Moor sheep

I had quite a cushie day today, a nice change for Saturdays. Apart from feeding the animals at home and cleaning the hen houses, the only thing I had to do was feed the sheep on the moor. I don’t really need to feed them just now, but I do so every Saturday so that a) they don’t go too far out the moor and b) I can check and make sure they’re all ok.

Last week when I went out, I only found 2/3 of them. This week, half of them were waiting at the boundary fence, so I fed them where they were.

As you can see, it was a cracking day here. I also left out a couple of mineral licks for the sheep.

There are some other sheep on the moor but by leaving the licks near the boundary fence, I think only mine will come near the licks.

I carried on out the road and soon found the other half of the sheep. I tooted the horn and they all came running.

These sheep will be out on the moor until we scan them on 12th February. I’ll decide then where they’ll go, but I might leave them out until the end of Feb before taking them home to the croft.

(The one over to the right isn’t my sheep)

Great weather

Another beautiful day here. We’ve had a spell of great weather, considering the time of year. It’s been cold and breezy but clear skies and sunshine can’t be bad. No snow or rain either, despite the weather elsewhere. We even had a wee wildfire in North Dell last night, big patch of grass set alight by ashes – crazy!

Bud and the door

I am in absolute stitches tonight. Bud doesn’t really like the laminate flooring in the kitchen and now he’s decided he has to come through the door backwards because of this – priceless!!

Sunday afternoon walk

It’s a nice day here, cold and crisp. The ground is hard underfoot but the cold wind that we’ve had for last few days has died down. I took Bud for a walk in the croft, but I did so wearing a balaclava and gloves!

One of my favourite meals

I went to my parent’s house for my tea this evening, for one of my favourite meals. Feòil Shailte – salt lamb flank. Salted for a few days and then boiled and eaten with potatoes and turnip. Love it.

A quiet sheep day

I didn’t do much with the sheep today, a nice break from all the work I’ve been doing most Saturdays for the past few months.

I did have to drench the lambs again today. A few of them have the spùt so trying a different drench with them.

Managed to get them cornered with Bud’s help, so I got a couple of hurdles and made a temporary pen. Didn’t take long to drench them.

One of the cheviot lambs has taken to blackening its face – must want to be a Blackface!

That was about that. Fed the 15 sheep at home, as well as the lambs and rams, and took a spin out to the moor to feed the ones out there. I only found about 30 of them so might go out for a walk tomorrow, to see if I can spot the 18 that I’m missing.

A day of chickens

It’s just after 8pm as I write this, and I’ve been asleep for an hour, absolutely shattered after all I’ve done today. Think the hold I have/had took more out of me than I realised!

Instead of working on sheep all day, I caught up on some of the work that needed doing with the chickens.

First up was making a wee henhouse for the chicks. That didn’t take too long.

Next up was sorting out the henhouses. This is something I’ve been meaning to do for a while. I took one of them into the barn for painting over Christmas but that proved to be disastrous. I ended up repainting that one last night and then got cracking again this morning. I managed to get another 2 coats on today. The dry weather and stiff breeze meant that it was easily done outside.

As you can see, I only did the roof. That’s because I was using a tin of Ronseal wood stain and only had a little left after painting another henhouse.

The Ronseal stuff was an awful lot better than the Cuprinol I used on the first one. I also stapled some waterproof rubber to the underside, which should protect it further.

Things are looking up a bit for the hens now!

I fixed the door on the big hen house as well, to make it easier for me to clean it out and collect eggs.

One last thing to do. I don’t normally lock up the hen houses at night, but I did tonight. Last night, over half the hens were in one of the smaller houses, leaving it full of chicken poo and no eggs. I reckon the hens are warmer but they don’t lay as well when packed in like that.

Do tonight, I was stricter. I made sure they were spread out evenly amongst the henhouses, 6 in each.

That’s 17 hens plus one cockerel. It’ll give me an idea which ones are laying as well.

There are another 4 older hens too. I don’t know if they’re laying at all so I’ve put them in with the chicks. Not sure what I’ll do with them. Maybe have to cull them, we’ll see. I’ll give them a chance anyway!

So that’s that. And the chicks are all nice and cosy in their new house too. Think they’ll appreciate it in this cold weather.

Homemade henhouse

The chicks are growing fast now and getting a wee bit too big for the wee run that they’ve been in up till now, so I had to act this morning to put things right. I actually lay in bed worrying about them at 6am this morning!

Here they are before Christmas, sitting on the run that they’ve been using.

I gathered a few scraps of wood in the barn and threw them together. Hey presto:

I found a roll of some rubber like material so I stapled some of that to the underside, to minimise the water absorbed from the ground, and a left over piece of roofing material from when we re-roofed the barn fitted perfectly.

It’s not perfect but it’s a quick fix. It’ll make do until I put everything the way I want it in the summer.

There are 9 chicks left and they’ve been joined by the new cockerel and 4 older hens I want to keep an eye on and work out if they’re still laying eggs.

They’ll be more comfortable in here now. I think it’ll be nice and cosy, especially with the bitterly cold winds we’ve had this week.

Homemade henhouse

The chicks are growing fast now and getting a wee bit too big for the wee run that they’ve been in up till now, so I had to act this morning to put things right. I actually lay in bed worrying about them at 6am this morning!

Here they are before Christmas, sitting on the run that they’ve been using.

I gathered a few scraps of wood in the barn and threw them together. Hey presto:

I found a roll of some rubber like material so I stapled some of that to the underside, to minimise the water absorbed from the ground, and a left over piece of roofing material from when we re-roofed the barn fitted perfectly.

It’s not perfect but it’s a quick fix. It’ll make do until I put everything the way I want it in the summer.

There are 9 chicks left and they’ve been joined by the new cockerel and 4 older hens I want to keep an eye on and work out if they’re still laying eggs.

They’ll be more comfortable in here now. I think it’ll be nice and cosy, especially with the bitterly cold winds we’ve had this week.

Late-night work

I’ve been off work with a cold but I felt a lot better tonight, so after 9pm I went out to the barn to do some odd jobs.

I painted one of the hen houses over the Christmas holidays and took another in for painting last week. I gave it its last coat of paint tonight and it’ll be back with the hens tomorrow.

I also did some prep work for the morning. Planning on building a new hen house for the chicks. I did some sawing tonight and ended up cutting my own finger

I already mentioned that I’d painted one of the hen houses over the holidays but I had problems with it, the paint washing off after one day outside. Seeing as I had the paint out and the brush handy, I decided to give the roof a quick coat at 10pm. Not the most normal thing I’ve done but I’ve done nothing for 2 days so had energy to burn, and there is no rain forecast for 48 hours, so plan on getting a few coats on ASAP.

I had a wee look at the hens too. For some reason, there are at least half of them (11) in the smaller hen house. I’ve just clicked that the larger one is susceptible to drafts when the wind is the direction it is tonight.