[Tally9040]

Hi Everyone. We were left some land and outbuildings in Somerset when my father in law passed away. He had been a dairy and sheep farmer but had also kept turkeys as a side line.
We have put new roofs on the two barns and are currently looking after 6 Glos Old Spot weaners and a Buff Orpington cockerel and his two ladies who are Spash Mayans. We did have a BO hen but she died of some sort of cold type virus. Very sad as we had got them as a pair only 2 months earlier.
I have not had much luck with the incubator either. I bought 6 hatching BO eggs and added 3 of ours but only 2 out of 9 hatched. One was from our hen and 1 from the hatching batch. Sadly both of them have died after a week. Don’t know what we did wrong. They seemed fine, then got weak, started ‘panting’ and died.
I have been wondering if the chick was born with some sort of germ from its mother which it then passed to the other one.
Anyway, the pigs are great. Very friendly and easy to look after. We have 2 boars and 4 gilts and are planning to keep 2 girls four breeding next year.
I have also got as small poly tunnel and we are growing veggies in beds and planting fruit trees - when we can get the deer to leave them alone.
Very pleased to find this site and look forward to lots of advice going forward.
Helen.

[Perris]

hello Helen, nice to meet you.

There is indeed lots of advice on this site under different tabs; reading the poultry section might be most useful right now. It sounds like you have a respiratory infection in the flock (what killed the BO hen); it's very common, and some infections are more deadly than others; if you only had them 2 months, she might have succumbed to something in your environment, or the purchased birds could have brought it in to your farm. It would be wise to research and review biosecurity before bringing in more. Also some chicken breeds are more resistant than others.

Good luck with it all!

[Penninehillbilly]

Welcome to the group Helen, exciting times ahead for you  .
Sorry to hear about the hen and chicks, hope you can overcome that, but the pigs sound to be doing well?.
Deer are a nuisance here as well, causing problems with trees planted some years ago, they used to go for the ash, but that is dying off now?. I have read that you can hang things round to put them off, soap, human hair, or old socks. I found when my goats were eating a willow I sprayed it with a weak solution of goat manure/water, put them off for a while.