Nollaig na mBan (Ladies' Christmas)

The tree stripped and Christmas packed away for another year

Say it "Nollag na Mahn" for that authentic Gaelic effect. Readers who were with me in January 2014 will have already heard of this break and 'day-off' for the hardworking ladies of the household. This is a tradition in the West of Ireland which is thought to pre-date those blow-in Christians and their 'Epiphany' malarkey (when the 3 wise men finally rocked up to the crib and Bethlehem). The ladies of the household, having slaved for 2 weeks for their men-folk, finally earned a day off. The men would hold the fort, feed the livestock and do the house work.

One of the marmalade kittens does justice to a bit of left over lamb

In my head, I was proud of the lads! I imagined them feeling sorry for their ladies at last and gallantly (patronisingly? chauvinistically?) granting them the day off, "generously" palming them an amount of spending money and helping them into the buggy to which they had already hitched up the mare. Have a nice time, ladies.

A nice range of egg colours. Top is a duck egg. 

Not a bit of it apparently. Back in the day the law and (even more important) village tradition of what was right said that this was their right, entitlement and due and they did not need any man deciding that they could do this. They'd done their 2 weeks and they were outta here. If Mr Farmer got a slice of cold pie left for him in the meat-safe then fair play to him.

Ash bark.

The tradition has died out a bit and is forgotten in most areas, but out here in the West it still hangs on. Locals will shy away from organising public events (dances, social nights) on 6th Jan because "people like to organise their own family things around Little Christmas" (the other name for it). Mind you, Liz tells me that in the cities , the bar/pub/restaurant trade has started to try to re-introduce it hoping that the gangs of local women, released for the day from the chores of home and the kids and bent on shopping, might finish their free days with a meal of a few drinks with the girl-friends. As a quick aside to this, the lady currently curating that Twitter account (see previous post) tells us that in the Amish (Plain People) areas of up-state New York, they celebrate "Old Christmas" on this date.

We did a reasonable job here, making sure to look after Lizzie. She got a nice lie-in, then taken shopping in Roscommon. There was a lunch, then a relaxing afternoon and then I cooked the supper and she is even now  sipping gently on a glass 'Barefoot' Malbec. A small stash of chocolates sits waiting on the dresser. That, we guess, is it. The 'real' Christmas is done and tidied away, and the Ladies' Christmas has now followed it for this year.

Warm socks.

That's it for this post, too. I am being brief (can't be rattling away in here when I am meant to be looking after the good lady!). I was hoping to bring you pics and news of the 'splatter' of tiny webbed feet but those little ducklings are taking their own sweet time battling their way out of the shells. There were 7 eggs. As I go to print, Rob tells me we have 2 out of their shells so far and more 'pipping' (chipping their way through) but these little mites don't all survive this stage, so I won't do an update till we are sure how many 'survivors' we have.

11ºC today and plenty of bees flying. Plenty returning, too, with
their 'shopping baskets' full of  ivy pollen. Happy Nollaig na
mBan, ladies. Not too many drones around in January to be doing
the house work while you're gone, mind.

The one single thing we found lacking thru Christmas was good old fashioned holly. In all my dog walking and car-mounted exploring, I could find no bush from which to steal a sprig for the Christmas pud, only neat little clipped specimens in gardens. We have every other broad-leaved species, but no holly, so we were off today to the local garden centre. Of course, since then, as is the way of these hunts, we have seen holly bushes everywhere and we know that they can be propagated from semi-ripe cuttings.

An optimistic tree growing in a wall.

Well, we have one now. May it live long an prosper. We paid €5 for ours. We were amused to learn that a local shop was selling prunings for use in wreaths etc at €7.50 PER BIT! No flies on these local guys when it comes to merchandising.

Free Range

Currently AWOL, our turkey hen, Barbara. 

Tonight, one of the downsides of fully free range poultry came and paid us a visit - that is the ability of hen birds (in this case the turkey, Barbara) to go and hide up to go broody under a hedge somewhere. You are lucky if you see them sneak off, and even luckier if you can follow them and discover their carefully hidden nest site. There is no bird-proof (or fox proof!) perimeter fence here, these are fully free range birds. They are here because they want to be - we obviously have the best food, housing and TLC around.

