Other animals

As well as all the hatching of ducks and chicks we of course keep an eye on the other animals. 

The sheep are up the top and think they need new grass - we keep telling them they should see what other peoples sheep have to put up with!

Speck, the tiny Ouessant lamb born quite a bit after the others is doing well, she is still very small but has grown a lot

The horses have somewhat sore feet. I have found a barefoot trimmer in Tarbes who is coming next week. It is stressful trying to work out what is wrong with their feet. Current thinking is thrush (basically fungus and maybe bacteria eating away at bits of the feet like athletes foot), there is lots of advice to feed them a supplement of zinc and copper, amongst other things, which is meant to improve hair and hoof growth. It is expensive though and we can’t decide whether it is a fad aimed at getting money from rich horse owners or a genuine necessity. Hoping the trimmer can advise on that as well as on how to treat the thrush better topically and improving the trim I have been doing.

The calves are growing big, but it is still over a year until we will send Dorne and Wellington to the abattoir, it takes a long time to grow beef!

Here is Nathalie (the white and brown one) and Dorne. We are keeping Nathalie (she is a Normande) and hope she may be big and mature enough to have artificially inseminated this year, though it may realistically be next year before she is. We like them to have the calves at the end of Spring, after the ski season ends but before the flies get too bad and she may not be ready on that timescale, so either a later calf or next year for insemination.

Poppy is as energetic as ever (well maybe slowing slightly). She is 8 now and should be a mature sensible dog, but fortunately isn’t!

The cat is still busy catching things. She needs to take on more moles and voles though as the moles make a mess everywhere and the voles keep eating veg in the potager!