Is it a chick or is it a kitty cat?

First of all apologies for the infrequency of my blogging recently. I do not have a computer of my own at the moment so have to pinch time on my Middle son's PC whenever I can. As this is often only for a moment or two I have found it easier to 'Tweet' brief updates to family & friends via Twitter.

Well, our little barn is still full of holes, fans & dehumidifiers as work continues to discover the cause of our leak & dry our property out. Chem Dry have taken new damp readings & our moisture levels have gone down from 60-70% to around 20%, so we are getting there. Once the readings are less than 10% the insurance company will give the go ahead for the repairs & thankfully we do appear to be covered for everything that needs replacing - phew! Having seen all the heart breaking images of the flooding misery in Cumbria our problem just pales into insignificance really doesn't it? My only wish is that the place will be in a fit state for Xmas as Mum & Dad are due to stay with us. I don't think damp, noisy conditions will be good for my Dad, who has Parkinson's Disease.

On a much more positive & happy note here are some recent pictures of the chicklets, who have all now taken to jumping up for cuddles & strokes like little kitty cats!

Maybe it was the fetching (NOT!) combination of pink Wellibobs & black yoga pants that attracted them to my lap in this picture, but as soon as I parked my backside my little cherubs came over to talk to me!

First Conkers, a Chamois Polish Frizzle bantam, jumped up. She is most certainly a hen & incredibly cuddly & friendly. She loves it if I cup her in my hands & gently stroke her feathers.

Then 'Bonkers' joined her, together with Blue Silkie 'Patrick'.

I'm pretty sure that Bonkers is a cockerel, as he has darker feathers around his shoulders & longer tail feathers than Conkers. Patrick I am now beginning to think may be a Patricia! It's so hard to tell with Silkies when they are this young. The reason for my change of heart is that only one of the Blue Silkies is showing signs of wattles growing in & I know in Silkies these are much more prominent in the male. So maybe I have one cockerel & five hens? That would be perfect, but only time will tell. If anyone has any tips or advice they could share with me on sexing them I would be most grateful.

After their fusses Conkers & Patrick / Patricia decided my legs would be a nice cosy place to roost for the night! Cheeky monkeys!

The rest of my lovely brood were falling asleep at my feet.

I know that I may be a little eccentric (OK maybe quite a lot!), but I do love sitting out in the garden shed with my babies. Having watched them hatch out of their eggs I feel incredibly maternal & protective towards them. My heart swells with love when they jump up to see me. When they look me in the eye with trust I feel proud. I love the feel of their soft feathers against my skin when they sit in my hands & they enjoy snuggling up to the warmth of my body, just like they would a mother hen. Rearing them has been the most rewarding experience. Watching them emerge wet & exhausted from the shell after their fight into this world & then grow so quickly into fully feathered, self sufficient little birds reminds me of just how amazing Mother Nature & the cycle of life is.

The chicklets are nearly 8 weeks old now. If I am correct in my cockerel count I will be looking for some Chamois Polish & Porcelain D'Uccle bantam hens early next year to make sure I have a sufficient male:female ratio so would love to hear from anyone who breeds them.

It is still very wet & windy here & this coupled with the darker evenings has meant I haven't been able to send nearly as much time in our little field with my bigger birds as I would like to. However, although clearly fed up with the miserable weather, all the hens are fit & healthy & the young cockerels are growing bigger & more handsome every day. Poor Mr Dorking got blown into one of the duck ponds the other day as he was taking a drink from it! He came to no harm because we have breeze blocks in them to help the ducks get out, but I'm afraid his pride was rather dented. He looked around sheepishly to see if any of the hens had noticed his little accident. I don't think it helped that I had to suppress a giggle at the sight of him soggily stalking away across the field! The wind soon blew him dry & in no time his feathers were back to their magnificent best, lovely fellow.

On the other hand, the ducks of course are revelling in this weather. No matter how I tut at their muddy faces, they happily continue dabbling in the big puddles that have formed & turning our little field into a quagmire! Their tails wag as they greedily gobble whatever tasty morsels are brought to the surface.

Talking of ducks, Mayo, a lovely gentleman who reads my blog regularly has had his rescued Muscovy stolen from him. I know how devastated I would be if I lost Chalk or Big Cheese so please keep him in your thoughts & pray that by some small miracle she may find her way back to him.

Hurray - I have my garden back!

