the accidental smallholder :: diary

Grass sickness

One of our local RDA branches has lost four horses in one weekend to grass sickness and one of the horses at the yard where I keep Smokey seems to have it too. He's currently at the Dick Vet after being unwell while competing at the Highland Show. I hope he's OK but grass sickness seldom seems to have a happy outcome.

Update 27th June

Following our first strawberries last week, they are now ripening at a rate of knots. In fact, I think the jam pan will be on tonight! The gooseberries are being picked – Dan eats them raw, which gives me the heebie-jeebies. I prefer mine with a nice oaty crumble topping. We’ve had a real problem with sawfly, on both the gooseberries and the red and white currants. These little blighters can strip the leaves off a bush overnight. Sometimes, they can be controlled by hand stripping, but in bad cases, derris does the job.

I’ve bought four bags of calcified seaweed and, now that it’s rained, I’m going to top dress the sweetcorn, which is looking really miserable. I don’t think the bed that it’s in has the best soil, but it will get better as we get more organic matter into it.

The Hubbard chicks doing well – they’re now four weeks old and growing like weeds. Dan gave them a pot of bolted lettuce yesterday – that was great fun. Eat it then dust bathe in the compost.

The broody is still broody. Thursday 2nd July is Day 21 so by next weekend we’ll either have chicks or not. Our Cream Crested Legbar cockerel, Hugo, has settled into his new home and has found his voice – his new owner says it feels like she’s really in the country now.

Lyra seems to have recovered from whatever ailed her. I’m so glad. I feel almost confident enough to splash out £5 to register her. She was playing with Dickie last night which was good to see and was running around just for the fun of it. Then all the sheep joined in – even Juno, who is a little porky, was springing around will all four feet off the ground. You may have felt the tremors as she landed!

The pigs are now 16 weeks and on 12lb of food each day. We need to find a new supplier – our usual one has closed down, unfortunately. Add that to the “to do” list!

We’re expecting two new additions to the family in a few weeks – Harry and Bertie are two 9 week old black kittens, who are going to be our new rodent control, following the demise of Cassius in March. They were going to be called Merry and Pippin - before we had any cats, I wanted two tabby kittens that were going to be called Merry and Pippin after the hobbits in LOTR - but they didn't look like a Merry and a Pippin.

So why Harry and Bertie? Well, I looked at one kitten and the name “Harry” popped into me head, so that was that. We were then persuaded to go along a Harry Potter theme – Bertie has been provisionally Sirius, Dobby, Albus – he is now named after (as all Harry Potter fans will know) Bertie Bott, the maker of the famous All-flavour Beans. We can’t bring them home until they have their second vax, because Felix carries Feline Herpes Virus (cat flu). So 22nd July is the big day - I'm excited a bit anxious about how the dogs and Felix will react but it's too late now.

Goodbye Egypt, hello Greece

We were due to go to Egypt on holiday in October. We'd booked into a plush hotel in Sharm El Sheikh and were looking forward to a week of pampering, sun, sea and good food.

Then the Egyptian government responded to the outbreak of H1N1 in the worst possible way, ordering the completely unnecessary destruction of over 300,000 pigs, and carried it out in the worst possible away, inflicting unbelievable suffering on these animals.

So we cancelled our holiday to Egypt, rebooked for Kefalonia, and donated some of the money we saved to Compassion in World Farming who are presuring the Egyptian government to introduce animal welfare legislation.

I've written more about this over on my other blog, which includes some video of the barbaric cull.

If you feel strongly about this please visit the Compassion in World Farming website, and read about their campaign.

Update w/e 20th June

We’ve had another good growing week and the weeds are coming on a treat. We’ve had our first strawberries, though, which is very nice indeed. The gooseberries are also coming on well and the biggest are now ready for picking. The peas and broad beans are podding but the beans are still very small. I must try and find a good recipe for broad beans to get Dan to eat them - he suggested wrapping them in bacon and / or deep frying.

The Hubbard chicks are now outdoors. They seem to like the grass under their feet and are happily pecking away. The soil tray is still favourite entertainment though. I've topped up their mencore bed with straw - I do worry if it's a bit chilly. A further five have gone to a friend, leaving us with eight, as we had a dead one this week. I think it may have been trampled by the others as they have all been very healthy.

