Sambuca - snake killer

Only a tiny snake... looks like a western whip hatchling.

I am not overly keen on snakes around the house, so well done 'Buca.

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?

Will the rain ever stop?

It is the start of June and we are having APPALLING weather here - it sounds like it is nicer in Scotland which is unusual!
It has been raining pretty much non stop for something like 2 weeks. It isn't just wet, it is cold too. The garden stuff (apart from weeds of course) aren't growing much and we feel like the whole house may surf down the hill on a wave of mud at any moment.
There is a lot of flooding across roads and in to a few unfortunate houses.

The dog has stayed huddled indoors most of the time and whines and whinges when she is forced to go outside for essential toilet breaks.

The sheep and cows don't seem too bothered (Hainoa made another escape attempt, but seemed to be trying to return home by the time we noticed so she was not far away). The horses looked a bit miserable so they are in the barn with Kira and Tigi. The rabbits seem quite happy eating grass in the rain. The chickens stay huddled inside a lot and the weather doesn't seem to have encouraged them to lay eggs much. Poor Sambuca is not pleased at all and stays huddled in her house a lot - or meows at us demanding we do something to make it warmer.

We have done various useful indoors things such as make mountains of sausages

and make the second attempt at all grain beer (the first was a disaster!) as well as continue planning our renovations (thinking about plumbing layout) and doing various exciting paperwork things (tax returns eeeurgh).

Off course I am aware that as soon as it gets sunny I will be complaining about it being too hot. Never happy!

... so you must really like animals?

When we were working at our architects we were chatting away (in French) to one of the guys we were working with. We were telling him about our current list of animals

2 horses
2 cows (one on loan but another coming when it goes)
1 dog
1 cat
5 chickens
12 baby chickens
10 sheep
9 baby sheep
3 rabbits
Total - 45

He said - 'Wow you must really love animals!!'

I thought about it, one the whole I can't say I do!
I like horses.
Dogs I kind of like, but they smell and shed hair everywhere. Of course I love ours - I don't notice the smell any more, but she surely does cover everything in hair. Some other people's dogs are lovely, some not so much.
Cats I always thought I liked and wanted one (there was a period when I was perhaps 8 where I plagued my poor parents day and night for one) but having one I am less sure. She is quite cute and all (despite trying to take your hand off from time to time) but she is a shit machine and keeps digging up the flower pots to use as a toilet. She is useful for keeping the rodent population down though so she can stay.
The rest are food animals and can be quite cute sometimes, but I wouldn't say I exactly like them or that we have them because we like animals. We like what we can do with the products from them and we do very much enjoy learning about them and interacting with them. But I don't think we are 'animal lovers' like you might think we must be to have so many. I guess we might have problems killing and eating them if we were.
The cows I generally like, but at the moment actively dislike after 2 escape episodes (the second I think I did not blog but we spent half a day with a hangover trailing around in the beaming sunshine following sightings of them from various neighbors before eventually finding them behind a cowshed with about 30 cows and a bull between them and home - the neighbor very kindly rounded them all up in to his shed so we could get past easily. Frustratingly he said hup hup at them a couple of times and they all went where they were he wanted them leaving us dragging our stroppy two along in an embarrassingly uncooperative fashion aaaargh). They are now in with the sheep and need taking water twice a day - which is hard work down and up the steep slope.

Cows in the sheep field with horses outside in the larger field

When we were originally looking to buy cows I chanced on this blog, she has a lovely outlook on life - and obviously does love all animals and struggle when one has to be slaughtered or dies! I laughed a little at her woes trying to keep cows in a field - but only in a gentle and nice way because I now understand all to well the trauma of trying to keep animals where they are meant to be. Don't they understand we are just trying to keep them safe and give them nice grass and water??
The sheep also go walkabout occasionally (the ones in the orchard where the fence is a bit rickity in places - but they always go to the same place so they are not so annoying to get back (touch wood). They always go in to one of the neighbors fields, we can't understand why they prefer to to our ones that they pass through to get there, but sure they have their reasons - the first time it happened we were glad we had a bell on one of them as it let us locate them. We are thinking about a bell for the cows too - although you have to be reasonably close to them for it to help...
This entry started off as a quick thought triggered by a conversation (we have similar confusion about how 'green' we are deep down - despite living quite a green life at the moment) but became a rant about escaping animals!

