Of course Ian’s birthday present is not an ostrich. However I shall take it that he was dropping a veiled hint and will keep a look out for ostrich eggs on ebay.
His birthday present is Hadrian, the angora billy goat. He arrived on Sunday, originally we were going to call him Atilla, (following the Genghis theme) then realised that Atilla the Bun would be much funnier than Attila the Angora Goat, and to mark the fact that Hadrian would once have marched across our fields, Hadrian it is.
Last year, you may remember that Ians birthday present (sheep) escaped and we had to gather them back in.
This year Hadrian decided to try to escape with potentially serious consequences. He was in the small paddock by the lean to bar, with the other goats so they could get to know each other, and also so that he didn’t disappear off into the distance. Some of the angoras had broken out (or Mavis and Gordis might have broken in letting the angoras out) and Hadrian, not liking being on his own had tried to climb over the fence. We have no idea what happened next, but he had gone over the fence but got three of his legs tangled in the wire and was hanging like this. Where he had gone over the wire had twisted round his hooves. Luckily we were not far away and Ian untangled one leg and we had to cut the wire on the rest to get him out. He was obviously shocked and we put him into a stable with a couple of angoras to keep in company. We have let him out this morning as we didn’t want to keep them locked in more than we had to, and he limped a bit on one leg, but other than that doesn’t seem to traumatised by his experience. He is out nibbling the thistle tops with the others, so hopefully he’ll just spend to day not trying to go too far.
Crumpet still won’t let us near her babies. So we have no idea how many or what they look like. But I guess it is still going to be the jelly bean stage. I know that something is alive as I can just make out movement in the nest. We will need to do a proper check soon to make sure everything is OK in there. It is just a case of plucking up the courage…
Our buff sussex who had been sat on silkie eggs for the last 20 days was up off the nest this morning and the eggs were cold. The eggs should be hatching tomorrow so I have popped them into the incubator, however I don’t hold out much hope as they should obviously not be cold. We put the box with the buff in outside the front of the house and she legged if off to see the others, so no idea why she suddenly decided not to be broody anymore. Very frustrating. These were our own silkie eggs so at least I hadn’t spent money on them, but it is disappointing all the same. I will candle them tonight to see if I can see any movement.
Little Sheep appeared to be getting restless too. She is on four of her own eggs so we’ll see what happens.
And last night we took another broody out of the chicken shed as the others seem to be laying eggs in her nest when she is away from it and then she sits back down again on an ever growing pile of eggs. We left her on 8 and I popped the rest in the incubator. I candled these first and saw something in each which hopefully means that they may hatch.
We’ve had no eggs for a couple of days now, which is partly explained by the number of broodys that we have (they don’t lay when they are broody), but I have a sneaky suspicion that they are laying else where. The silkies have been laying under the shed, but seem to have stopped.
Today is day 19 for our quail eggs. One is pipping so fingers crossed there will be a quail chick later.