The broody is still, well, broody. Our Cream Crested Legbar cockerel, Hugo, is going to a new home where he will be the only cockerel. Here, he’s very much second fiddle to Hector, our Copper Black Maran (who’s about twice the size of Hugo) and I feel a bit sorry for him. So he’s off to pastures new with a nice wee flock of Black Rock virgins, where he can show off his prowess!

Last week, I was hoping that Lyra wouldn’t have a relapse, after her joint-ill episode. Well, she did. On Monday morning, Dan came in and said she was really unwell. I had a look and had to agree – although her legs seemed fine, she was clearly sick. She wouldn’t move unless forced to and seemed to be in pain around her abdomen. Off we went to the vet again, this time for intravenous painkiller and anti-inflammatory and more antibiotics. Again, the vet wasn’t entirely sure what the problem was, but he was clearly worried. And one again, she’s better – she’s had five days of an eight day course of antibiotics and she seems recovered. She’s grazing now and is hard to catch, which I’m viewing as positive. This time, I hope she really is out of the woods.

The pigs have been reintroduced to their snak-a-ball and love it. Apparently, the ball was invented for pigs at Easter Howgate (part of the University of Edinburgh) as a way of enriching the environment, was adopted for horses and now we’ve claimed it back for pigglies. It’s a great way to keep them amused and active. The pigs are looking nice and trim this year. Actually, the ball is a great way to distract them when they squeal for food when it’s not feeding time.

We took delivery of our calcified seaweed this week so I‘ll have to sort out the application. We put “new” horse poo on the garden last year and, in retrospect, I don’t think it was a good idea, so we’ve established a muck heap, where it can rot down. The hardest bit is keeping the hens out of the beds. Our raised beds of 8 years ago are now level with the path, because the hens have scraped so much soil over the side. Next time, it will be a 6 foot fence round the vegetable garden!

Update w/e 13th June

We’ve had the most fabulous growing week – warm and sunny, with some decent showers of rain. Dan's been busy in the garden, potting on and planting out. Weeding should be a daily task at the moment as they seem to grow faster than the plants. Tomatoes, peppers and cumcumber have been potted on and more herbs and salad sown. The purple sprouting broccoli is coming slowly; we don't need many - we haven't got room for many, to be honest. They weren't on "the plan" you see.

We have a climbing hydrangea on the north side of the house. It's been in for a few years now but it's never flowered as well as this year. This morning, it was moving with bees, which was really nice to see. The warm weather has also brought on the honeysuckle by the back door; the scent from it stopped me in my tracks yesterday evening. Sometimes, we're so busy that we don't appreciate these things.

The Hubbard chicks are starting to get their feathers, so the heat lamp is now turned off during the day and on at night. By next week, if the weather is good, I hope to have them off heat and outside. They have a and "enriched" environment with a straw bedded run, with ad lib chick crumbs and fresh water. Now that they are a bit bigger, they have their soil tray and this week, hanging greens. So far, they have had comfrey leaves and some spare cabbage plants – hung up at beak height (not on the floor where they will simply trample them into a green mush), the chicks spend ages pecking away at them. Good food, exercise AND entertainment all in one!

Hubbard chicks getting their greens from asmallholder on Vimeo.

I’ve seen Foxy again – looks like a vixen or youngster to me – but we’ve had no losses this week. Last week’s sick hen has now fully recovered; she’s not laying yet, but she’s otherwise back to normal. We have a broody Black Rock; I’m not convinced either of our cockerels are “working” so I’ve got some pure Light Sussex and some Light Sussex x ex battery hens eggs from a friend to put under her. She’s VERY happy in her broody coop. I make her go out for a few minutes three times a day to eat, drink and poop, but she’s always desperate to get back to her eggs again.

The sheep have not only been wormed, but sheared as well. They do look much happier, although I find it hard to tell them apart. Their fleeces are different colours but their skins are all black, so they much more alike now. Even their lambs didn’t recognize them! Things went from bad to worse with Lyra; by Tuesday, she couldn’t bend her back legs and was very stiff. The vet thought she had some kind of joint-ill and gave her a cocktail of antibiotics. By Friday, she was much better and got another shot then. She’s much better but not 100% so we’ll keep our fingers crossed for no relapse.

The pigs are spending a fair bit of time wallowing – all three are covered in mud and from the contented grunting, I think they are really enjoying it. Bananas and boiled potatoes are the trat of choice - our choice not theirs!

