number of slugs, but on this clay ground the slugs find a perfect home, taking shelter in the cracks which open up in dry weather and relishing the moisture retaining qualities in the wet. So my final defence is a liberal scattering of organic slug pellets.
When I plant the young brassica plants I will tread them in very firmly to protect them from rocking in the wind (the scaffold net helps with this too) and I will place cut-off plastic bottles over them until they grow big enough to withstand the ravages of a slug or too.
I do not use cabbage collars as many do to protect against cabbage root fly. So far I have not had a problem with this pest, but when I did use home-made collars fashioned from carpet underlay they proved an ideal daytime hideout for slugs.

And the final, final defence, is a rabbit fence around the whole area. I don't connect it to the electric fence as it sucks too much energy, but the physical barrier serves as a deterrent at least.

No pot of gold...
With late afternoon now upon us the weather changed and we had some pretty heavy showers which at one point resulted in one of the most amazing double rainbows I have ever seen, arching right over the smallholding. Unfortunately my camera gear was not quite up to scratch to capture it well.


... but a good consolation prize
I retreated to the new conservatory to watch the birds on the feeders. I was absolutely delighted to see a group of four tree sparrows fly in, especially when two of the proved to be recently fledged young birds.

Tree Sparrow at the feeders

21st May
We're not called Swallow Farm for nothing
The day started with a swallow in the house. It eventually found its way out but not before it had found some rather novel places to perch.

Off with their bits!
Most important job for today was to apply castration rings to the two new lambs. A tricky operation this, for they have an uncanny ability to breath right in and withdraw the important bits! I don't think anybody, even vets, manages to capture both balls every time, so to speak. I rather think the process is more painful in my mind than it actually is for the lamb, since it just involves stretching a rubber ring over said bits which causes them to lose their blood supply and drop off. The lambs show no distress whatsoever once they are back with their mum - well, maybe they walk a bit funny for a few minutes. This needs to happen before they are seven days old.
While we were on the sheep, I moved Rambo and the ram we 'missed' last year back in with the ewes and older lambs. After half hour of chasing around and macho behaviour all settled down. The lambs are now plenty big enough to stay away from trouble.

Poultry news
More livestock news as we sadly lost another of the turkey poults today. There is no rime nor reason to whether young turkeys live or not. They go from perfect health one minute to dead the next. But as if by magic a day old turkey chick appeared from the next which is still be sat on by the turkey hen who won't give up.
Call me hard, but young birds give up the ghost with such ease that I have come to accept it, though obviously I'd rather it didn't happen and do everything I can to make sure it doesn't. But we do lose a young bird now, my main thought is There goes a tasty meal in a few months time.

The mangel wurzel tradition continues
The afternoon was spent planting 250 young mangel wurzel plants. I raise these in modules as otherwise the rabbits and slugs get them and I end up with some very gappy rows. Hopefully the effort will be repaid in late autumn when they will supplement dwindling grass supplies for the sheep.

Mega weeding
With this job accomplished I got distracted pulling weeds. The soil is in that rare state when the seeds virtually jump out of the ground, roots and all, even deep-rooted fiends like dock and dandelion. I spent the whole evening, maybe four hours, on a mega weeding session. The slugs absolutely love to hide in amongst the weeds and under overhanging grass edges to borders, so as I weeded I collected slugs for the ducks. They were very, very appreciative. Nothing goes to waste here on the smallholding.

Enjoying the bounty
While I was doing all this, Sue was doing her farmhouse wife bit, making a selection of delicious jams from what remained in the freezer of last year's soft fruits. We now have umpteen jars of blackcurrant (& rum), redcurrant and crab apple jellies. YUMMY.

She also made a cushion as a thank you to the people who recently gave us three of their fleeces for peg looming. Meanwhile, I have collected another twelve fleeces to keep her busy!

Lamb Surprise!

No, it's not a recipe!

I got home yesterday to find these in the top paddock.

We were very worried for this ewe. Over a month ago we brought her into the stables as she appeared to be showing a few signs of early labour. But once in the stable, all signs stopped so we let her back out again.
Since then two of the other ewes have given birth (it seems so long ago now) and our pregnant ewe has been back into the stable three times. Every time, she has settled back into a normal routine.

A sheep's cycle is just 17 days, so when that period had passed by we started to wonder what was going on. Worst case scenario would be a dead lamb inside which could well lead to very serious complications and quite likely the death of the ewe. We had now reached 31 days since the first ewe gave birth and 45 since the first possible due date. Very worrying.

I really wanted to move the sheep out of the top paddock, since four ewes and three lambs meant the grass was getting very well grazed. Last week I bit the bullet and moved the two ewes with lambs at foot down the land where they settled in very nicely. They enjoyed a munch on the hedge along the way.