I hope I haven't come across as too negative about our livestock! I don't think we are traditional 'animal lovers' as the guy we were talking to meant, but we get a great deal of entertainment and satisfaction from having all the animals and really enjoy caring for them, learning about them and interacting with them. Once we have managed to implement our fencing master plan (in approx 10 years time) I will love some of them a lot more!

Animals rear ends

Caring for animals seems to mean an unusual amount of time spent looking at their rear ends for various reasons.

Poppy is still on heat (3 weeks now). Lots of time spent staring at her swollen fanny as she drips blood on the floor wondering - when is it going to end.

I noticed a bald spot on one of the chickies under her tail as she was having a dust bath. I managed to catch one of them a few days later and after rummaging around in the feathers of her rear end I saw that she had lice. Euuuugh. There were loads of them running all over her and hundreds of eggs stuck to the bottom of the her feathers. Poor chicky. I rushed around various shops and the vets before finding a treatment while Doug cleaned out and disinfected the house. We need to treat again in a week but they seem gone for now. I feel bad I didn't manage to inspect them sooner after spotting the bald patch.

No more lambs have been born. We spend time trying to peer under the sheeps tails from a distance - to see either swollen vulva or whether the udders are swelling as they apparently do just before giving birth. We don't want to chase them down and look closely because if they are about to give birth that wouldn't be the best thing for them.

The lambs that have been born we managed to catch one of and have a look at the under carriage. This has shown he is a boy. His twin is a boy too as we saw him peeing which gives it away too. Both definately food then.

Fortunately Sambuca hasn't needed her backend inspecting for any reason recently as she is in a frisky mood. We put her upstairs to deal with some rodents that we could hear scrabbling around up there - presumably woken in the warmer spring weather. There was a lot of crashing and banging, there weren't any dead bodies in the morning, rodents or Sambuca, but the rodent scrabblings seem to have stopped or at least greatly diminished.

Hainoa (the highland cow) we expect to turn up in a weeks time, doubtless she will need some part of her rear end inspecting before long. People dealing with animals often seem to have to stick their arms up cows bums after all. Bags I not doing that!

Pernod has a new home

We decided to find a new home for Pernod because he wasn't very happy here. He wanted somewhere he could sit by the fire and be cuddled and played with a lot. He has gone to a lovely French family with youngish children who will love and entertain him. He will finally get his wish of being allowed inside, and perhaps they will also find out his love of tomatoes and give him plenty of those too. It was a bit sad to see him go, but also a relief that he will be happier. He was a bit of a slacker when it came right down to, as he didn't contribute to catching things, he just ate some of Sambuca's. Hopefully the other animals will take the warning that there are no slackers on the farm!
Byeeee Pernod  and good luck with your new family xx

Cabin Fever?

I am a bit worried we are going a bit mad and need to get out more. We have started having conversations with the animals and invented personalities for them (Doug says we didn't invent the personalities for them they did that themselves...)

Doug picks up Pernod - 'Come here fat boy'
Pernod - 'My name is not fat boy. I am Pernodicus the Great (said in deep and portentous voice)'
Doug turns Pernod on his back.
Pernod stares at him fixedly - 'You're on my list. When I'm lord of the the WORLD you're going to SUFFER'
Rhoda bicycles his back legs for him - 'Come on kitty you need to do some excersize you lazy dollop - Buca has been catching all the mice, and you've beeen eating all her food'
Pernod switches his manic stare to her - 'You're on my list too. You're TOP of the list. You're going to be SORRY when I am your great leader and you have to GROVEL before me and feed me all the time while you have NOTHING and have to live outside in the COLD and WET. No you're not top, that dog beast is, you're second on the list. She will suffer the MOST. She will be my number one minion and do my bidding'

Poppy has two personalities, The Snarff (Queen of the snarffsey folk) and Princess Snoogles. The Snarff runs around snarffing (biting, chewing and monstoring) everything in sight, Princess Snoogles is much more dainty and picky and doesn't like sitting on the wet ground or getting her feet muddy.