"Full House" from the geese - 4 eggs from 4 birds. 

Barbara had come into lay at the start of the month and produced 4 eggs that we had found - she scatters them all over the gaff - but had then stopped (as far as we knew). Then she started to go missing during the day and 3 days ago had us out searching all around the neighbouring fields looking for her quite dark and well camouflaged shape. To no avail, that time. We gave up and came back 'home' only for Barbara to suddenly re-appear in the yard mid afternoon. We had seen tracks in the mud just outside our NW corner but not enough to follow her.

Gooseberry

For 2 days she stayed put (again as far as we know - we don't watch them all 24/7) but tonight at lock up, she is AWOL. We have searched the fields again, but no sign, not even of follow-able fresh tracks. She may wander back in - I am patrolling round every hour to see if she has arrived back and is trying to get into the (now locked for the night) coops but that is not very hopeful by now - it's 9 p.m. and quite dark.

Chestnut "sticky bud"

We are looking at a 28 day period of incubation when she could easily be snatched by a fox or, by some huge miracle of good fortune, successfully hatch the chicks and then bring them the marathon hike back home. We can only wish the girl luck and pray that we see her again with or without babies. Her husband Tom seems oblivious of all this and struts around the 'farm' displaying at everyone and strutting his stuff as if it has not yet dawned on him that she is gone.

Early sunrise breakfast for the flock

Meanwhile, not all our baby birds are living so dangerously, nor our broody 'Mum'. The latter is the first of our 4 geese to tip over into broodiness. She's been very clingy to the (indoor, safe) nest the last few mornings, sitting tight till gone midday before "asking" to be let out to join the gang in the orchard. Then just today she sat there all day and got quite stroppy when I went in to gently offer her a bowl of grub. In previous years this has been the sure start to a broody session, with geese being 28-33 days at it. I think she is sitting on last night's 4 eggs. She may be joined by other geese and they may also try to drop more eggs into her nest. We have a rather confused time with our goose breeding as regular readers will know. This mainly because we don't actually WANT to breed geese, but our efforts to steal all the eggs as soon as they are laid do not work out 100% towards this time of year.

The ducklings get a first feel of grass and sunshine.

The little clutches of ducklings and chicks are now at the stage (just under 3 weeks old and part feathered) where they get little try-outs in the yard in rabbit runs when it is warm. They get to feel the grass under their feet and the sun on their backs. If our judgement or the weather forecast calls for it, they are rescued back up in the early evening for another night indoors.

The chicks

Both groups seem to be loving it. The ducklings in particular have become a loud and clamorous gang of demanding 'gannets' who peep-peep loudly for food as soon as either of us show our faces at the back door. The chickens do not want to be left out, so they kick off too, but 4 chicks cannot compete noise-wise with 6 ducklings. They are all getting a good mix of chick crumb, cooked rice and finely chopped veg peelings/grated carrot offcuts and they are all wolfing it down. Thriving, they are.

Electricity pole covered in ivy.

Finally, I am now pretty much through my archery beginner's course. It was going to be ten weeks at 1 hour a week, shared with up to 5 other students but regular readers will know I got lucky. Not only did I get one-to-one tuition but also some weeks we carried on after the hour into the 2nd hour of club time in that hall. The instructor would have been well within his rights to say, nope, you had your hour... now I am off to 'play' my own archery. So, 6 weeks in I have ticked all the boxes (literally) and my form has gone into the national club to win me my membership card and number (and insurance cover) and I have been measured up and assessed to see what size and draw-strength bow and arrows I need to be buying. 62 inch bow, 29 inch arrows and a 40 lb draw, for those who are interested. Off to t'internet then and Quicks Archery of Honiton (Devon) to select £315 (nearly €400) worth of shiny new equipment. That will help distract me from waiting for Barbara to return.

Eat Your Vegetables!