We left the pregnant ewe up at the top with the non-pregnant one for company. We were getting increasingly worried for her as first the three week mark then the four week mark went by. There seemed to be no perceptible changes in her size or the appearance of her udders or back end. But at least she showed no signs of distress or illness.
We asked a few other smallholders for advice, but no one had much more to add that we didn't know. We decided to just observe for one more week before calling the vet for further advice. On top of all this, I was aware that the shearer will be coming over soon and that I didn't really want one sheep left unsheared.

The weekend was very much taken up with baby birds and with gardening. Nothing in particular seemed to be going on with the sheep.

So it was quite a shock when I arrived back from work about lunchtime yesterday and glanced into the paddock. There was our ewe and she was nuzzling a tiny lamb. It took a few moments to sink in what had happened and a few more moments for me to spot the second lamb. They were both cleaned and feeding well, but mum had not yet passed the placenta. I had only been away about three hours.

I snipped the umbilical cords to stop them dragging on the ground and sprayed them with iodine to prevent infection getting in. Then I just stood leaning on the gate and watched for most of the afternoon. I had been fearing the worst so this was very, very good news indeed.
Even better was that both sides of her udders seemed to be working well, for last year we had to call the vet out for this ewe as her udder was fine on one side but hard and hot on the udder (sorry!)
I have put the newborns inside for today, only because we have some very welcome prolonged heavy rain and I don't want them getting a chill. But tomorrow they will be back outside and hopefully bouncing around the paddock on their gangly legs.
They are both boys, so there is one more job left to do in a few days time. Blokes, cross your legs now.

Badger Face drops a surprise lamb

The two Shetland ewes with the badger-face looks are not the most prolific of ewes. Between them they produce an average of one lamb a year! But for the moment they can stay.

This year is running true to form with one very fat and the other clearly not pregnant. We have never seen either of these ewes give birth, They show no signs of early labour whatsoever and yesterday was no exception. No nesting behaviour. No lip curling. No sky gazing. Nothing.

I was at home all day and was checking regularly on the sheep as the fawn girl has been looking likely to go into labour for the last week or so. As an aside, every time we bring her into the stables she settles down and nothing happens. Maybe we are just being anxious 'grandparents'.
So at 11 in the morning all sheep were fine and dandy. Nothing to report. I came in and worked on Monday's blog post for a while, uploading photos from the phone which takes forever, and when I went outside there, in the paddock, was a newborn lamb, already pretty much cleaned and suckling well. It must have just dropped out!

My first sight of our newest lamb. She is a beauty.

With rain in the forecast and several cold nights ahead (the chickens have been doing a great job of undoing my potato earthing up) I decided to bring mum and daughter into the stable. Fawn ewe has come in too for some adult company. Besides, I am sure her labour is imminent now.

Bemused by the behaviour of the other lambs

Lambs, Broody Poultry and a Grasshopper Mangetout Guard.

I am beginning to wonder if we are ever going to get any rain. Every forecast of drizzle just fizzles away to nothing. I have even had to use the hose pipe on some of my newly sown beds.
This happened in April once before and I really struggled to get anything to germinate. I seem to remember it then rained every day for about four months. The year was a total wipeout.
On the plus side, I'm sure that won't happen again. When it finally does rain the soil will be delightful to work.

I left you with two lambs and a ewe with a yucky membrane trailing out of her back end.

We spent all of the Easter bank holiday worrying about her, waiting for infection to set in. But she just kept eating and was feeding the lambs well. The advice from a couple of vets, kindly offered for free, was just to keep watching, but when it got to the fourth day, with the bank holiday coming to a close, we had decided to swallow the expense and to call the vet in.
Late afternoon on Easter Monday Carol Ann from next door came round to offer a homeopathic cure - nothing ventured, nothing gained. As we tried to catch the ewe the membrane dropped out! It had simply not detached as it should and there was nothing more complicated to worry about. What a relief, for apart from that it had been a perfect Easter holiday.

The sheep are not the only ones with spring babies on their minds. All three turkey hens are sharing a nest, two goose nests are currently occupied by three geese and we have a Muscovy duck sitting tight in one of the duck houses. Add to that the clutch of Ixworth chicks we are rearing and the next lot coming along in the incubator and that's going to be a mighty lot of cute baby birds around the smallholding in a few weeks time.

It will provide us with a lot of tasty meat towards the end of the year too. Yummy!

