Snowstorm

We had three days of lovely spring weather. The hens were out for hours, digging and chatting with the magpies. Monty and Eric were busy tooting away, each climbing higher up on the manure heap than his friend. It looked funny in a Monty Python sort of way and at the end I thought they were going to try the stable roof, but courage failed them. It was very noisy, though....

The sun was out and Mindy, Mandy, Molly and My ate their hay outside, sunbathing and doing their "We are happy and young!"- hopping and head butting, with each other. I groomed them, brush going hundred and ten through their woolly coats, while the game was going on and I was, yet again, impressed that they never knocked me over. They performed their staged fight in the yard where there was still more ice than sand on the ground, and stayed upright. I do worry, that they will fall and break a leg but keeping them in all the time is not an option, they tell me. So we sand (grit) like mad... It's a funny project, sanding, as the hens follow me around, thinking I'm preparing lunch, for them. In the end we are quite a procession, scattering and pecking around the place. I was relived to let the sheep inside, in the afternoon, all safe and sound. Mindy walks in like the Queen, calm and royal, My hops a bit because she can, and Mandy looks worried. It's her expression for most things and then she smiles, when you tell her everything is as it should be. She just worries... Last in is Molly who got so exited about the fact that I had brought some of their favourite bread with me that she fell over. She landed on her back, legs in the air, on the rough stable floor. She did not hurt herself, I think, but it still makes you wonder. Poor Molly needed a long hug after that. She hides her head in my arms and then she leans her whole body weight on me. And then everyone ate a lot of bread....

Mr. Chip spent one of the sunny days visiting the vet for all his tests. Blood was taken and medicine inserted, then more blood taken. It is clear that he really does not like it. His way of coping is to hide his head under my arm and it ends up looking like the vet is treating half a terrier. The good news is that our slightly older dog is responding well to his medication and if all goes well he does not have to go back before the end of April. We celebrated that with a big chunk of cucumber!

Credit: Dasha Dimitrova

Today we woke up to a beautiful snowstorm. Our sweet, active hens will complain loudly that their digging project is being delayed, our four sheep will snuggle up inside with a good book and Monty and Eric will continue with their gallop, around the place. Mr. Chip will help out by eating as much of the snow as he can muster, before the cold makes his whole body shake. Then it's inside and under a woolly quilt, a happy but slightly frozen dog....

We used to have winter for months on end, skiing and snowshoeing and long walks on the frozen snow with Mr.Chip. Now it's three weeks of very cold, then milder winter, then spring, back to a blizzard.... It's hard to keep up and the storms are getting worse. Climate change in all its glory and yes, I am being ironic. If this keeps up we will have very confused plants. More light and warmth means they will start to wake up and then Bam! another cold spell. We are not big fans of cold weather, the hens and I, but at least we know where we are. Spring walks on snow that carries is also Mr.Chips way of getting to places he does not normally have access to and he loves that. Now we plod along on the same tracks and hope we don’t fall over, on the ice.

Cushing's syndrome in a dog is treatable, as I know I have already told you. Mr.Chip gets a medicine called Vetoryl, the most commonly used drug, it seems. Having Cushing's in the house means you are always on the lookout for abnormal behaviour in your friend. Excessive water drinking, lack of energy, lack of appetite and so forth. Vomiting is also on the list, so when Mr.Chip had a real go at that, one evening, I was already painting horrid pictures in my head. Turned out that if you do not chew, but inhale a piece of melon, it needs to come back up, again. I did not even mind washing the rug, when he was done. I was just relieved, once again...

Horses and rabbits, for example, can't vomit. It's a big problem, if they eat something they should have avoided. Rabbits can get fur balls stuck, that they can't get rid of. This means an operation, if the owner is alert enough to spot the problem, I guess. So we are happy that dogs can help themselves by making pieces of melon fly and that rugs can be washed. I did think of the Heimlich-maneuver, though, but I was too slow to try that one out, thank goodness!

Text by Nina

Next blog post on the 6th March.

Animals are wonderful

Mr. Chip found a heap of frozen horse manure today, on our walk. He dislodged a good chunk before I noticed and his day became a perfect one. Beaming from ear to ear he carried on - it does not take much to make a terrier’s day. Molly finds all hen food delicious and Mindy will soon start laying eggs, the way she steals their dry food. Mandy could easily live on hay and paint from walls. She is constantly trying to get splinters off planks even though I provide willow and other bark for them to chew on!

