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moving home

The hen house was at the bottom of the field - we thought it would encourage them to wander. But they don't need any encouragement .

Hen house at the bottom of the field 

(And some gratuitous views down the hill of the henhouse) 

There were disadvantages to having it located there - principally in the winter

 So its time to move it . We thought it  might be a bit of a struggle .

But after loading it onto my Mucktruck and some slow progress up the hill. It was relocated somewhere more convenient

And now its gone !

The Weigh - in

So we thought it would be a good idea  to see what some of the sheep weighed - useful for dosing them with the correct amount of stuff and helpful if /when they need vet-prescribed  things

So you need to borrow some sheep scales and then  round up your sheep .

then get them to go onto the scales. That bit isn't so easy as they aren't too keen .

Once they have been weighed,

Let them back out into the field.

 with recalcitrant sheep, its not actually  as straightforward and took  quite a bit of the afternoon

some rain and a few leaves

After a night of rain , and a few leaves, the outflow of the pond was blocked and water found its own way out. through the gate

and across the lawn and (eventually) back into the burn.

 And a few minutes with a large stick (and some wet socks and inside of wellies)

Problem solved .

Shearing

so we had a phone call from neighbours - they were shearing their 70 sheep this evening .  So went to help out -  even if it was just handing round cups of tea.

First task is to construct a race to get the sheep from the pen to the shearer and  somewhere  convenient for  the helpers to  wait for things to happen

Meanwhile  the sheep need to brought inside

 and then encouraged to enter the race

and then they get sheared

and then the fleece gets sorted and rolled

An hour or so so set everything up,   70 sheep took about 40 minutes to shear .
and then another hour  when we all had something to eat together afterwards

onion eaters

It happened in 2014

And again in 2015

And its happened again this year. Now the beds have got raised sides - approx 15 inches.

And only those onions nearest the side have been got at

 So I think its the geese.


lets see how they get on with this .

And then there were 6

One of the ducks went AWOL and then later reappeared with 7 ducklings.
And they have been growing , shepherded about  by their mother, who keeps a watchful eye on them.

But over the last few days we have only seen 6 ducklings, however much we count

We assumed it had either wandered off and got lost , perhaps like this one , or it had been got by an otter because they do have a track record , or perhaps the hooded crows had taken it (but we thought they are getting a bit big for that ) . 

But we found some evidence in the field , a short distance from the Burn.

Its a duckling-sized leg. We had a look and couldn't  find any more bits of duckling. And this has been picked clean. So whatever took the duckling in the first place  left the carcass and this  scavengers - probably hooded crows - have cleaned up afterwards and dropped it in the field. 

If we loose another one in a similar way , we'll have to do something about penning them in until they are a bit bigger.