This weekend wonderful, long suffering hubby fenced off a section of our little field so that I could do a strategic move around of the birds & reclaim the back garden before it got totally trashed by scavenging hens & ducks! Twice injured ex-battery hen Jess had healed up again & re grown some neck feathers, but I wasn't feeling confident enough to put her in with the rest of the hens. Puddles the Khaki Campbell duck was much recovered from the unwanted & rather rough attentions of Seymour the Aylesbury, but it was pointless putting her back in the field with him still on the prowl. The rescued Mallard ducklings had adopted Puddles as surrogate mum, so where ever she went the ducklings would want to go. What was best to do so that every bird's welfare was catered for? Well, after a bit of head scratching a plan was hatched, birds were caught & after a few ruffled feathers & surprised squawks a slightly puffed out eldest son & I had got it all sorted. Seymour was moved into the sectioned off area with his own mate Daisy so that poor Puddles could safely go up into the field with her duckling charges. Injured hen Jess, being quite used to ducks, was moved in with them making her visible to the other hens but safe from any aggression. This tactic will hopefully mean that a further attempt at introducing her to the flock might be successful, fingers crossed.

When freed back into the field Puddles immediately waddled over to rejoin Donald the Khaki Campbell drake & seemed to completely forget about her babies, so they looked bewildered & vulnerable to start with. However, lovely Chalk, my special Muscovy duck, soon arrived to investigate the new arrivals & seemingly sensing that they were only youngsters immediately took up position as their protector, seeing off some hens who flew at them rather aggressively. So with their unusual bodyguard the ducklings explored their new surroundings & companions. Pop, the gander, headed their way, head down, & for a moment I thought they were in trouble, but he was only making his presence known as top bird & king of the field. After just a few minutes the ducklings looked quite at home & were busily foraging for goodies in the grass. I knew that one discovery would make them extremely happy - the ponds! Sure enough, once they discovered the water they were happy little fellows happily swimming & splashing about. All four can fit into one pond, which is quite sweet to see. One of the Mallards (the one we call Ibbity) has a complete set of feathers now, but so far has shown no interest in flying away. I have stuck to the RSPB's advice & not clipped their wings so it is a case of 'will they' / 'won't they' fly off. They seem pretty contented at the moment anyway.

Seymour & Daisy didn't seem too perturbed at being separated from the rest of the ducks, but Tom & Cherry, the Cherry Valley ducks, were quite confused by the fact that they could no longer follow Seymour about in the hero worshipping manner they have humorously adopted. Silly billy Jess managed to get herself over the fence into the main field & was immediately surrounded by unwelcoming hens & had to be lifted back to safety! No injury this time though, so some slight progress I feel. She hasn't tried again since!

This afternoon all looks peaceful, with Tom & Cherry sat at the fence gazing at Seymour, the Mallard ducklings sat with Puddles, who seems to have taken up position of mother duck again, & everyone else just going about their business as usual. So I think I might dare begin tidying up my garden & plan some planting. However, Hubby says he has a sneaking suspicion that it won't be too long before some other rescued or orphaned creature will take up residence again. I can't imagine what makes him think that!

To finish here's picture of my gorgeous Muscovy drake Cheese, just because he was posing so nicely!

Mallard ducklings update!

The little Mallard ducklings that my neighbour & I rescued are growing up fast. As they were trying to splash themselves with water from their drinker so that they could preen their feathers properly, it was time to let them have a shallow tray of lukewarm water & see what their reaction would be. Here's what happened!

As you can see they clearly loved having the water! It made them quite skittish & playful. Hubby & I spent several minutes utterly transfixed by them. Afterwards we made sure they were nice & dry & put a lamp over them to warm them up before bed time. (Excuse the state of the wall behind the ducklings in the video. This is part of an on-going project which is one reason why we aren't too precious about them being in the bedroom with us! No doubt it will be the subject of a later Blog)

It frustrates me sometimes when I read care information for ducks which says that ducks don't necessarily need more than a tray of water. Most especially when I was reading up on Muscovies it seemed that a shallow tray would be all they needed, as Muscovies have less developed oil glands than other ducks. As the picture of Seymour shows, ducks will make do with whatever water source is available! But when you see the sheer pleasure they get when they are able to swim & dabble properly it really is worth while installing a pond for them if at all possible. Even my Muscovies regularly get into the water & have a jolly good old splash - so much for under developed oil glands!

Seymour the Aylesbury duck still gets into this little tray of water despite having 3 ponds to choose from!

We have three 'ponds' in our little field & will install another one when the little Mallards are ready to join the rest of the flock. None of them are very fancy or expensive. One is a recycled fibreglass fish pond & the other two are actually 120 litre plasterer's mortar mixing baths bought cheaply from Ebay. But they do the job rather nicely. To stop the water going stagnant I add Bokashi mud balls to the ponds, which release lots of friendly bacteria to gobble up any sludge at the bottom.

