Yet more chicks

I am addicted to hatching different breeds of chicks. We have done Sussex tricolour, Marans, Faverolle, Barnvelder, Leghorn and Wyandotte this year already as well as a number from our own mixed eggs.

I have finally settled on what breeds we want for our flock - with a view to them being a bit more 'meaty' than the laying breeds we have now, but still acceptable egg laying. 

Wyandotte and Sussex. The Sussex sound the ideal chicken for us, but I love the look of the Wyandottes so had to have them too.

11 Light Sussex (white with grey necks) and 3 Wyandottes have just hatched. 

The Wyandotte eggs had a bit of an accident. I bought them online and the person posting said they would post on a Monday, so they would arrive Wednesday. I arranged to pick up the Sussex eggs on Wednesday so they could all go on together. 

However the post didn't cooperate and the Wyandotte didn't turn up until Friday - by which time we were in La Mongie. We came back to find the postman had kindly left the parcel - in the full sun unfortunately. In the missing days the parcel had clearly been being used as a football as half the 24 eggs were broken - and then stinky after a day in the sun.

I was going to chuck the whole lot, but Doug suggested I should give them a chance, so I washed them off and put them in the incubator. A number went bad during incubation (not surprising given the stinky goop they had been covered in), but 3 made it. Pretty surprising even that many, given their start in life.

UPDATE - 2 more hatched a day after the others 3. Fortunate I always leave the incubator on for ages in case of this kind of thng!

The black and white ones here are the older Wyandottes.

Brand new Sussex chick

Not so pretty when just hatched!

This is one of the 3 new Wyandotte, still in the incubator and not quite dry yet.

More storms

I mentioned that Doug has been spending a lot of time fixing up the drive after recent storms (and also 6 years of wear and tear where we have done small things but nothing drastic). We have had a number more storms recently, with one being particularly dramatic.
We thought our damage was bad until we popped round a friends house and saw where a bolt of lightening had struck the electricity pylon just outside their house!
It blew up our electric fence energiser - which is expensive, and also knocked down two trees - which is hard work clearing up, fortunately they weren't very big.

This tree at the top of the drive. It fell while Doug and I were both standing next to it.

This is a branch that fell off a tree at the bottom of the drive. It landed on the phone line and broke it. They seem to have fixed it without telling us off or charging us for this! Phew!

Useful pile of wood (this is just the top tree, probably similar from the bottom one)

Slave gang on the drive

A few weeks ago several extreme rain storms caused a lot of damage to the drive. It has been slowly getting a bit bumpy, but this was the final straw for it.
Doug has been slaving away to get it back in to a decent state as it is a DISASTER if it falls down the hill - we won't be able to get home!
First up was digging out the ditch, then putting in a drain before the corner. He is now busy putting several tonnes of gravel in the wheel ruts where it had been washed away, after that he will put further drains down the main part of the drive.
It is a LOT of work.

Beeeaauutiful ditch

Painting the drains with hammerite

First drain in before the corner draining in to the lovely ditch

New gravel, this is just a tiny tiny fraction of what has gone down

Peach pie

450g peaches
150g sugar
2 tbsp corn flour
Juice of half a lemon
1 round of puff pastry

25cm or thereabout pie dish

Chop peaches in to pieces, I just hack at them unevenly rather than bothering to stone them. About 16ths probably.
Mix with the sugar, lemon juice, and corn flour in an oven proof bowl.
Put in the oven for about 15 minutes until the juice flows but the peaches are not particularly cooked or falling apart.
Pour the juice in to a pan and reduce a bit to a nice thick gloopy sauce (this may not be necessary for peaches that are not very juicy).

Put puff pastry in to the pie dish, put the peach mix in to the dish and pour over the sauce.
Use the remaining pastry to make some lattice.
Bake at 180C for about 45 mins. Watch carefully to get it well browned and the bottom well cooked but not frazzled.

Buttercup AI-ed

Now is round about the perfect time of year for Buttercup to get pregnant. Which was fortunate as we haven't seen her in heat for the last couple of times we expected it. The calf will be born in mid May which is warm enough, but not crazy fly infested yet. Hopefully it has taken - we need to watch her very closely in 3 weeks time to see if she comes in to heat again.

We chose a Gascon bull as we thought it would be nice to have something a little more chunky than a Jersey. This means that a boy calf will be best

Lovely cycle

Nice cycle near Lourdes with Pratiwi and Robin. There used to be a railway here, now it is a cycle path. Sadly the dog couldn't come as she would be chaos with all those bikes.

Owens feet update

Owen has had two abscesses in the last couple of weeks, between them he has had very sensitive feet. We are continuing to soak his feet, keep the hooves short and walk him often in the hope that all this is going to clear up and he is going to have better feet in the end due to the shorter heels and trim overall.

This is the 2nd abscess coming out on the coronary band. Now there will be a big old mess as it grows out.

I managed to dig the previous one out of the sole

Lot of controversy doing this, one of our trimmers is adamant you must and the other that you mustn’t. I can see both sides, the pain of waiting for it to come out and the mess it makes where it bursts out, vs the risk of cutting a hole to the inside of the hoof that might let infection in.