Unlike last week, Stirling Show had a lovely day yesterday. I didn’t manage along as the Smallholders Association had a grassland management course running through Oatridge College. It was very interesting and gave those who attended lots of food for thought. Grass is such an undervalued crop – sometimes it seems to be more bother than it’s worth – but it’s a very valuable crop for Scotland. The lecturer was able to give me some helpful pointers for our small area of grass – if you are very lucky, I will pass them on to you over the next few weeks and let you know if our grass is growing better.

Update w/e 6th June

Well, we’ve sure had the rain I was wishing for last week. The vegetable garden is now growing away nicely. The “plan” has been amended to include purple sprouting broccoli and kale. Normally, we don’t grow this because our fleece arrangement doesn’t cover it properly but our new hoops should be high enough to accommodate the plants.

The direct sown runner beans are through the ground and all the peas are showing – two more rows to sow this weekend, then we can stand back and wait for the harvest. And the weeds.

The Hubbard chicks are doing well. We lost one in the first few days – it looked like it had been squashed by the others, which is not something we’ve experienced before. They are still inside but they have a run with straw and tray of soil to scratch around in and a box to climb over. I put the box of soil in yesterday and last night they all had dirty feet. I hung some comfrey leaves as well, but they don't seem very interested in them - maybe too young.

Unfortunately, we had a visit from the fox this week. Dan caught the fox with a Black Rock in its mouth; surprised, it dropped the hen, which ran away, but we found it dead the following day, from shock, I expect. We found one dead Legbar, but a headcount revealed that a second Legbar and four more Black Rocks had been taken. These were all young, inexperienced hens and would have been an easy meal for Reynard.

I have a sick hen today. She’s a Copper Black Maran, and quite young. She’s not displaying any real symptoms apart from being generally unwell. I’ve got an antibiotic from the vet, so I hope that works quickly. She’s not eating and only drinking her water (laced with garlic) if encouraged to. I hope she survives, but I’m not very hopeful.

The sheep are being wormed this week. I’ll do another worm test to see if it works. If not, I’ll have to use a chemical wormer. One of the lambs is poorly – we’re doing our own version of “Animal Hospital” here – and has antibiotics. It’s Lyra, of course, our only ewe lamb. She's scouring a bit and has a watery mouth, so it will be some kind of stomach bug. She’s a big strong lamb, though, so hopefully she’ll put in a good recovery. The shearer is coming next week, weather permitting, so the ewes will be better able to cope with the predicted hot summer.

There was no heat at Central and West Fife Show on Saturday. Central Scotland Smallholders Association www.smallholders.info had a stand at the show to publicise the work of the Association and to attract new members. It was so cold; the rain was horizontal at times; keeping our gazebo on the ground was our main concern most of the time, because of the strength of the wind. We’re at Doune and Dunblane Show on 4th July if anyone wants to swing by and say hello. Hopefully, the long, hot summer will have started by then!

Update w/e 31st May

Well, summer seems to be here at last – even if only for a few days. Actually, I hate to say it, but we could really do with some rain.

In the vegetable garden, we’ve been mostly weeding. The broad beans are doing well and the peas are coming away. The runner beans that were started in the greenhouse are already shimmying up the canes but the direct sown ones have yet to make an appearance. Our gooseberries and redcurrant have fallen victim to sawfly and had a spray of derris. The redcurrant has almost no leaves left – and that happened almost overnight. Still, it has set plenty fruit, as have the gooseberries.

I picked up our Hubbard meat chicks on Saturday from Jamesfield Organic Centre near Abernethy. It’s the first time I’ve been there and I was sorry I hadn’t taken any cash. The centre sells all manner of organic produce in a purpose built shop. Much of what it sells is grown on the land around it and the folk I was buying the chicks from also produce ducks, guinea fowl, turkeys and geese fro meat plus organic eggs. I’m going to buy some point of lay pullets there next time I need some.

We’re keeping 10 Hubbards this time. They will be ready for slaughter at about 10 - 12 weeks. I’m going to “dilute” the pellets with mixed corn this time to try to slow the growth down a bit. It’s hard to believe when that these tiny bundles of fluff will be fully grown in a few weeks. They will have a heat lamp until they are feathered at three weeks or so, but I switched it off for a while this afternoon as they were all sunbathing.

The pigs moved into their second pen today to let the first one recover a bit. The grass in the new pen is so long, sometimes all we can see is moving stems to show where the pigs are. However, they will soon eat it down.

