Animal roundup

I thought you might like to catch up with what all the animals are up to as maybe some of them haven't been mentioned for a while.

Chickens
Only one chicken is laying at the moment. Very disappointing as we have nineteen! Ok only five of them are female and of egg laying age, but still... we think it is the heat. Friends and neighbors say their laying is way down too.
Of the twelve we hatched earlier in the year six are male and six female. We plan on keeping a male and giving three females to friends leaving us with three females in addition to the five we already had. We will then have fertile eggs we can hatch later if we want.
We will eat the five other males. We thought of doing the first one this week, but after a feel assessment we have decided to keep them longer. They are only 18 weeks at the moment so they have some more growing to do.

Quail
Most days we get four eggs so the quail are doing better than the chickens! We have some quail eggs in the incubator, they should be done in a few days. I candled some and couldn't see anything going on - but we shall see. It was very hot when I got them which doesn't help the parents fertility or the health of the eggs themselves. We hope some will hatch and we can keep a male to keep with our females. We will then have fertilised eggs which we could incubate and raise the chicks for meat.

Rabbits
We have tried to mate the rabbits a few times. We put the female in the male cage as recommended, he cowers in a corner and runs away if she approaches. The cowering and running has got a little less each time we have tried - three in total. We have arranged to take one of the females to a stud bunny. He is a pet bunny of one of our friends. Hopefully Bunny Boy will grow up sufficiently to do the biz soon. Otherwise he is for the pot!

Cat
Sambuca seems quite happy and has caught a couple of rats recently (healthy country ones, but still yuck). She mainly stays out of the house as she is meant to, but got stuck upstairs yesterday after sneaking in. We heard some bumps and crashes and had to go upstairs with boots on (and other clothes too of course!) and a stick to see what was going on. We heard a concerned little meow and realised what had happened. Phew.

Dog
Poppy is recovering ok from the dog attack, although she is insistent on licking the wounds which doesn't help them. One was healing well until she licked the scab off again and again. We have had to tie a bin bag round her back end to try to stop her licking it so much. Pretty stylish looking let me tell you.

Coos
Hainoa is still pretty frisky and shy. She runs around the field frolicking sometimes, this can be a bit scary as she is quite lumbering and you wonder if she might mow you flat. Mostly she doesn't though. She comes running over to the fence when we appear for her daily feed of cow nuts. She isn't as friendly with Hélora as she was with Hoppy but they get on well and she is glad to had the company. Hélora is very friendly and wants to be stroked by everyone.

Horses
We are having a bit of a trial keeping shoes on the horses. We have got some very natty boots for Daisy - they look like round trainers however they didn’t last very well so she is going barefoot cold turkey. Seems to be going ok!
Owen lost a shoe (a few days after replacement would have been free - the farrier offers that for the first 4 weeks), the farrier came and replaced it. That afternoon Voltaire lost a shoe. Then a few days later Owen lost his other shoe.
We don't blame the farrier as some of the shoes have been put on by other people. We think it is the mud and perhaps the hill causing the back feet to slide in to the front which then levers the shoe off. We are thinking about trying to take Owen without shoes like we are Daisy. We have contacted a barefoot specialist who will hopefully come and have a look and advise us.

Sheep
At the moment we have 19 sheep. We plan on getting rid of almost all of the lambs from this year. There are nine; three females, five males and an unknown (the mother is really shy and the baby more so - going to be eaten either way)
2 will go to friends as meat
3 we will eat ourselves
2 are going to a friend who has recently bought some Ouessant sheep (from the person we got the pigs from last year! We went along for the ride and to say hello)
2 will join the flock

We have sheared 3 of them and have another 6 to go. Aaaaargh. We better get on with it before it is winter again. They would be cold!
Have I forgotten anyone?