Things are going pretty well on the growing front too. We already have rhubarb, asparagus and now turnips and mangetout on the menu. I have been working hard on looking after the soil, turning compost, cultivating and weeding. I am reshaping a couple of the beds and the chickens really appreciate the turfs I throw to them. Long term it creates a little hillock in their pen where they can dust bathe when it is dry and head for high ground when it is wet.



It's not often we have a bonfire, as not a lot goes to waste here on the smallholding, but there's not much use for old pallets and rotting fence posts, so an impromptu fire happened last week. We got rid of several year's worth of clutter and it was a good opportunity to incinerate some old raspberry canes and some apricot leaves afflicted by peach leaf curl. Sometimes burning is the best way to get rid of pests and diseases.

Looks like the trees we put in last year 

should give us our first ever apricots this year.

I have been letting the chickens out into the orchard when I am able to keep a close eye on them. It is lovely to see them enjoying the great outdoors again and hopefully all restrictions will be lifted very soon.

Sue has done a brilliant job with the polytunnel mangetout (she planted the seeds and bought the grasshopper to guard them against attack). The first pods are already appearing.

The Perfect Day... almost

Yesterday was just about perfect.

It started with two swallows chattering in the stables. These two birds spent the day air-dancing over the farm. One of the little owl pair sat on sentry duty outside their nest hole.

It ended with two beautiful black lambs delivered in record time.

In between I worked the soil and sowed the first outdoor carrots, turnips and spring onion. Then came the rain to water them and prepare the soil for working the next veg beds. I moved into the polytunnel to sow more carrots, transplant seedlings and pot on some of the faster growing young tomato plants.

Along the way I discovered a secret stash of chicken eggs.

In the evening, Sue cooked up a tasty lamb dish accompanied by the first fresh asparagus of the year, a real treat.

Today has been more testing. The mother ewe still has a trail of membrane hanging from her back end. Though she and the lambs seem healthy enough, we are worried for her. Two phone calls to the vets have left us just keeping an eye on things, so that's what we are doing, but it's a very worried eye.

Baa Baa Black Sheep

There is only one subject I can possibly write about today... this year's first lambs, delivered late last night, Easter Friday.

Our Shetland ewes do not have names, but the first mum of 2017 is the fawn girl, the fat one at the back with the big udders!

We moved the ewes away from Rambo the ram about a week ago and put them into the stables. But after a few days it was getting a bit stuffy and there were no imminent births, so we let them back outside into the small paddock up by the farmhouse. We have been resting this paddock so the grass was nice and green.




Yesterday the fawn ewe was spending most of her time in the small shed. Apart from clearly being the largest and her udders being enormous, she showed none of the other classic signs of being in early labour. No teeth grinding. No star gazing. No lip curling.

Yesterday afternoon we decided to bring her back into the stable, along with the non-pregnant ewe for companionship, but penned separately. We guessed she would probably give birth some time over the weekend.







At 10 o'clock last night I headed out to lock up the chicken houses and to check on the ewe on the way. I peered over the stable door and in the torchlight could see a dark, wet ball on the ground right below the ewe's back end. I ran to get Sue. "Sue, you might want to come out to the stable!"
With the lights on, we could see a freshly born, all black lamb, still basically a wet bundle of wool. It was just taking its first breaths, which was a relief.



Mum's instincts kicked in straight away as she started licking her newborn and giving it reassuring deep baas.
We dimmed the lights and left mum and baby boy to get on with it. There was clearly at least one other lamb to come out and it would probably be half an hour or so until anything else happened. Sue headed back in and I headed down in the darkness to shut away the poultry.

While I was at the chickens, I could hear much loud baaing. I don't know how you judge it, but it sounded like contented baaing. So I took another peek in the stable on my way back to the farmhouse and there on the straw was another black lamb, gangly legs in all directions.

It had certainly been a quick labour.

Both lambs were quickly up and mum's licking soon had them looking clean and fluffy. Instinct quickly led them towards mum's udders where they were doing all the right things - kneeling down and butting away at the milk sack, though for a while one of them was trying to get milk out of the hay rack!

There was not much for us to do apart from take photos. We snipped the umbilical cords and sprayed on iodine to prevent infection. Mum was happy to let me handle her lambs but I resisted the temptation to fuss them, giving them back to mum as quickly as I could for there was bonding to be done.

The only thing to do now was to check back in a while that the third stage of labour, passing the placenta, was going smoothly.

By midnight there were still two bags and a trail of slimy skin hanging out the back of mum. We went to bed and I set my alarm for sunrise.

When I put the lights on in the stable, mum was standing and both lambs were looking very healthy. It took a while for her to turn around, but to my disappointment there was still a trail of messy stuff hanging from her rear end, though it had clearly progressed from last night and was hanging much further.
Ideally the placenta would have been completely expelled (and probably eaten by mum) by now. Not to panic though. A quick google and we decided to leave it a while until a civilised hour when if necessary we could call the vets for a little advice.

