Animal update
May 24th, 2008 - Posted in chickens, ducks, self-sufficiency, sheep - by Sarah|
Winter is on it’s way now and while it may mean that we have to wear our woolly hats and long johns while watching South Park in the evening it doesn’t seem to be bothering the animals at all.
Apartheid has finally ended in the paddock as the youngsters have reached puberty and realised that although they look different they are still anatomically compatible. Mittens has wrested control of the flock from Cardigan and poor Singlet gets chased away whenever any of the ewes are on heat. I have been learning things I never guessed about sheep courtship. Mittens starts by hassling each of the girls until they pee in front of him. He then has a good sniff and sticks his nose in the air and wrinkles it up (he looks a lot like a hairy anteater at this point;-)). This ritual seems to enable him to decide whether it’s worth pursuing the sheep further. And when I say pursuing, that’s what I mean, as the ewes tend to spend a lot of time running away from him. Singlet on the other hand just sneaks in there whenever Mittens attention is distracted (eg by a handful of sheep nuts) and gets right on with it.
Mittens with Hat and Scarf.
The chickens seem happy too as I have changed the chicken run around so that they have a new area to explore. They have found a perfect dust bathing area and scratched out a hole that is currently about big enough to bury a whole chicken.
Queueing up for the dustbath.
We are still getting an egg or two every few days as well. One less observant hen has not realised that the seasons have moved on and is still trying desperately to hatch the 3 plastic eggs that I keep in the nesting boxes.
We are currently duck-less until we get some more eggs next spring. They roasted up beautifully and we even shared them with Brendhan’s eldest brother and one of his nephews.
… and then there were two
February 23rd, 2008 - Posted in ducks, self-sufficiency, sustainable living, wildlife - by Sarah|
When I walked down to the paddock this morning instead of being greeted by a chorus of quacks there was just a large, white, motionless lump lying on the bank of the stream. One of our ducks had been attacked and killed by an unknown predator. We suspect that it was a New Zealand Falcon as we saw one flying above us yesterday. We hope so as the Falcon is an extremely rare bird (rarer than the Kiwi) and we’d much rather lose a creature to an endangered local than to someone’s uncontrolled pet dog or cat.
I quacked a few times in the hope of locating any still alive and was answered from the sheep paddock by two very tense and nervous ducks. They stuck very close to me while I rebuilt the enclosed pen we used to keep them in and ushered them into their house. The chickens were very upset too and took a couple of hours to settle. The forth duck, Stumpy, is officially MIA but as it would be about a tenth the weight of the large ducks we are assuming it was carried away to be eaten.
Still, it’s not all bad news as the kill was very clean and the wound was on the ducks back. So this afternoon Brendhan spent half an hour plucking and cleaning it and it is currently in the oven roasting for our dinner. Mmmm…..
