New Arrivals

This is a blog alert. If you don’t want to hear about me bragging about myself Stop Reading Now!

 

Too late. You’re in for it now. On Friday we got our second batch of Brown Shaver hens. Charlie delivered our 4 new egg layers himself and we all (the humans anyway) settled in for a nice cup of tea and a chat. We had a wonderful time while the 4 hens remained squashed in their carrier in a driving rain.

Finally it stopped raining and we went out to free the feather wearers. They were very bedraggled but worse was in store. They had their wings clipped and were tossed, gently, into the paddock with our original 6 Brown Shavers. The new group are a deeper brown and are easy to differentiate but Dan insisted on banding them anyway. Needless to say, this was not shaping up to be their favorite day.

Now this is where the bragging comes in. My 6 hens sprinted to greet!! the newbies and proceed to peck them into submission. Charlie raved about how healthy they looked; what fine birds they were; how magnificent were their surroundings. Not bad praise for someone (ME) who had never touched a live chicken in her life before we bought some. The new Brown Shaver is the one on the right; always a bridesmaid.

Two days later, the newbies remain cowering in the coop while my “gentle” little friends patrol the yard like its Alcatraz not letting any intruder through. The closest thing these poor creatures have to a friend is my cat, Smudge. She has decided that, as a New Zealand cat, it is up to her to ensure fair play. So she has taken to sitting up on a fence post and chirping threateningly if things get out of hand. She has been remarkably effective and I have hopes that eventually they will integrate.

My hopes for our 2 sheep flocks to integrate are almost gone. Perhaps the next generation will be more kindly disposed. As you can see from the picture, our Suffolk sheep cluster together in a surly mob watching the borrowed Suffolk ram fraternize with the Romney sheep. Truth to tell, he appears to much prefer their more laid-back life style and I have yet to see him climb the hill and approach the Suffolk.

 

This does not bode well for our hoped-for Suffolk lambs but to my mind it shows excellent taste on the part of the ram. Or perhaps It’s just that he has honed his self preservation skills to a sharper point. I wouldn’t want to risk my well-being on the Borg either.

Individual Animals?

First off, my apologies for the pictures. I can't figure out how I ended up with them all grouped together but my computer wizard isn't available so I hope you can separate the pictures into their proper segments since I can't. Chicken picture with chicken paragraph, steer picture with steer paragraph, etc. Got it? Great! Sorry about that.

My two granddaughters have decided that a special treat is spending the night with Grandma. A treat for whom? Anyway, I have now had occasion to observe each of them up close and very personal and it started me thinking.

Naavah, the 3-year-big girl, sleeps flat on her back with arms and legs splayed out. She may appear petite but somehow leaves Grandma a scant few inches of mattress. Alessia, on the other hand, curls up in the classic fetal position and its Grandma’s turn to spread out.

Two children raised in the same basic environment by the same parents and yet even asleep are very different. That goes for their personalities as well. And it goes for our animal kingdom too. Or mostly.

My hens are 6 distinct individuals. I have Dora who struggles with severe short term memory loss. Don’t look for her in the picture. She hasn’t figured out where the feed is yet although I have scattered it in the same place every day for 9 months. When it comes evening and I go to the coop to feed them again and shut them in, 5 are right there in the coop. Guess which one is crouched nervously in the path, head darting around.

 “Gee, Terry. I know the coop’s around here somewhere. I just can’t find it. Can I follow you? I just know I’ll be able to figure it out tomorrow.” But she never does. I secretly find her rather endearing.

The hen in the middle with the horizontal white stripe across the tail is  the Sargent-Major. She allows nothing and no chicken to interfere with the strict hierarchy under which the chicken kingdom thrives. All except Dora, of course. Even the Sargent-Major has thrown up her feathers in disgust and pretty much ignores her. Lots of personalities in the coop.

There are distinct personalities in the steers as well. We only have 3 but one is the leader with his tag-along follower (Gomer) who is glued to his hip. The leader has horns and this seems some sort of macho symbol for the abbreviated herd. He decides when they go to water, how long they drink, and when they leave. He calls time for morning breaks and bedtime. The third steer follows, but slowly. In the picture Mr. Horns has just moved away from the water hole, closely followed by Gomer. Lazy Bones will wait just long enough to make it clear that he’s a male with his own sense of importance and then he will amble off after Mr. Horn. They seem to have worked out détente.

Where my theory falls down is with the sheep. The Romneys are an amiable breed. They amble along each doing her own thing. They don’t even pay that much attention to their own lambs. They only time they work as a unit is when the enemy (me) approaches.

Along with the Romneys, we have acquired a flock of Suffolk. We were making the wise choice. Suffolk are meat sheep and very tasty meat it is too. They have narrow shoulders so lamb fairly easily and often have twins. In 3 years our Romneys have only given us 1 set of twins.

But these Suffolk are sheep of a different sort. They not only work as a team, they are clones of each other. They move as a unit – always! I never see one ramble off on her own. I admit to being somewhat intimidated by them. I have seen all 14 fan out across a paddock and literally munch in unison as they move in formation across the field.

I’m not the only one intimidated. The Romneys ceded the field within the first week of the Suffolk invasion. The Romneys drink when the Suffolk are done. They lie outside while the Suffolk hog the barn. And most importantly, they leave off grazing and lope away if the Suffolk decide that they want to eat there.

Next week we bring in the Ram for mating season. Should be interesting!

Creepy Crawlies

 

As you can see from the above picture of my late-lamented basil plant, we are having a problem with bugs here at the farm. The drought continues to linger and the bugs are thriving while the plants, trees, etc. are dying in record numbers.

So I am not an insect fan. In fact, there are a number of insects I actively dislike, even hate. I hate white tail spiders (I almost lost my left leg as a result of being bitten), I hate flies, and I actively dislike most creepy crawlies. But why? When I get right down to it, why such a visceral reaction?

Part of the reason is that all my adult life I lived in air conditioning, with screens separating me from the wicked outdoors and the exterminator coming with his monthly sprayings inside and out. I never actually experienced the real world. I never was bitten by mosquitoes, spiders, assorted multi-legged creatures or harassed by swarms of flies.

The farm is way out of my comfort zone and with the increased insect level this summer, I have red lined on several occasions. We all have had huge welts from mosquito bites. I have captured spiders trying to nest in my hair and we have watched the cataclysmic failure of our garden.

But philosophically what’s changed? Nothing actually. We had a mini invasion of locusts, overwhelming numbers of flies, etc. but that is normal throughout history. I am the oddity. I am the one that is trying to become acclimated to nature in my old age. It strikes me that my grandchildren are having the privileged upbringing that I was denied. They have the farm and are face to face with reality with every bee sting. Unpleasant but certainly preferable to living in an sterile environment where you have no connection with the world that surrounds you, nurtures you, and sustains you.

Until next time.