Sep 12 - Kay's doves have reproduced. This is the first planned hatching outside
the incubator for some time. We get free-range chicks, of course, but Kay got the
doves for some reason... I forget why... but with the anticipation of them
breeding.
Kay gets closer to these guys than the geese in the creek, though they also
have the occasional gosling, spotted with binoculars mainly!
You may have noticed, but we don't bother posting the arrival of chickens and lambs here
any more. They are too run of the mill!
Jan 12 - Kay bought pheasant eggs and managed to hatch three of them.
We know that there are pheasants around, but they are jolly
elusive beasties. This is by way of an injection of new genes into their
gene pool, and hopefully there will be more of them so more
visible.
PS: We saw a Pheasant in September, so they are still about. He was
magnificant... might have been this one grown up for all we know.
Mar 10 - Kay took some geese that conservationists were rehoming. We figured they
would be good on the island. This is a picture of them soon after we released them.
Oct 11 update: Gosling spotted with family patrolling the farm to the south!
Jan 09 - Since Kay got a new Barred Plymouth Rock rooster last year, and an incubator for Christmas,
chicks are on the cards. As of 24 January we had twelve chicks in one enclosure,
6 from the first incubator run and six from one hen, four from one of the hens
that "lives out" in another, a hen brooding in another, and about 36 eggs in
the incubator. Fasten your seatbelts! These chicks at left are the cutest of the
lots so far. The enclosures are for their safety. We feed each enclosure
individually until they are big enough to fend for themselves against things as
big as, well, our cats.
30 Oct 08 - Ewe1 had a darling little black and white boy on Edwin's birthday, while
Amelia was visiting, so the kids called him Sydney.
15 Oct 08 - Panda had her first lamb, a little white girl, the first
week we were away. We named her after the day of the week, Wednesday.
Sep 08 - Diamond produced a big boy lamb, black with a white top-knot
who I named Topsy.
Sep 08 - Snow had her first lamb, a little girl who we named Daffodil
after all the blooms along the driveway near where she was born.
Sep 08 - One of our bantams went clucky despite the cold weather so I
gave her 6 purebreed eggs to hatch and we ended up with one Rhode Island
Red, one Blue Orpington, and one White Frizzle chick.
Sep 08 - Ewe2 was next with one better - triplets - and they all
survived. 2 boys and 1 girl. We will adopt the patterned boy and the
girl and handraise them for Ag Day.
Aug 08 - Minnie was the first to lamb with twins, one black and one
white. Sadly the white one subsequently died of unknown causes.
July 08 - Bought 3 pullets on TradeMe.
From left: Rhode Island Red X Sussex, Original Brown Shaver,
two identical Rhode Island Red X Barnevelders.
July08 - For about a week we had occasional sightings of a rare NZ
parrot, a kaka, in the garden.
Mar 08 - Was given a tame Barred Plymouth Rock rooster by Bruce and Tracy. He is BIG.
Dec 07 - Found a baby hedgehog wandering around in broad daylight,
usually a bad sign because it generally means they are sick, or in this
case, starving because of the lack of rain. We have brought him into
the house to feed him up and called him Nibbles.
Dec 07 - Bought Bob, a Merino X ram on TradeMe. He is a big softie who
loves bread and scratches.
5 Dec 2007 - I noticed Me-me carrying something large and pale in her
mouth. I thought I'd better investigate in case it was a chicken,
although they didn't look like chicken legs... Proudly displayed at her
feet was a baby wild bunny, completely unharmed but prostrate with
fright. I took it in to show the kids when they got home from school,
and the rest is predictable history... please, please, please, can we
keep it? Tears and promises and great sacrifices willing to be made,
yada, yada, yada. So given how tame he is, we said OK. Now there's just
a small matter of a suitable name - so far we've had Pepper, Feijoa (a
type of fruit, pr. fee-joe-uh), Coconut, Cappucino - I see a
definite food trend emerging here. What about Stew? Mum! They didn't
like my other suggestion either - Catfud!
Oct-Nov 2007 - Various hatchings of bantam and Brown Shaver X bantam
chicks. Very amusing to see the Brown Shaver babies are twice the size
of the bantam babies. The bantams don't seem to care - they even take
baby ducklings in stride, even though the ducklings easily outmass them
by about 4 weeks of age!
15 October 2007 - 2 Pekin ducklings (eggs courtesy of Bruce and Tracy) hatched by a clucky bantam mum.
25 September 2007 - Introducing Thunder! Diamond delivered her around 9am on the 2nd day of rare thunderstorms, hence the name chosen by Edwin, who first spotted her. Amelia missed her arrival by about an hour, she will be bummed. Thunder is probably our last lamb for this season, unless we have any pregnancies which are not showing yet - possible but not likely. If first impressions are anything to go by, she's an adventurous little one - at only a few hours old she climbed through the fence to investigate the strange thing on the other side - me! Good chance for a gentle pat and chat.
Diamond and Dodge (father) were half-brother and sister. Note the strong resemblance to Pie, who is her half-brother, uncle, and cousin - all at the same time!
25 August 2007 - U1 was indeed carrying triplets. Merinda and her friend Alice discovered the 2 living and 1 dead on Saturday morning. The spotted one with the great mohawk is a girl which they christened Alice, the black one (who does have some faint spots) a boy who they named Tim after Alice's brother, of course!
22 August 2007 - U2 delivered twins. U2 was bred to her black and white son, Dodge, who is now sausages. If we had known that he was going to throw multiples (U1 is clearly also expecting twins or even triplets) who were so pretty, we might have thought twice about calling the butcher. Oh well, he tastes good. And these lambs have 3/4 of his genes... The piebald one on the left ("Pie") is male, the black one with white patch ("Patch") is female I think.
8 August 2007 - Panda, a 4 week old Suffolk X ewe lamb, as a companion for Lancelot. She was taken off her mother who was not doing well so it will take some time to win her over, although she likes the bottle well enough!
20 July 2007 - Lancelot, a 2 week old wethered (desexed) Alpine goat for Merinda to raise for Ag. Day. Like most goats, he likes to nibble on things - hay, plastic, hair, fingers!
18 July 2007 - Five little Pekin duck babies courtesy of Bruce and Tracy. They are 3 days old.
June/July 2007 - Lambs begin to arrive. B2 (right) delivered a boy on 9 July, and 3 days later B1 delivered twins, a boy and girl. The girl is the smallest, with the milky splotches. They will all end up with white fleece and black faces like their mums and dad. There are 4 more pregnant ewes to go. Sadly the first set of twins we lost in the creek when their mother fell in on 30 June.
26 June 2007 - Purchased 2 new hens, Brown Shavers, Sugar and Spice. About 20 weeks old. They are nicer than ones we have as you can pat them, and they lay much bigger eggs! Spice is in the foreground of this picture, on the left.
28 April 2007 - Four Suffolk ewes purchased, already in lamb to a Suffolk ram.
22 November 2006 - Snow, a former Ag Day ewe lamb, decides she wants to live with us rather than Anna & John. We think she smelled the milk Splatter was still drinking. She is now on permanent loan to us. She is about 4 months old here.
14 November 2006 - Me-me and Ghost, mouse-catchers in training, arrive. They are 11 weeks old.
11 November 2006 - Willow the lovely pony who has since found a new home.
8 October 2007 - Two coloured ewes with lambs at foot, courtesy of Ray and Gwen.
17 October 2006 - Splatter adopted, a Merino/Suffolk cross boy, courtesy of Bruce and Tracy. He is 3 days old.
3 September 2006 - The first of 4 waves of chicks hatch, from our bantams who are cunning egg hiders.