A good friend of ours had a Staffordshire terrier who loved to eat wasps. He never got stung but his owner got some mighty headaches, thanks to his passion. The time he found a wasp’s nest in a vent and sat licking them up when they flew out to go to work, he thought Christmas had come early. (His owners grabbed the vacuum cleaner and probably saved him a lot of pain...) He was a no fuss dog, with a big heart.

Elvira, our lovely rescued hunting dog had some peculiarities too. She had a miserable puppy time and suffered a lot, so when she found us, she did not let go. This meant that she never stayed at home alone. When we tried, she just calmly jumped up to the nearest window and started hitting her head against it. It was a very efficient way of telling us what she thought about things. As she loved cars, we took my old Volvo ten meters over the road, to the shop and back. We lived in town then and our neighbours must have thought I was special. When Elvira had enough of life in town, she started wedging herself stuck under a radiator, when we were at my parent’s house. So she moved in with them and I had to visit every day. The amount of petrol I spent on her makes me shudder and there's a hole in the ozone layer with my name on it.

I keep thinking that we should add a few lambs to our team, in the spring. The problem is that the people in the know tell me that our four sheep will not take kindly to that and could probably hurt them. That's apparently how a sheep flock behaves; they feel threatened and lash out. If it was goats, for example, it might be easier. This has made me think of animals of the past, and our present ones. The thing is that I strongly believe our gang could be different. Famous last words, I know, it's just that Mindy, Mandy, Molly and My are more family members than a flock of sheep. I think after a while they would realise that the treats are still there, we still have time to hang out and that a few more friends has not rocked their little boat. I will have to think about it... Goats would be lovely, too, they just need more activity to keep them happy and that would make our ladies grumpy. They like their naps, under the apple tree and young goats would be halfway up that said tree before we know it. They already have cockerels falling out from there...

Credit: Dasha Dimitrova

The other thing I wondered about was a beehive in the bottom of the field. That would be good for the kitchen garden and quite "old world". Then I remembered our friend, the terrier. I know exactly how that project would work out. A team of feathery ladies would gather, followed by two excited cockerels and they would hang out by the hive all day, snacking away. No explanation in the world would get them to see past the "candy box", unfortunately. And then the rest of the bees would have enough and move, far, far away. It would have been lovely, though, for the vegetables I mean, not the bees....

Molly has always been good at tapping her foot on the door, when she wants to go out or wants a treat. Now she figured out that it works both ways. When the sheep are out strolling in the mornings while I clean their home, I don't have to look out for them anymore. When they have returned, Molly taps on the stable door and I open the door, for them. Very stylish and I feel like the butler.

So between my walks with Darya the hen and my butler service, I still figure I could have time to look after some new members of our little team. I might be dreaming, we will see. These things do have a way of sorting themselves out, in the end. Someone needs a new home, and...

Just read that goats need to have other goats as company or they get depressed. They don't actually graze; they nibble here and there. Goats are much more particular, about what they eat, compared to sheep. If hay, for example, falls on the ground, they leave it. Sheep can stand knee-deep in the stuff and still munch away. I also remembered that goats are wonderful animals, they just tend to smell a bit.

Text by Nina

Next blog post on the 28th February.

Festival of Eggs

As I told earlier, we try to regulate the length of time the artificial light is on in the henhouse, during mid winter. This is so that the hens understand to take a break from laying eggs and have a holiday instead. All but Lina did this and now she is the only hen that looks overworked and a little run down. She is now on a diet containing extra cottage cheese portions, to get more calcium into her small body.

As we can't really switch the sun on and off, we have now an egg laying festival, every other day. The light is back and so are our hens...

It's a pleasure to watch them figure out new, clever places for the nests. Today I found two eggs, one brown and one light blue, in a hessian bag full of wool. It looked like something out of a country magazine, the artistic touch and comfort, all in one. Two eggs were found in the sheep breakfast hay and they were a green one and the beautiful dark brown egg - that is Lina's trademark.

Credit: Dasha Dimitrova

While I collect them the hens inform all and everyone about what they have done and Monty and Eric fly back and forth. Why the cockerels have to do that, no one knows and as it is indoors it all gets a bit too much. The sentiment is there, it's just that flying inside a stable makes everyone else a bit surprised. And it's a bit drafty, says Lina. The sheep just stand stock still, staring, wondering where that rabbit moved to and if he could take them in for the winter. I just duck and hope for the best.

We do not have a single hen that would produce a white egg so the basket, when filled, looks beautiful with shades of brown, blue and green. Someone is now laying a very blue egg, which is a new colour for us.