A mortar mixing bath makes a 'pond' big enough for 2 geese to enjoy

If you are wondering how the injured hen is doing, she is eating & drinking but is quite subdued. I hope she will be OK. When she recovers I think I will put her straight up with the rest of my hens rather than back with the other Duracell girls. My other hens aren't likely to bully her in quite such a nasty way. The other Duracell girls are out in the garden again today, still not venturing too far from the shed & still chewing up my rose plants! They all have proper names now, injured hen being Jess, the others being Kitty, Lottie, Molly, Norah & Oprah. With 27 chooks in total now, naming them alphabetically helps me remember all their names!

Where to start...

When I first started my blog I wondered if I would have enough news to fill it regularly, but writing it has made me realise 2 things:

1. Far from being mundane, my life is full of wonderful & exciting events (not exciting by most people's standards in an adrenaline pumping way, but exciting in an Earth Mother kind of way)

2. I should make sure that I relish every single second of this wonderful life in the countryside & take more time out from chores & the every day hum drum just to sit, absorb & be thankful.

The last few days have been very eventful & I don't know whether to start at the beginning or start with what has been most important to me. I guess starting at the beginning is probably sensible otherwise I'm bound to miss something (THE DUCKLINGS HAVE LEFT HOME!). Oops it slipped out! Yes, the event that tugged my heart strings the most was on Sunday when it was time for our Muscovy ducklings, Chalk & Cheese, to leave the back garden & join the geese, ducks, chickens & goats up in our little field. I knew it was time, I knew it was the right thing to do; I knew they needed to mix with other birds & behave as ducklings really should - but it was sooo hard. They weren't going far, but I knew that it was inevitable that that very special, close bond with them would weaken. I reminded myself that was the way things should be & that I couldn't remain the focus of their world forever ,so it was a case of being brave, shoving the Kleenex in my pocket & getting on with it.

The duckling's new home

The first job was catching hold of them & carefully clipping their wings (removing the tips from the flight feathers to prevent them from flying away in the future). Then eldest son & I carried them up to the field. It must have been bewildering for them to be confronted by this comparatively huge open space & all of those rather large birds & even larger creatures on 4 legs. We popped them down on the ground & they stood, teetering on their webbed feet, trying to get their bearings & take everything in. A hen approached out of curiosity & caused immediate alarm. Both ducklings puffed their chests out & tried to hiss scarily at the strange feathered monstrosity. It was much bigger than the wild birds who had been their companions in the garden. Unfortunately, this provoked a reaction from a couple of the young chickens, which we suspect may be cockerels, who flew at them causing further alarm. So far, not so good! My heart was sinking like a stone & I wondered if it had been wise to release them at 10 weeks old. Perhaps they should be returned to the garden for a couple more weeks or so. But, of course, that was the selfish devil on my shoulder talking again! The 'cockerels(?)' soon realised the ducklings were harmless & the ducklings soon realised what lush grass was beneath their webbed feet & what a lovely space they had to run, stretch & flap about in. The goats & geese had a quick peer at the new arrivals & quickly assessed that they were puny & of no interest whatsoever. The other ducks tried to say 'hello', but the ducklings played shy & they waddled on by. So it was clear that the ducklings weren't going to come to any harm & on what was a glorious, balmy evening my babies successfully began their new, independent lives. (Yes, I did need those Kleenex!)

Chalk & Cheese suddenly look small in the field!

The ducklings soon look more relaxed

To make the evening completely perfect, wonderful hubby dug me a hole so that we could install the new 'duck pond'. We already have a pond up in the field. It's actually the fish pond that we used to have in the front garden, together with a dozen or so goldfish. When hubby decided he wanted more seating area in our front garden at exactly the same time as our neighbours were looking to stock their newly installed pond it seemed like fate. So the goldfish moved next door & the pond moved up to the field. Unfortunately when the geese plop into it they displace so much water that it makes it quite daunting for the 3 ducks to get into, so they had been giving it a miss & making do with a small tray of water. Shame! I'd been looking for a suitable 'pond' for the ducks for a while when I found what was being advertised as a cattle trough on Ebay for a very reasonable price, so I took a chance & bought it. When it arrived the invoice actually described it as a 'deep plastering & mortar mixing bath'. Cattle trough or mixing bath it proved to be just perfect! Here it is installed, with a submerged breeze block at one end to ensure the ducks can get out easily:

And here it is getting the seal of approval from the geese:

It's deep enough for the ducks to swim in, but shallow enough that the geese don't make such a splash when they get in, so the water stays put.
The ducks soon followed & then the ducklings, so with tears in my eyes I drank in the scene as they swam happily in the new pond & the other animals around them peacefully went about their business & I thought - what a perfect little corner of paradise!


I'm determined to waste many more such precious moments just gazing....

Well this has turned out to be quite a lengthy update, so I'll close here for now & leave the rest of the weekend's event for another posting.