Diary

Livestock DayRSS feed

Posted: Saturday 3 May, 2008

by Rosemary at 12:58pm in Anything goes Comments closed

It's only 1pm and I feel like I've done a full shift, but it's been very rewarding.

We moved the pigs from pen no.1 to pen no. 2, where there is some grass. I put a bale of straw in the hut, since the remaining straw was a bit flat, thenw e seeded pen no. 1 with grass, phacelia and buckwheat - really anything we had spare in the garage. The pigs are very excited with their new pen and their improved bed, and have been galloping in excited spurts round and round, before stopping to munch grass.

We moved the 6 Maran chicks into a run in the garage. They still have a heat lamp, but they need to start hardening off, so to speak. Anyway, we'll need the puppy cage for the Cream Legbars, which will hopefully hatch soon.

We applied louse powder to the hens - that needs to be a weekly job at this time of year. The RIR are worst affected. The Brown Leghorn never showed a single louse, but her feathers were quite different. We also moved the hen ark out of the orchard , further up the field. Round the ark gets dirty so this will give the ground time to clean up before we bring them back down in the winter, when it's good to have them close to the house.

Finally, we trimmed the sheeps' feet and gave them all a dose of Heptavac-P Plus. They are none to happy with us now, but I'm sure they will forgive us by tea-time!

So, off for a cup of tea and a biccie, then out into the garden!

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