Corgi floof and nosebleeds - The Accidental Smallholder

Posted: Tuesday 29 March, 2016

by Rosemary Champion at 9:36am in Smallholding 1 comment Comments closed

Well, that’s the clock changed and we are officially into British Summer Time. It’s been a mixed bag of weather, but mainly dry with some nice sun too. Looks like the grass is starting to come away a bit but it’s still my “panic” time of the year.

Having ewes expecting singles, twins and triplets plus ewe hoggs means that I have had four groups of sheep – so four paddocks being used plus two groups of cattle and the ponies. This means that the grass coming in is being eaten – and it looks like it’s not growing. Not really sure how I can get round this though.

The cattle at Astwood are fine – they’re getting a bucket of potatoes every day plus they have straw and whatever grass they can find. I’m keeping two paddocks there shut down, for the new lambs when they come.

I was attacked by a piece of straw the other day while I has cleaning up a bale we had out for the steers in their previous paddock. It went up my nose and caused a nosebleed. I felt like such a Wally.

We’ve moved the 2014 group of hens into the caravan; their old house will be cleaned, disinfected and have new perches put in this week, ready for the new pullets arriving at the end of next month.

Taylor, our tup, has gone to his new home in Wales. He travelled fine and has settled in with his fellow CR, Pepe.

The barn is now cleaned and the single and twin bearing ewes are now housed; the triplets are still outside. The first triplets aren’t due until 10^th April and I’d rather the ewes had the exercise; I’ll bring them in about the 7^th April. First single is due on the 1^st, then nothing until the 7^th. I did toy with leaving the twins out another week, but it’ll give the grass a chance to grow.

The ewe hogg with the dirty bum was not alone. Four out of the six were pretty horrid, so they’re all dagged and wormed. One of the old ewes is a wee bit lame, so I’ll swing by today and trim her feet. She’s never had great feet but thankfully, she’s only had one ewe lamb in her life, so we have no daughters from her.

Bryn is casting – if there was a market for corgi floof, we’d be minted.

And finally, I’m trying to get all the paperwork up to date for the end of our financial year – and fill in our Single Application Form. I did it on line last year but when I went to do it this year, I had 9 errors in the land registration part. I think this is because we were re-measured this year but I’ll contact the Perth office to check. I’d really like to get this particular monkey off my shoulder.