Wednesday 17 April 2013

A couple of new arrivals around at the new home for some of our ewe lambs. Two of the damara cross ewes have lambed, Annie had a little ewe lamb and Boots had twins, one of each. In the dorper camp, Bunny had twin boys but lost one to a fox and Poppy had a ewe lamb but rejected her. Poppy had the really traumatic birth last season and that lamb, Friday, didn't survive past a few days. She clearly isn't going to be a great mum, but she does throw a nice lamb.

 Ginny at left, Anne (holding the bottle) Lilly (Poppy's daughter) and Poppy

Lilly has been raised mainly on raw fresh milk from Big Moo and has been thriving. Apparently she's also slipped into the gap left by Bunny's loss to a fox and is taking her extra milk. This is a twofold bonus, keeping Bunny's udder healthy and supplementing Lilly with sheep milk.

 Thyme, one of Boots' twins

Our chicken flock is stabilising as Frank and Pippi reach maturity. Pippi is laying small pullet eggs nearly every day and Frank is looking to lure some girls off the other two roosters for his harem. I think I will pick up a couple of young hens for him to avoid trouble...

 Pippi

 Frank

Just throwing in a shot of Jimi, the first hen hatched on the place. Jimi is an araucana x wyandotte and exhibits the wyandotte feather pattern and the araucana head feathers. Not a pretty hen, but she lays a pale green egg and is one of the most regular layers.

Jimi

3 comments:

  1. That is so cool that Jimi lays a green egg! I want to see one. Can you take photos and send or post to me? Thanks for the update, I have been missing your news!
    Kaz(Aussie)

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  2. If you go back to the post on 19th August 2012 there is a photo of a basket of eggs with one of Jimi's eggs in the middle :-)

    I've been getting slack as having to water all the plants and hand feed the animals is taking up more time.

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  3. Hi Elnini,

    Tried emailing you a while back, but for some reason bounced back. My damaras are going well, and are due again in June. So I have added an alpaca wether to the growing list of mouths to feed around here as a herd guard. Also bought a pig - but that's another story.
    Regards
    Deb (aka virgill)

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