May 2012
Today's birds
Wednesday 2 May, 2012
Peter was here today from British Trust for Ornithology, ringing birds. He caught 37, including 4 retraps, from 11 different species.
Despite our cats, house sparrows are most numerous at 16, but we had two new species caught today - a willow warbler and a chiffchaff.
Broody Orpington
Friday 4 May, 2012
Our Black Orpington has gone broody, so Dan picked up 13 Welsummer eggs from TAS's "cooped-up" on Wednesday night, so instead of two wee cream pullet eggs, she's now mum to 13 large, dark brown eggs. She doesn't seem to mind though 
.
We haven't put eggs under a broody for a long time and I donated our incubator to a school project, so we're hoping that we'll get a half decent hatch.
Egg sales
Sunday 6 May, 2012
Since I've found the calculator on my iPhone and I was doing the egg money, I thought I'd do a few wee calculations.
Over the last two weeks, we've taken £141 in egg money - at £3 a dozen, that's 47 dozen or 564 eggs.
An 6-egg box is 7p, so that's a cost of £6.58, maximum, as we do re-use clean ones that are returned. At 125g pellets / day, each hen costs 34p per week in pellets to feed; for 80 hens, that's £53.20 for the fortnight. On top of that, there's mixed corn at £10 for the period; a bale of Hemcore at £12 as well.
Bye, bye Leo and hello, Nemo
Friday 25 May, 2012
It's been all change on the tup front this last couple of weeks.
Leo (Fetternear Lionheart) has been our fabulous tup for two years, but as his daughters are coming into the breeding flock this year, we had to find a new home for him. He's only three this year and a healthy, happy boy who throws great lambs, so we hoped we could find him a good home privately.
Leo having his farewell tea
George, our first Shetland calf
Friday 25 May, 2012
Our Shetland heifer, Breeze, was due to calve today - and she did!
When I fed them at 8am, I noticed a wee bit of fluid on her back end and she was very pauky - raising her tail and asking for a rub. Although today was her due date, I didn't really think she's go bang on time but I decided to check her at 10am, before I started work in the office. When I went into the field, she was flat out at the far end, with her back to me. I wasn't sure if she was just sunbathing (it's been glorious here today), but as I approached, she stood up and I could see the calf. I ran back for Dan and by the time we got back, he was born.
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