Outside the hares have gotten into the spirit of things and are chasing each other around the yard at nights. It looks like someone has made a weaving pattern in the snow, most mornings. Spring is arriving, slowly but we stay hopeful.

I have now left one, smaller, manure heap to settle. We will not touch it and as it is in a sunny spot, I hope the grass snake will return next spring and lay it's eggs in there. It would be nice to have them back. The hens will probably make them move after they are hatched, but the maternity ward is ready and waiting, if they want it.

But for now it's just to enjoy winter and to do as Mindy, Mandy, Molly and My do when the sun comes out. They turn towards it, close their eyes and sigh deeply, sounding like four happy sheep should sound. I must admit to joining them, now and again. Nothing beats the first warm rays of sunshine. It goes straight to the heart. Mr. Chip believes in sunbathing too, he just prefers to do that from indoors. Still a bit warmer, all in all, he tells us. 

I just learned that eggs contain the highest quality of protein one can buy and the yolk contains vitamin D. Not bad work from a small hen that produces this almost daily and still has the energy to sing about it. Loudly!

And an extra bit of good news; at Durrell, Bahia, their five year old Andean bear gave birth to a tiny, healthy cub on the 3rd of January this year. I saw her last summer and she seemed like a very nice bear. Good luck to them all and congratulations! There is a video of them on their web site, do have a look.

Text by Nina

Next blog post on the 21st February.

Young Eric

Young Eric has now reached the impressive age of six months. I cannot tell, what that is the equivalent to, in human years, but I would guess older than a toddler and younger than someone who should know better.

We all have an idea where our Eric is at any time, when he is indoors. He can very seldom stay quiet for more than a minute and there is usually someone telling him off. He still bobs along on his long legs and his huge feet, being everyone's friend. The problem is that he has inherited his father’s bad habit of nipping the poor hens in the neck. He has a huge beak so it must hurt a lot. This means the hens scream at him to get lost before Monty turns up. There then follows an almighty gallop through the stable, over any obstacle in their way, through food bowls and once I saw them collide with a sheep. (That was in no way a popular thing to have happened). 

Monty responds to a call for help, which is understandable, only Eric nips a lot so the gallop is turning in to a regular feature of the day. This has now made both cockerels lose some weight and that's never good in the winter months, when extra fat is welcomed, for warmth. Lina has lost all interest in both of them and withdrawn to safety, looking a bit poorly, poor hen. Darya and I have taken her in to our “special breakfast" club, and she thanks us by turning on Darya. Hens are odd at times but at least Lina eats more, again. Darya can always sit on my arm for a while and supervise my work. There's plenty of food for everyone and she knows that, now.

So he is a bit of a conundrum, young Eric. We love him to bits but he needs to stop being the Tigger of our henhouse. ( Tigger from Winnie the Pooh, if someone is wondering. The bouncing, the constant optimism...) Eric also needs to stop nipping, as the hens are so much smaller than him. He has grown into a handsome young male with his fathers colouring and specs of gold here and there, a gift from his mother Pippi. We would love to keep him but I fear Monty can only take so much, before he sends him packing. The funny thing is that they are best friends when they take a break from jogging. Side by side they wander around, finding food for the hens and generally just chilling. Then Eric nips a hen and all starts again.

I got Waldemar, Eric's father to stop this horrible habit by throwing a mitten at him, every time I saw him nip. This resulted in him always looking up after doing something a bit silly but he stopped pecking hens. Throwing a mitten at Eric sends him into orbit and you think the police will turn up at any time. He does not see the connection of the nip and the No! - bless him. We live in hope, though.

There is a nice family that might take him on in the spring. That was before reading this, so we will see... No, joke aside, what Eric will soon need is his own team of hens that will put him in his place. Our lot have seen him grow up and know his mother. When needs be, Pippi protects him although he is soon double her size. And that's the thing; we forget that he is still very young, just very tall for his age.

Credit: Dasha Dimitrova

When Pippi takes a sand bath young Eric sits on the edge of the box keeping her company. It's the nicest thing to watch and you can hear them talking. It's also the only time young Eric uses a softer voice, with no tooting; his special time with his mother... And to think, most hens and cockerels never know their parents. That is also why we try to keep everyone at home, as happy as we can manage. Having to explain to Pippi that her son can be a bit of a nuisance would not be an easy task! A mothers love....

Gorillas are known for being the "best mothers" of the animal kingdom. They protect and nurse their baby's for up to four years and the whole gorilla community helps out. Maybe that's the solution to our little conundrum. All hands to the pump, so to speak! Lina will love that one...

Text by Nina

Next blog post on the 14th February.