The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: goosepimple on February 18, 2013, 02:02:58 pm
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:sunshine: Well, the Oyster Catchers have turned up to waken us up in the lighter mornings, the geese are house hunting and the ducks are claiming their nesting dens, snow drops abound and the daffodils are rocketing, it's all go. I'm sure it's not usually this early? I feel like I'm in the middle of March! Feeling like planting something :garden: :sunshine:
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I too feel like l should be planting something, tempting fate it will be. Nice to dream the weather will last.
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Sounds great goosepimple !
My neighbour tells me that they have seen lots of cranes flying north already.
:sunshine: here too and I had a picnic ( lunch really) on the banks of a stream between cutting and chopping wood in shirt sleeves. Saw 6 deer in a field and generally had a happy and productive day.
I was planning the veg plot with a beer in one hand earlier and since my daughter flys out on wednesday I was planning "projects" for her too. I just hope it stays warm and dry for her week with us.
So what have you planned ?
Martin
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A big spring clean outside, all animal housing and associated buildings, scraping up the grass with a rake, laying paths in stone in the quarry for when the goats go back in, chicken wiring the gap below a building to stop the ducks going in and nesting there. That's all this week so long as the weather keeps up. Kids were off on half term last week so peace and quiet to get on this week. Amazing how energetic you can feel with just a bit of sun. :sunshine: Making the most of it, might be all we get all year :D
Cranes by the way MAK, they would be nice to see, we get Heron, the smaller version, they scream like Terradactyl (and pinch our ducklings :-\ ).
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Sounds like a good weeks work there goosepimple.
I hope we that we will make some rabbit hutches and make them a large run on some virgin grass ( bit of the lawn). we salvaged some chicken wire last week and there are plenty of sweet chestnut poles to cut for fence posts.
In past years the cranes have flown low in long chevrons below blue sky. This year I have the camera at the ready but have heard them at night, seen them below clous or missed them! Wonderful sight and sound as they fly south then return north a few montsh after. Thousands of cranes migrate within a 20 km corridor thru the Limousin - i can spend an age watching them.
tanks for the post as I feel so upbeat about the weeks ahead and the hope of an early Spring !
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We have had a few nice days here although its minus 5 here this morning but the sun is shining
We have snow forcast for later in the week though :(
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all looks good should last till the week end spring could be here
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Oh good you've come on VF, I trust your forecasts more than the BBC. :D
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The weather will turn much colder during the next couple of days with snow flurries developing in the south and east. How much snow will there be? Probably not much away from Kent, Essex and southern coastal counties, although the risk could extend more widely in the south east and possibly southern central regions (http://www.theweatheroutlook.com/twoother/latest.aspx#) for a time. I’ll keep an eye on that in the next couple of days. The longer term outlook is very interesting at the moment too. As I said recently there is a chance we’ll be lucky and go straight from cold and wintry weather to mild spring like conditions without having to endure a blast of wet and windy spell of westerly winds.
]The winter to spring offering isn’t the only one on, and I think it’s worth keeping an eye on the cold plunge into Europe option which some of the GEFS runs have recently shown, although they are in a minority. The chart below gives an example of one, showing brutally cold air across much of Europe as we go through the first week of March. Even if this does happen (and I’d say it’s no more than a 25% chance at the moment) the cold could well stay to the east of the UK, but if it did reach us we’d be thrown back into a very wintry spell. So in summary the weather will turn very cold in the next few days with the risk of some snow. What happens mid-term is uncertain, but unusually an Atlantic driven westerly flow is one of the less likely outcomes with high pressure probably ruling the roost for some time. That could well mean an early taste of spring, but don’t rule out the possibility of another wintry blast. well goose pimple thats whot i think 80 persent sure have a nice day :wave:
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ta :wave:
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Noooo......to snow in Kent! Had my first goose egg today (although rather confusingly discovered in the duck house this morning so there's a chance it was just an enormous duck egg - more likely I just didn't spot it when locking them all up last night), my new propagator has been set up and my first batch of seeds is lined up ready to go in tomorrow and the kids have been playing outside on their bikes and scooters rather than sledges.Spring had definitely sprung and now you've mentioned s n o w. Bleugh!
Hester
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VF thanks for the forecast ! Always read them and you are way more accurate than anything else on the net!
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this nice spell could last till the end of feb