Ross (l) and Somerville (r)

Our tiny pigs, Somerville and Ross are both nicely settled in now to our place and our ways. This may be the case every year (you forget) but they seem so tiny to me, probably because the last pigs we had were our departing Berkshires; long since gone through 'tiny' to become hulking 70-80 kg beasts. When the new ones turn up I worry that they are so small they will get through the gaps in the sheep-wire and it takes me a few weeks to relax into the idea that they might like it here and stay voluntarily, even if they could escape.

Ross is a galia melon kind of girl.

These two were immediately the most friendly and tame newcomers we have ever met. Real charmers. Within 24 hours I could feed them from a bowl which I still held, and now, a week later they are both sprinting up to me on my arrival and 'asking' for food. Somerville (the 'spotless', sandy one) is perhaps a lot more chummy that Ross (she of the many black spots and blotches). The former will allow me to scratch her head, shoulders and flanks and is all over me nuzzling into pockets and wellies. The latter, Ross, is a bit more shy, only allowing a little touching of her forehead.

Somerville prefers a tomato.

In a previous post I said that I was a bit worried about their lack of appetite. They seemed fixed on the wetted grain-mix that I got from the breeder and turned their noses up at my 'proper' commercial pig-ration. They also ignored my offerings of apple and carrot. 'What manner of pigs are these?', I worried, 'that they won't eat anything? Were we going to have to teach them to eat their vegetables like naughty children? We are through all that now as I ran out of good breeder-mix. They are now piling into my 1/3 : 2/3 mix of barley and pig-nuts and happily accepting apple, tomato, carrot and galia melon. That is a relief.

They are also lovely looking, attractive animals and I have been able to get some lovely pictures of them glowing in the afternoon sun as they wander about in the grass patch up the side of their 'woods' next to the goose orchard. They are completely unfazed by the arrival of a camera lens close to their pile of fruit. We have great hopes for them and they might just have knocked our belovéd Tamworths off the top of the "most favoured breeds" list.

Happy pig-butts

Meanwhile on 'veg' Liz continues to do the swimming lessons thing with the ducklings and both of us are finding, as usual, that the official diet of pure chick-crumb is just plain boring. The ducks enjoy dibbling the crumbs up from the surface of their bath but they just look like they should be grazing up greenery and vitamins. We had some curly kale in the fridge (for us, of course) and Liz wondered whether if she finely chopped this and set it afloat on the 'bath' water, the ducklings might enjoy that. Well, talk about feeding frenzy! 6 ducklings were immediately in the water splashing it every where as they scrabbled up the bits of kale. No problem with them eating their veg.

We are fast approaching the time when we can let them out into the rabbit runs on sunny afternoons for an hour or so, and, as they become more waterproof, we will also give them a try out on the big pond. We KNOW that ducks can wreck a pond but this is a BIG pond (6m by 10 m) and there are only 6 ducklings, so we are willing to risk it. If the pond starts to suffer we may re-think this plan and confine them to a smaller run with some kind of kiddies' paddling pool, but the photo's wont be anything like as good.

Taking Stock

New species for 2016 - these Khaki Campbell ducklings

At this time of year we seem to accumulate livestock at a breathless rate with new species and baby animals turning up every week. I need to stop, take a moment and do a mental stock check on what we have here. I thought the readers might also like to know, so this post is a bit of an annotated list of the animals and birds we have as of 9th April 2016. In order of appearance, then, here goes.

Careful swimming lessons for the not-very-waterproof ducklings

Poultry - where it all began back in 2012 with our 5 "Lovely Girls", the Sussex Ponte hens. Only one of these ladies is still with us and we are trying to 'evolve' by natural wastage into a mainly Buff Orpington flock. The current chicken list is....

2 Buff Orpington Roosters (The Lieutenant and the Captain)
5 Buff Orpington hens including one of our own breeding last year (Remember "hen and one"?)
1 Sussex Ponte hen
1 Cuckoo Marans hen
2 Hubbard hens (0ne red, one white)
2 "Mini Buff" hybrid hens
That's 11 hens by my reckoning.