Sambucca doesn't say much. Occasionally if you annoy her 'I am going to keeeel you' or 'I could keeeeel you with this single claw'

Other animals

There have been lots of posts with Poppy recently. So I thought I had better update on the other animals. Of course no update is required on the pigs except to say we have been eating chops, sausages and black pudding and enjoying them immensely.
Cats
The cats have grown extremely thick fluffy fur to cope with the cold weather. I think they would like to come in and sit by the fire sometimes but tragically they are not allowed to. It has been -7°C several nights and they have been fine so don't worry about them! We have up-ed their food a little as well. Pernod particularly has a nice layer of fat to keep him warm.

Chickens
We think only 2 chickens are laying at the moment and that big chicken is molting because the poor thing is all bedraggled looking. Hopefully that is the problem anyway. She seems fine and eating so it seems most likely. Not sure how long it lasts but chickens stop laying while molting. You can see her red crest is smaller too which is a sign that she isn't laying. We are getting about 10 eggs a week which is just about enough although we could easily use more. Specially with egg nog season approaching.

Sheep
We gave the sheep a whole huge bit more field while we were away in Chamonix in the hope that they would behave themselves for the kind people looking after all the animals (except Poppy) while we were away. Unfortunately it didn't work and they busted out. Luckly they found them easily and they cooperated with being rounded back in to the field. How embarassing!!

Rushing in to the extension

The grass is greener!

Animals!

Animals are a nuisance. Poppy has hurt her foot, it swelled up quite suddenly yesterday and has a nasty red raw bit between the toes. We decided last night she was going to need to see the vet, so we got up early this morning to take her to the early surgery. We decided to take Sambuca too as both cats have little bleeding lumps on their head and chins - they have been treated with advantix so don't have fleas and while we were going anyway it made sense. We chose Sambuca rather than Pernod or both because he gets much more upset going in the car.
Then guess what! I went up to feed the pigs and they had escaped... AGAIN... so I left Doug behind to try to find them and went to the vet. Poppy had 2 injections (she makes a massive fuss about injections wimpering and howling) and has a course of anti biotics - although the vet thinks there is possibly still something in the foot. We pulled a tiny thorn out yesterday and she seemed to walk more easily but the swelling didn't go down so maybe that was just the end of something bigger. He thinks it may work its way out with the swelling gone or we may need to go back for general anesthtic and a prob around in her foot. I really hope not - think of the expense!
When I got back (wallet many euros lighter) Doug and managed to find both pigs grazing with the neighbours cows. He had a nightmare getting them back as they were not interested in following the food and wanted to stay with the cows. It took a fair amount of stick based persuasion. He now says he is quite happy to see them going to slaughter and can't wait to eat them.
So far the sheep and chickens haven't been a bother today... but we are expecting them to play up somehow. Perhaps just as we settle down to a nice glass of wine later.

Update on Doug's wrist

You will be glad to hear it is on the mend. Still painful and a bit puffy but so much better. Hurrah for efficiency of French A&E and for antibiotics.

Using French healthcare

One of the cats (Pernod) was in the house when he shouldn't have been, he objected to being swooped on for throwing out by biting Doug's hand (he hasn't changed character or anything and turned in to a biter generally it was a one off with the suprise). It was very painful at the time and then became swollen and more painful over a couple of days. I dragged Doug off to A&E in Bagnère de Bigorre on Friday as it seemed to still be getting worse not better. I called the doctor first but we couldn't get an appointment. We did hum and haw for a bit about whether it was bad enough to go and spend 10 hours waiting in A&E to see someone. Then I read the internet a bit, and it seems a lot of cat bites can become infected with nasty results. So we set of with kindles and water and food for the dog (who was going to wait in the car).

However, the experience was totally different to expected and we emerged about 30 minutes later with two types of antibiotics and a neatly bandaged arm. They had tested to make sure Doug was ok for tetanus as well. In France you pay for a percentage of treatment and prescription, the total we had to pay came to 18 EUR. Well worth it considering that the pain is now nearly gone although there is still a lot of swelling and Doug's hand looks chubby like a giant babies.

There is talk of them closing the A&E department in Bagnère which would mean we would need to drive to Tarbes for such assistance. We really hope it does not happen as we were very impressed with the efficiency of help.

People protesting about A&E closure

Animal update

There hasn't been anything about the chickens or cats for a while.
The cats are getting on better. They can sometimes (but not always) eat from the same bowl and can sit on someones lap together. Although this is risky business because if Sambuca gets any suprises she might still lash out. Generally don't try it when Poppy is about.

