Saturday, September 30, 2006

Busy week



Gregg has been off this week and has made huge progress with the fencing - all thanks to a nifty little tool that he managed to get for attaching the chicken wire the fence. So we now have all the poultry safely tucked into the bottom area of the garden down beside the burn - they had taken to going across the road in search of better worms and came very close to getting squashed by large tractors a few times so hopefully they'll appreciate it rather than being a bit peaved at not getting to wander!!
The photos show the fencing coming down from

the main road in front on the chicken run, and along the main road. So all that's left to do is a bit of picket fence from the main road down to the corner of the cottage and put the new posts and gate in - not much really!!!!!!
The apricot call ducks have settled in well, they seem to enjoy following the geese around and have now ventured on the "the big burn". The females are very noisy - every time you hear them quacking away it sounds like someone has told a funny joke! They also like wandering around in the grassy part of the garden which is nice as I can watch them from my work room
window. Here's a picture of them playing at the big burn - hopefully they wont go wandering and get lost down the burn - they might end up in Alyth!

Monday, September 11, 2006

Nasty furry animals..........

After a bit of an early start last Saturday morning, I delightfully came home with more feathered friends to add to the growing menagerie...........! I'd headed up to the rare breeds sale up at Thainstone market just outside Inverurie, what a fab day! Joined by my Uncle David, Aunt Alison and the two little monsters Katie and Chloe, we all wondered round checking out the poultry for sale wondering what we would purchase for ourselves. Katie was after some white silkies as she'd like to show them and hatch some chicks, so her daddy very kindly bid on some lovely little bantams, a gorgeous little trio, had her name on them. I managed to buy totally not what I expected, I came home with 5 wyandotte bantams, 3 blue laced and 2 red, and 3 apricot call ducks, all very sweet and settling in well. Uncle David managed to purchase loads of weird and wonderful looking hens, about 16 in total I think! Aunt Alison got herself a pair of Embden geese to befriend lonely Amelia the chinese white, who are now all getting on very well.

This weekend proved that keeping poultry is not all sweetness and light, collecting your eggs in the morning and having a loving trail of chickens run after you. We had a vist from the mink, a nasty little creature that could cause devastation in a chicken run at the blink of an eye. Luckily, we managed to spot him coming up the burn, the cheeky little monster poked his head up through the planks of the bridge trying to catch our chickens by the legs but was unsuccessful in catching any for his dinner. We managed to get a trap from a very kind local farmer - he even had it baited for me. So we spent most of Saturday morning camouflaging the trap set into the banking of the burn in the hope that we might catch something in the next day or so. To our amazement we came home to find the mink in the trap only a matter of hours after setting it up, our little chickens are so lucky, they could all have been eaten in less than 24 hours. The mink iscertainly a beautiful little animal but unbelievably vicious, the noice that it made was really quite disturbing. Again, thankfully one of our neighbours was able to help us dispose of the little creature, not something I would have liked to have done myself. Another episode in the adventure we seem to be leading, certainly one that I would say was character building.