We lost a Ewe

A little late reporting this but we wanted to be sure it was a one off.
On the 29th of July we lost one of the Ewes :(

She had isolated herself from the others the day before, got steadily weaker as the day progressed and died overnight. Absolutely nothing obviously wrong and no hint anything was wrong the previous day.

It also meant we could not use her for meat as we did not know what the cause of death was.

So sadly we learnt something new - what you are supposed to do with a dead Sheep, apparently called 'Fallen Stock'. You aren't allowed to bury them on site so it was off to a local 'Fallen Stock' centre near Wrexham with her to be used for who knows what!

As for her Lamb, she was crying for her mum for a while but fortunately she was almost weaned and seems to be coping fine

The three lambs are becoming very tame I can almost stroke them now and one of them Rolo, the first born will eat out of my hand.

Oswestry Show

First a  poor egg count for this week -
Chickens - 15
Ducks - 14

We went to the Oswestry Show today, it was about time. Weather was perfect, not too hot with a steady breeze. There was all the usual tractors, (and a few more up to date ones.)

But Alden was more interested in this...

and trade stands and plenty of animals to look at. My goodness you should see the size of some of those cows, almost head height but very good looking beasts.

The sheep had some amazing coats, some frizzy, some spiral and some that looked like a felt mat.

There were quite impressive horns there too on both sheep and cows, especially the welsh mountain sheep and the Highland cattle.

The Shetland ponies were lovely,

there were some beautiful colours there but the dressed Heavy horses were my favourite,

Now that's what you call Horse bling!! I bet it's the wives that do all the polishing. (No doubt because the men cannot do it properly!!)
Then we went to the see the chickens and ducks that Alden was waiting patiently to look at. I have to say it was not well presented in there and the crowds were worse than at the auctions. We did see some Vorwerks

The Light Sussex was very good and had a wealth of girlie ribbons.

There were Crested ducks that belonged to Alfie, Davids friend who sold us our first duck, 'Duck Norris', last year. He won second and third prize.

And of course there were
DRAGONS!

Weather? What weather?

It's still the same old hot & humid weather we've had for weeks. All three boys have now broken up from school for the summer hols and there is plenty of weeding and watering to be done. We have been waiting for all this rain that is constantly forecast with swathes of blue across the county and threats of thunderstorms. Well, we had two short heavy-ish showers Wednesday, that did not even wet the ground under the veg, so although I'd hoped not to water I did. There is more rain forecast for tomorrow afternoon through to Sunday but I'm not holding my breath.
A bit short on eggs this week -
Chickens - 18
Ducks - 16

 Don't mind me, I wasn't going to sit down anyway!

 Here are some of our chicks, just over 9 weeks old, making themselves comfortable in the orchard.

The Ducks love drilling, even when the ground is rock hard.

 Mars and one of his lady's. Considering what a tiny wimp he was when we had him in January, he has certainly filled out and grown himself a respectable set of horns.

 The ducks gave up drilling and headed back to the pond.

Poor old Dusty, she's still brooding in the nest box except when I lock her out after all the hens have laid. She runs around all puffed up like she's lost something and has to find it and get back to somewhere.

Pruned Marigold

Marigold had not shed all her wool and in this excessive heat we wanted to help her

Well wanting and doing are two different things entirely ........
It was a fair chase but!

Here is a pruned Marigold.

Rooster number 1

Short Post

This little chap was making a pretty good attempt at crowing this morning
He is is the first one I have actually seen (and heard) doing so

Runaround chicks

Firstly a very overdue egg count -
Chickens - 57
Ducks - 62
I wish I could say that was one week output but its not. I have been getting three eggs from the chickens and three from the ducks for quite a while now, two of the hens have been broody and so not laying and two of the ducks are in a full moult, ( along with the geese).

It looks like the geese have been having a pillow fight out there.
One of the hens has given up being broody today, but Dusty, the Maran, is still sitting tight. A week ago her sister Maran died, I found her flat out on the grass in the early morning just after I had let them all out. Keith and the boys were down in Kent for his Mum's birthday so they didn't see her. She had had funny turns before so she may well have had a health problem.
The ducks are finding more difficult places to lay their eggs, and I really do get dragged through the bushes backwards in my attempts to get the eggs. Did have four chicken eggs today which was a surprise but very useful as its baking day tomorrow and I'm planning to make carrot cake in my new mixer which I bought as my other one has only one speed now and the motor keeps cutting out. Also, the new one has a bigger bowl as my cakes seem to getting bigger. I may also try something with some of the frozen eggs and see if they come out OK.
This will depend on the weather. As we are now a Level 3 heatwave I might not do too much. Last night the temperature went down to 15C and the daytime was a whopping 34.5C. The weathermen might not agree with those temperatures but I have a digital thermometer that's on the window sill out of direct sunlight and while the window itself might be getting hot and radiating the heat, it's still VERY HOT and humid. Tomorrow is supposed to be less hot but next week the forecast is for more humid heat, thunderstorms and heavy downpours. That would explain why there are so many tractors, combine harvesters and trailers full of bales of hay on the roads at the moment. The tractors were still going past at 10-o-clock last night.

 The chicks have been out of the 'tractor' the last few evenings for a run about and this morning, here's two of the Wyandottes in the sheep's trough. They are all very fond of the sugar beet mixture.

These are some of our Aracanas and the black cross breed Orpington/Wyandottes. There's lots of challenges when they are out in the orchard, ruffs are up and intense staring competitions. The girls seem to ignore all this mostly but there is the occasional rumpus, presumably over who is going to be top hen. Just wait until they really meet the top hen, I don't think Pecky will stand for these little upstarts. The interesting bit will be to who is going to be top Cockerel, one of the Splash Orpingtons, Legless, who is huge already? or Godzilla? or one of the Wyandottes who seems to be in that position already among the babies?

One Crowed!

Not yet 7 weeks old but yesterday morning there was a distinct crow from one of the Chicks!
But which one, there are some likely candidates

Could it be Peanut

 Or the Shadow

Or one of the Wyandottes

Or Bent Beak

Or Mr T