The chickens are all growing fast, both Brown Chicken (left of picture with red comb) and Brave Chicken (middle with red comb) look like proper chickens now. Chicken Five and Little Chicken have both grown a lot too but have not really got the red combs yet. Perhaps Big chicken starting laying sooner than expected has raised our expectations, so we keep expecting to see more eggs but no such luck yet.

Animal tales

The cats looking very cute. 
You would never guess what a nuisance they can be:

• meow, meow let me in the house meow I am staying here until you do meow if you open any windows I will sneak in meow I will try to bust through the bedroom shutters while you are sleeping giving you the fright of your life meow MEOW MEOW
• meow, meow let me walk on the table (in the outside kitchen) and steal your food while you eat
• meow, meow I am going to bust in to a visitors car and eat as much of the boudin noir they have brought for you as I can (luckly not that much before Sambuca was caught at it)
• meow, meow when I have busted in to the house one time I am going to try to eat the butter and SMASH the butter dish on the floor

Pernod and Poppy - great carnivors and hunters

Poppy eating watermelon

Pernod eating watermelon

When Pernod broke in to the kitchen (and broke the butter dish) the thing he tried to steal was a packet of cherry tomatoes... not the pork chops...

Poppy goes to the vet
We took Poppy to the vet for her final vaccination and for the rabies jab (so she can get a pet passport in case we ever need it). She made such a fuss at being jabbed that the vet said she (our normal vet Nicolas is on holiday) had never seen such a wimpy pathetic dog in all her life (or something to that effect in French). She also showed me up by trying to wiggle out of my arms and doing her crocodile impression, I was occupied trying to stop her crashing to the floor and the vet gave me a row for not telling her off for snapping (the crocodile champs don't ususally make contact, she is just showing her annoyance). Then she wouldn't sit and rushed around the place. They think we are raising a savage (a wimpy pathetic savage!)

Poppy goes in the car
Since the great car crapping incident we have been working on two things to get to Poppy travelling in the crate in the back of the car. The first is getting her used to the car and it's motion, for this she has been travelling at Doug's feet and we have been making an effort to take her places - although the peacefulness of the drive is generally somewhat marred by her trying to dig up the floor to make it more comfortable and trying to climb on to Doug's lap so she can see out. The second is getting her used to being in her crate in the back of the car with the car stationary. For this we have been putting her in there for her naps and feeding her lunch in there.

Let me out you cruel people, I am NOT a wimp, cars ARE scary

We went for a drive yesterday to go for a walk in Pouzac woods (about 5 mins or less drive) so that on the way back we could put the two things together with her travelling in crate in the back. She wasn't 100% relaxed but it was much much MUCH better than last time (no howling, no barking, no crapping). We now just need to build up the time a bit and get her used to rougher roads - we didn't push it and leave her in the back for the drive which she isn't keen on as it is very bumpy. The vet was right - she is wimpy and pathetic!! Perhaps we are pampering her too much :)

Sambuca the trigger happy killer (or not)
The baby lizards have come out, they are very small and cute and you would think very chasable by a killer like Sambuca and even by a dollop like Pernod. However Doug saw one run over Sambuca's paws and she failed to make chase. I believe she did kill it a little later though, so she is just a bit slow off the mark

Thank you from Poppy

Poppy has asked me to say 'THANK YOU' to Christopher for the lovely presents.

Here she is playing with Christopher and Doug with the robe bone he brought for her. She really likes this and plays with it a lot (tied on to a rope and chasing it as here or just chewing it)

The cats also like their chase toy (sorry no photo). Doug is training Pernod to chase things in the hope that he can rival Sambuca on the vermin front, he is really enjoying the training anyway.

(Doug and I would also like to say thank you for all the things brought for us!)

She looks cute...

... but actually she is vicious a KILLER

Awww cute Sambuca (just watch your hand when she wakes)

Mountain lion pose

Goofy Pernod pose (scythe at top left  of pic, not sword)

There was a dead shrew on the doorstep this morning as a little present (better than a semi live one) we are pretty sure it wasn't Pernod who caught it. He had a tomato for a snack after breakfast and played with it a bit before he ate it, this is the height of his killer instincts although Doug is trying to train him with the cat toy Christopher brought - he also broke in to the kitchen recently and ate some cucumber (Pernod not Christopher)

Gooooood animals

I have spent some time complaining about the trails of puppy ownership and about difficulties with the cats etc so I thought (that is to say Doug thought) I should do an entry about the good things the animals have done.