Eyes down - 8 sheep line up at the trough.

Other Poultry include

1 gander (George)
4 geese (technically 2 wives of George and 2 daughters but he's not too particular!)
3 Guinea Fowl including our original hen (Min) and 2 possible suitors (Apollo and Belvedere)
4 newly hatched Buff Orp chicks (pure bred we hope but time will tell)
6 newly hatched ducklings
1 pair of turkeys (Tom and Barbara)

That is 33 birds, total.

Newly built duckling and chick brooder box. A sheet of
house insulation, some old election posters and a rabbit hutch
roof. Load of gaffer tape and Bob's your uncle.

Mammals dept.

3 ewes (Lily, Polly and Myfanwy)
5 lambs (3 ewe lambs, 2 ram lambs). One of these, Rosie Probert is a 'keeper' and will become our replacement ewe as old Polly (9) heads for retirement*.
2 new pigs - 10 weeks old at present. "Oxford Sandy and Black" breed (OSBs) named Somerville and Ross
Guest goat (Nanny Óg) and her week old son Henry Óg (our newest animal).
3 dogs (Deefer, Towser and Poppea)
2 cats (Big fluffy 'Blue' and young lanky pretender, Soldier.

Home made 'hedgerow' wine used up the freezer bags of fruit.

...and then there are the honey bees of course - how could we forget? One colony at present living in a (British) National hive as 'brood and a half'. Probably about 10,000 to 15,000 bees at this time of year but till we get through the cold/damp/wet/late spring we are not counting any "chickens". We got our fingers burned in 2015 with total loss of our previous bees in spring just when we thought we were out of the woods. This, we are told, is when bees die - they do OK in winter when they are pretty dormant (they do not technically hibernate), but run out of food when they start to get active and start flying as temperatures come up above the tens and the crucial 14ºC.

The log mountain almost 'complete'. 

I have been trying, and struggling a bit, to 'wean' the pigs off the mixed, soaked, mollasses'd grain that came with them and onto which they had been weaned from Mum's milk. The breeder gave me a sack of this mix to help the piglets settle in here and instructions to slowly transition them over to my commercial 'nuts' with days on 75%/25%, then 50/50, then 25/75 etc. The pigs were not keen and were not co-operating. They refused my ration and left me with bowls with all Darren's mix gleaned out of them. They seem to eat way less than previous pigs and, to my amazement and alarm, were also refusing all fruit and veg "treats" - apples, carrots etc. I'd find the wedges of apple lying withered and dried up in the left overs.

My kind of Birthday Present!

The moist mix from Darren was starting to go off - it warmed up and smelled decidely "perfumed", then started to go mouldy, so we had to force the issue. Luckily the pigs have now had a change of heart. My pig nuts are now 'OK' apparently and the apple wedges and carrot bits are also vanishing from the food bowls. We may be on the run home to well fed pigs.

The sweet little ducklings need to be taught to swim. Well, not true, exactly - they need to be shown water so that they will swim and get wet, to make sure they then learn the preening behaviour which will let them spread their own natural water-proofing oils all over their feathers. Ducklings hatched in nature are straight way rummaging around in Mum's feathers and pick up the preen-gland oils from her. They hit the water already proofed and float like corks. Their own preen glands take a couple or three weeks to develop, so ducklings hatched in an incubator have a problem. If they get into water, they just waterlog and sink very quickly, as well as getting very cold from the water-skin contact. The breeder/brooder must introduce them to shallow, warm-ish water in a safe way for the first weeks to stimulate the preening behaviour which will coat their duckling-fluff with the oil. Liz is having great fun doing this in our Sitting Room using a cat litter tray (with flat rocks as 'beaches') and a big, water-absorbing rug.

There ends my stock take. In the words of all 'Thank You' speech givers everywhere, I hope I have not forgotten anybody. If I have I will have to sneak back into this post with my tail between my legs and add any forgotten birds or beasts under cover of darkness.

Newest animal, Henry Óg a week old.