The sheep are on the third quarter of the field. The first quarter is starting to recover – but a bit of rain would certainly help. The worm test that we did last week came back as “medium” so I’ll worm them with Verm X this week then retest to check that it is working. They are feeling the heat and the new shed has been a Godsend, allowing them to lie in shade at the middle of the day. They will get such a shock when their fleeces come of at the end of the month.

Update w/e 24th May

Deep joy! I’ve been collecting poo samples from the sheep so that we can have worm egg counts done. I'm just a glorified toilet attendant and there's some debate about the "glorified" bit.

We don’t have a lot of land and four ewes will be about our maximum. It also means we have to manage what grazing we have. It was stressing me a bit but I now have a grazing plan that, if it works in practice, should allow each parcel of land to rest and recover for 6 months of the year.

I had to buy sheep tags for the first time this week. Not looking forward to the application - I remember what it was like getting my ears pierced.

Li’l’ Bud and Dickie got their first injection of Heptavac P Plus this week; a second will be administered in six weeks. It’s then an annual booster, if they are still around. Next sheep tasks are applying the tags; registering the two lambs we are retaining and organizing shearing.

We’ve also been busy in the vegetable garden. All the beans that we started in the greenhouse – broad beans, runner beans and dwarf French beans – plus the peas, have been planted out. The cabbages and sweetcorn aren’t quite ready. The Czar runner beans came to naught, despite two sowings, so I've direct sown more "White Lady". If they can avoid the weevils, they should be OK.

Last lamb

I thought I had put this up - wrote it ages ago, well, mid May given the content!

Jura lambed last night - a ewe lamb that has been named Lyra. Both mother and daughter seem to be doing fine. I'll tail her in the morning, then she can get out in the afternoon if it's fine. I hope Li'l' Bud and Dickie don't bully her, as she's very small in comparison to those two thugs.

It looks like Li'l' Bud has a future as a breeding ram; Lyra will be retained in our flock; Dickie, however, has a less long-term future i.e. the freezer. I was concerned about him being the only one going to the abattoir so I've arranged with my chum, who also has Ryelands, that when we wean them, Dickie will go and run with her ram lambs until they all go for slaughter. It's not a happy thought, as I'm quite attached to them, but it's most humane solution I can come up with in the circumstances.

I've ordered ear tags, so I'll get that done shortly and then I'll register them, all things being equal. The first Rosedean lambs!

Update w/e 17th May

Well, the changeable weather has persisted this week but in the garden, things are growing – especially the weeds. Dan’s dad has put new nets over the brassica bed so we’ll be able to get our cabbages out this week. I've gone mad with about 4 varieties plus calabrese and three varieties of purple sprouting broccoli. The broad beans look well but I’ve sown some poached egg plant to help deter black fly. In the greenhouse, the sweetcorn is almost ready to go out as are the runner beans “White Lady”. The runner beans Czar have failed completely so I’ve resown them, as a second batch.

The main feature this week, though, has been our visit to the Smallholder and Garden Festival at the Royal Welsh Showground at Builth Wells. With a group of friends from Central Scotland Smallholders’ Association www.smallholders.info, we traveled down to Wales on Friday for the two day show. I’m a regular at some of the local agricultural shows and, of course, the Royal Highland Show, but this was better, much better. The Highland is geared towards the big farmer; this weekend’s event is for folk like us with a few livestock and small acreage. For the first time, having three sheep was normal!

As well as showing classes for sheep, pigs, poultry, rabbits and hamsters (?), there were trade stands selling not £500,000 combine harvesters, but incubators and poultry “stuff”, books, craft materials (I bought a peg loom, so watch this space!), local food and crafts.

There was an auction of vintage farm equipment - another man’s junk etc etc – where I hankered after horse-drawn potato harrows that really only needed a wee coat of paint to make them like new. There was loads of stuff completely unrecognisable to us including two “Wufflers”, which we worked out were for “wuffling” the hay to help it dry. If we’re wrong, I’m sure someone will let us know! We were intrigued to see that the folk next to us on the campsite had bought a two furrow plough and had somehow managed to get it on the roof of their Nissan X Trail for the journey home!

The best thing about the show, though, was the people. Everyone on the stands was happy to chat with us and discuss their livestock or their food or craft and to offer help and advice. I wish we had taken the two days as there is too much to see in one but we’re already planning a return visit next year – so maybe see you there!