Well done cats!!
We haven't heard any rodents thundering around in the ceiling and walls of the bedroom since a couple of days after the cats moved it. We are not sure if the smell of them discourage the rodents or if they actually caught them (it would have been Sambuca I expect if they did). This is a massive relief as it was getting very annoying to get woken up several times in the night and occasionally it sounded like they were actually trying to gnaw through the wall in to the bedroom and wouldn't shut up even when we hammered on the wall.

Well done chickens!!
The chickens obviously are in favour having layed some eggs we are a bit worried as there is a big bird (buzzard?) that has flown off a few times as we come round the end of the house. It sits on one of the fence posts at the top of the field - which is quite close to the chicken enclosure. We are worried it is eyeing them up for eating.

The pigs probably haven't been mentioned much recently, they are continuing to be entertaining and appealing. In some ways perhaps it is just as well we haven't had so much time to spend with them recently as they are getting on for slaughter weight, so we need to come to terms with saying goodbye to them soon (and work out how we are going to transport them to the abatoir in as much comfort and relaxation as possible).

The sheep haven't made it here yet, we need to get on with preparing their field which means providing water in to it and strimming round the fence and then repairing where there are holes (pretty big job which we need to have done by the end of the month)

Poppy is lovely and cute much of the time (particularly when we have visitors who then can't believe she is any bother) and she now goes for the whole night without a piss stop outside, this is a major improvement although it does mean getting up at 7am whatever time we go to bed so still not quite back to our old routine!

Dog meets cats

We have been trying to introduce the cats to Poppy (or Poppy to the cats). She hasn't quite grasped that they are not giant squeeky toys yet and tries to play/chase them whenever she sees them. The cats don't seem too terrified. We have put their food and water and beds when a barrier so Poppy can't get at them for the moment, hopefully by the time she is big enough to get over they will all have come to terms with each other

The cats new home

The plan has always been that the cats are outdoors type cats not lap/fireside cats. They were bought to kill stuff and keep us rodent (and ideally snake) free. No slackers on the farm as I have said before.
Sambuca has been doing a good job as we have seen her catch a couple of things already, but Pernod has some other ideas

Pernod the lap cat

Pernod likes his food

We have moved their beds down to the 'bread oven room' which is beside the outdoors kitchen area and has an old bread oven in it which we hope to resurrect one day. There is a load of junk in there, some of which we cleared out to make room, but some of which is waiting for later.

Their beds are here now

Let me OUT

The cat shelter told us we should keep the cats inside for a month before we let them outside. They have been here nearly 2 weeks now and they were starting to seem a bit desperate to go outside.

I want OUT!

Maybe I can go this way. But the roof is slidey

The plan is that they are outdoors cats (I am a bit allergic - and their job is killing vermin outside) and will have a bed in the bread oven building (which is at one end of the 'outdoors kitchen' from which we recently cleared all the wood). But as they are used to living upstairs we decided they needed a transition from one location to the other. It is a bit high for them to jump and there is no easy way up and down (except for snakes).

We can knock something together with this wood and nails

Right where's it going?

Completed hillbilly cat ladder

Sambuca runs up and down it but Pernod is a bit of a dollop and won't try. Probably he is right as he is a bit mal-coordinated.
We need to either persuade him to use it of make it more sturdy so he will because he spent half the night running around mieowing for Sambuca who was out causing havoc amoungst the local rodent population (we hope)
We took them out down the stairs for their first outing. Sambuca loved it and was running around eating grass (what is it will carnivores eating grass? The puppy does it too). Pernod was more nervous and kept retiring upstairs until he missed Sambuca and went looking for her again. I think he thinks he is going to be a fireside cat - but he is NOT. He has a JOB to do. No slackers on the farm.

Sambuca in her element

Happy now she can get out

Admiring the view

Update on the cats

They both seem fine today. He still wants to be friends with her and she still keeps swiping at him.
We are going to keep them inside for a few more days and then they can venture outside hopefully to destroy all local vermin!