Rodents

We wondered last summer why they kept coming in to the house when they didn't seem to be eating anything of ours. They also didn't weren't interested in the bait in any of the traps we set (we tried the bait the traps came with, chocolate, peanut butter...). Each night for the past 3 nights we have caught a rodent (bigger than a mouse, but not a rat... not sure what they are). Today we discovered the wrapping from some fat balls (for birds) that we had totally forgotten about. I think this answers the question of what they were eating and also explains why they weren't interested in the traps- they had so much yummy fat and grain that the weren't interested in any rubbish bait on a trap.
Perhaps we will now be able to kill them off, we have very effective traps that have always made a clean kill so far. They are similar to these with a built in bait. We find them much more effective than the wire traps at killing the mouse cleanly - now the mice are actually interested in them!

Happy Birthday Poppy

Poppy was 1 year old on the 5th of April. Look how cute she was as a baby!

But I think she is cuter and more lovely now!

The joys of spring

We feel very spring like with the lambs

and the chickies (11 have hatched now and we have moved those in to a new home - a plastic box with wood chip flooring and a heatlamp. No more look like hatching, but we have left them in the incubator for now to be sure). The heatlamp is infrared hence the redness of the video.

Today was lovely and sunny after quite a few days of wet and cold. We went skiing in the morning

and riding in the afternoon. Awesome!

We haven't made it skiing for 2 full weeks because of the new horse mainly, and perhaps a little bit the cows who take time bonding with them too. So it was lovely to get up there and enjoy the spring snow. We skied some bits we hadn't before which was exciting too - still plenty of nooks and crannies saved up for next year though. The area closes on Sunday - we hope to get up there before then of course, and we plan on doing a big of touring (walking up) once the area closes too.f

Heel!

The dog is a bit scared of the horse. She is enjoying the walks we go on though, one of us rides and the other keeps her company - sometimes on the lead, sometimes off - then we swap.

Ultimately of course we want to have another horse and we want the dog to be able to come with us on rides. It may be a bit tricky having a dog on the lead while on a horse, so we need to train her to heel when we are on the horse. We tried it for the first time today and it went pretty well as she managed it for a few moments.

Chicks are hatching

Last night one managed to struggle free of its egg and then cheeped lots before lying splatted on the floor of the brooder looking well on the way to dead. This morning it had perked and fluffed up and had 4 little friends. Through the day a couple more have managed to get out of their eggs - with plenty of cheeping. It is obviously hard work as they lie there knackered for a while afterwards. A few more eggs have obvious cracks in them so there are a few more on the way at least. The dog doesn't seem to have noticed the cheeping yet.
The photo isn't very good because I didn't want to disturb their rest too much after the struggle to get out the egg.

We rushed to Jardiland in Tarbes this morning and bought a heat lamp. Just have to get it set up now. We will probably not move them until tomorrow morning - or maybe we should move the first ones now - but the plan is for the brooder to sit in the same place as the incubator so it is difficult if some are in both.

Easter lamb

Another lamb was born today. Not to the Great White Wooly Whale as we have been expecting for WEEKS but to one of the young ouessant that we were not sure were old enough to lamb this year.

The lamb is quite small but then so were the others when they were born, they have grown fast.
We caught the poor mother to be a few days ago and slapped a bell on her as she is leader of Col's little flock, doesn't seem to have done any harm luckily.

Eggs are cheeping!

The eggs in the incubator are due to hatch tomorrow-ish. They have started making little cheeping noises today and one has pecked out a tiny little bit of its shell. It is very exciting. We now have to hope we have kept the humidity approximately right. During the time it takes the chick to grow, some of the moisture in the egg evaporates leaving a 'bubble' inside the egg. The chick uses this bubble to get out of the egg, it pecks through the membrane and then breaths this air while it absorbs the remaining yolk in to its body and uses a special bit on the beak to peck through the shell. If the atmosphere has been too dry then the air bubble is tough and the chick cannot peck through it, if it has been too wet then the bubble is small and the chick suffocates before it makes it through the shell. So many things that to go wrong!

We have stopped turning then (as per instructions) and removed the separators so the chicks have room to move as they hatch. We need to rush out tomorrow and buy them a heat lamp. Ooops we should have done it before and it is a bank holiday today. Apparently it will take 24 hours for them to hatch and they stay in the incubator another 24 hours or so after that to dry off and get ready for life in the real world. Because they absorbed the remains of the yolk into their bodies they don't need to eat straight away.