*I had always believed that ewes were only good for about ten years of lambing, probably because I know that from my Fallow Deer studies, but I have since heard from an internet smallholder that they know of a ewe who was still going strong aged nineteen and 40 lambs later. This 'retirement' may be some time coming but it will give Rosie a nice few seasons to learn the ropes from her auntie

Operation Chick-Swap

Everyone loves a happy ending and here we have a strong possibility. We seem to have swapped out the ducklings at ten days old, with our new 'Hubbard' variety one-day-old chickens in a move so successful that even Mentor Anne and Simon were amazed, both knowing enough about chickens to know all manner of things which MIGHT have gone wrong, but luckily didn't. The general concensus among friends and contacts on the internet poultry forum is that we have, in Broody Betty, one amazing chicken, a 'keeper' worth her weight in gold and worth hanging on to and keeping happy!

To recap the story, BB had already done one brood of chickens this spring, successfully hatching 8 babies who are now 14 weeks old and strolling round the place collectively known as 'The 8 Ball' because they remind us of a gang of golfers wandering round a golf course discussing who's playing with what brand of ball, who's in the rough, and who can invent the most proposterous score card. She'd then gone broody again and , having no fertile eggs to put under her we had borrowed ten Indian Runner duck eggs from Anne, for BB to sit on. She sat tight on those for the 28 days required, successfully hatching 5 ducklings on Monday 22nd. We rescued the remaining eggs and Anne subsequently hatched 3 more in her incubator.

Feeling for poor old BB and not wanting to steal her new babies without giving her something else to 'mother', we hatched a plan to obtain some day-old chicks of the meat-variety of chicken which is used widely in Ireland where birds are free-range or grown organically, the "Hubbard", but we were unable to get hold of these quickly and it was not till the ducklings would be 10 days old that we'd be able to do the swap.

The chicks were duly fetched from up by the 'Norn Iron' border on Thursday 1st Aug (Anne and Simon had gone up to get chicks for three 'customers' including Broody Betty) and delivered at 5:30 pm. With all sorts of apprehensions, Simon and I crept into BB's house, lifted out the 5 ducklings and put them in sight in a box on the floor, in clear view of BB, who was only a bit concerned, being used to me lifting her ducklings down every morning to let them out free ranging.

Then, instead of letting her down we slid in the 8 confused, LOUDLY cheeping chicks who milled around her feet drowning out any duckling noise. Betty then amazed us all by starting to cluck contentedly and gather the chicks to her, the ducklings apparently forgotten in the racket. He who shouts loudest gets heard, obviously!. We disappeared the ducklings in their box to outside the door and watched while Betty clucked and fussed the new chicks into her 'bedroom' and settled down with them on the hay nest, completely enclosing them under her skirts, looking every inch the contented hen. Not for her to worry why her babies had turned from 5 puddle-ducking, wet-loving ducklings into 8 dry chicks (as well as grown younger). Everything seemed right with the world.

We checked on her hourly that evening and brought them all breakfast in the morning (back to finely mashed hard boiled eggs and chick crumb!) which Betty immediately started to show them how to peck and scratch at.

Obviously we are not out of the woods yet, these babies are still only 3 days old as I write this but it's all looking very promising. As I said, so much could have gone wrong. Betty is not even 'meant' to be a broody, a "clocker" as they say here. Sussex Pontes are a modern egg laying hybrid developed by a huge commercial hatchery, where broodiness would just be a nuisance. They try to breed it out of the birds. Then there is the going broody twice thing. Then there is getting them to accept ten duck eggs which they know they didn't lay. Next up, the low chance of a hen sitting for the full 28 days - chicken eggs only take 21. Next is them keeping up the mothering of ducklings for ten days - ducklings are programmed to do all the wrong things by hen standards - they love to get wet and play in puddles, they do not scratch for food and they do not eat much seed and grain. This 'disobedience' can quickly upset the hen who will abandon the babies and go off in disgust. Finally there is the chance of a successful substitution after ten days of duckling fostering by which time mum and ducks will be well bonded and babies are very active. Broody Betty had to not only accept the change, but also almost a start-again-from-scratch (if you'll forgive the pun) with newly hatched chicks. The ducklings, of course, also have to cope with being wrenched from 'Mum' but in this case they were slotted in with their (12) incubator-finished and reared siblings and the multi-fowl life of a bird on Anne's place and appear to have thrived on it.