And that's where we're up to now. It's 6.30 in the morning and I am tapping away at the keyboard and downloading photos while I wait to go back out and check on the fawn ewe and her two black lambs.

By the way, we have a boy and a girl.

Poultry imprisoned for another 8 weeks.

Monday 2nd January

Difficult to capture with just the phone, but the thin crescent moon and Venus put on a great show in the early night sky over the house.

Wednesday 4th January 2017
 

Not unexpected, but today the Prevention Order was extended until the end of February. This is an attempt to prevent Bird Flu crossing from wild migrant birds into the domestic poultry flock.

Unfortunately it means that the poor ducks, chickens, turkeys and geese have to stay locked up for another two months.

They have actually settled down into their temporary accommodation now. The chickens are quite happen in the warmth and shelter. In grotty weather they don't do much when they are outside anyway, though I would like them to be scratching about in the veg plot unearthing all the bugs.
The turkeys have finally started coming down to ground level and the Muscovy ducks have started laying again. We are finding the odd chicken egg too, usually up on the hay bales.

Eggs again!

Now that the lock down is extended, I needed to move the three ducks out of the polytunnel and in with the chickens. They enjoyed their walk outside for all of about two minutes!
I had a big swap around in the stables too, moving straw to where hay was and hay to where straw was. In the process I found one dead rat, two young voles and a whole pack of mice.
Rodents are a bit of a problem when the birds are kept inside and I will have to spend a little time laying traps and bait in the stables to make sure it doesn't get out of control.

One of the older hens has something wrong with her foot, so it is probably time for her to be made into a broth! The meat birds have finally began to fatten up - moving them indoors set them back for  a couple of weeks - so we'll 'process' a few of those this weekend. The more we can thin down the numbers, the more straightforward it will be keeping them indoors.


Thursday 5th January 2017
Back at work today after Christmas. A bit of a shock to the system but I quite enjoy my job when the government is not telling us all that we're useless as a way of covering for its own ineptitude! The only trouble with working at this time of year is that there's so little time to get anything done on the smallholding.
This evening we were heading for the Cambridgeshire Self-Sufficiency Group's January meeting which turned out to be a very informative and entertaining talk on growing wood for fuel and coppice products. It was a chance to pick up some more Dexter beef from Paul (who played Santa in a previous post) too.

Saturday 7th January 2017
Hopefully the two lambs have come through. They are being nurtured in the stables, which is a bit of a squeeze what with all the chickens, ducks and turkeys in there too. Not only that, but today the geese were moving in, for with the lock-in extended their temporary accommodation thus far just won't do the job, especially once they start laying eggs and becoming more territorial. The mucky straw from the old shed went under the blackcurrants as a nitrogen-rich mulch.

And so today the stables underwent their third reorganisation. The lambs now have their own 'room' with one wall made of hay - an edible wall!

Seven of the chickens met their maker today. This should ease the overcrowding slightly. The old hen will hang for a few days before being turned into chicken soup. As for the others, we will take off the breasts, wings and legs. As they are not for roasting whole, they don't need to look perfect, so we dunked them in hot water for 40 seconds before plucking. This makes the job so much quicker, but you don't get quite such a clean finished product.

Shetlands head off

For two nights in April 2015 we sat up in the stables. One of our Shetland ewes was in labour and she was taking her time about it.
It was our first lambing and it was a stressful experience, but a truly amazing one too.

The two lambs grew quickly and were soon meeting the rest of the outside world.

... including our new puppy, Boris

The reason for this reminiscence?
Well these two lambs were never going to become pets. Today, after 17 months growing up on the farm with us, it was time to send them off to you-know-where (when the livestock trailer makes an appearance, it's often bad news for someone!)

There was a tinge of sadness as they were the first lambs we had raised from birth, but we know they had a good life here.

We keep the Shetland lambs into their second year as they are a small breed and don't really get very big by their first winter. But the benefit for us is that they are a hardy breed which can survive the winter without much help. Being small, they present few difficulties with lambing. As they cost us very little to keep, they are perfectly suited to our needs. They are gradually enriching the grassland and they are a great way of managing it. We get the additional benefit of some very, very tasty meat. As they go off in their second year, the meat is officially classed as hogget.

edit (Wednesday 30th) I just picked up the lambs from the butchers (all packaged up in boxes.) They came in at 16.5kg and 16kg. I'd have liked a little bit more, but they were quite compact little sheep. Anyway, good things come in small packages.