So, for now Broody Betty is disguised as 'Old Mother Hubbard' and we will report her continuing adventures on here.

(Not So) Lucky.

As promised some pictures of our first gosling 'Lucky' now warm and dry, safe and sound after his scary start. If you've not read yesterday's post you will not know that this little guy (we have no idea of sex yet, so he's a 'guy' till proven otherwise - it saves all that clumsy him/her, he/she nonsense) did not have a very promising start. His parents are all young birds, not even a year old and have (not surprisingly) not apparently developed a good parent instinct yet.

This baby hatched at about 5 pm yesterday and we only found out because of a sudden cacophony of hissing and honking in the goose house. When we went to look we at first thought the 2 geese might be fighting over the chick but it seems that, rather, the three grown ups were shocked and horrified at this wet wriggling, cheeping 'monster' arriving in their nest without warning. The Gander raced in at the noise and everyone was suddenly charging out of the goose house and off for a shout around the garden.

Nobody wanted to go back in 'THERE' and face the thing, so there was a risk he'd get cold. Eventually they all did go back in but would not get back on his nest. They stood back at full neck range and hissed at him and looked as if they were going to try a few tentative pecks. The next time I looked he was 4 feet from the nests (which now had the Mums sitting on them looking a bit breathless and ruffled but at least they were on). He looked a bit bruised and still wet, as if he'd been flung there, maybe by the Gander, perhaps mistaking him for a rat.

Thank God then for our helpful friends, Mentor Anne with lots of advice and Carolyn who already had an incubator running with duck eggs and a brooder-box with an Infra Red heat lamp shining on a group of ducklings. He was rescued and rushed down there where he is now doing OK and starting to get some strength in his legs. This takes a couple of days in geese, by all accounts, possibly as a result of them being so scrunched up in the egg and is helped, in nature, by them being close enough to water to go for some physio-therapy swimming. Meanwhile they flop about on their bellies on land building up their strength. Lucky is in with the ducklings but protected from getting trampled by the comparatively active ducklings by being mainly in his own plastic tub. We went down to visit him this morning and take these pics, and he's already starting to rear up on his legs and climb out of the tub. He has had a swim in the (bathroom) bath for his physio. Nurses Carolyn and Charlotte are very happy with him.

Meanwhile, what of the other eggs and those disastrous parents? Well, we have offers of incubation for all the remaining eggs if it comes to that (They are nearly 'cooked' anyway being on Day 32, so this would only have to be for a couple of days) or of just any that start to pip and look like they might also get rejected. There is a chance that after the first horror-struck rejection, any 2nd and third babies might be better accepted but we are under strict instructions to keep a close eye and intervene if that is not the run of things. Any more rescues can be whizzed down to Carolyn's to go stay with Lucky. They see this as fair enough given that we are looking after their 3 mini-horses. Thank you very much, C, C and M-A. It's all quiet at the moment. No more hatches as far as we can tell (as at 13:30 on Sunday) so the Mums are sitting quietly as they have done for 32 days, and the Gander is mooching about quietly just staying in range and keeping an eye. We have no idea whether we will even get any more babies hatching.

Meanwhile I couldn't resist another picture of the Disastrous Dad enjoying his bath yesterday before all this kicked off.

Oh and the 'Lucky'? I commented to Liz that it was lucky she'd chosen to take a break in the back yard just at that moment of the honking and shouting, otherwise the baby would have been lying there on the concrete till morning, presumably chilled to death. "We'd better call him 'Lucky' then!" said Liz. Then, to cap it all, the song playing on the radio as I drove to 'A&E' was that catchy "Up all night to get Lucky" by Daft Punk and Pharrel. Not sure if those boys are thinking of the same kind of 'luck' but we'll gloss over that!