I can’t believe that it has only been a month since my last blog as so much has happened.
Using some of the scrap wood from around the place we have
constructed a raised bed. It was filled with soil from around the garden and
then filled with some of the many onions waiting to be planted out. This is
part of my cunning plan to confuse the rabbits by masking the smell of other
plants with a ring of onions. We aren’t really expecting many rabbits in the
polytunnel but as the weather warms up, the huge sliding end doors seem to be
more open than closed and it would only take one opportunist rabbit to
devastate all our hard work. We have since added tomato plants, beetroot,
radishes and spring onions to the bed. But of course, once you start planting
things you need to start watering them too. We always had planned to have water
in the polytunnel so that seemed to be the obvious next job to do.
The First Tunnel polytunnel came with an overhead spray
water system which is fed by the mains. This is a necessity as we need good
water pressure to achieve a good spray coverage. Pipes run along both side via
the cropping bars and each quarter has an isolation valve to control which
areas receive water. So we fitted the sprayers over our new raised bed. This is
when we found the spray shadow is rather bigger than the bed and very quickly
pots and containers populated the area in the middle of the tunnel. Two more raised beds have been created from some very nice wood purchased for the job but we now have the problem of finding enough soil/compost to fill them with.
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| Light Sussex and one Legbar egg |
Now I don’t really think we can call ourselves smallholders
without livestock. We have had chickens for seven years now but were looking to
expand our flock. I was fortunate to receive an incubator for my birthday in
March and the very next day it was filled with some fertilised eggs which we
sent for in the post. I fancied Light Sussex hens so six were duly deposited
into the incubator along with a blue Legbar egg from our girls, fertilised by
Henry the cockerel. We waited, we candled and after 21 days three of the seven
eggs including the blue egg hatched out. One of the fabulous things about Light
Sussex is that they are auto sexing which means you can tell what has hatched
out by the chickens colouring.
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| Chicks in the brooder |
We had another two cockerels. More excitingly, you can do the same with Legbars and the blue egg had produced a hen, which we have called Henrietta. After a brief spell in the incubator, they were moved to the brooding cage which we created from a dog crate placed in one of the spare bedrooms. They have now moved onto outside in one of our spare chicken runs and are big and very white.
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| Lambs in a dog crate |
Around the same time, we had an exciting email from the
Essex Smallholders Group that Kit Speakman would have some orphaned easy care
lambs up for grabs. Now this was an opportunity too good to miss. I phone Kit
and placed an order for three lambs. I also ordered bottles and ewe replacement
milk to arrive all in good time. It was around the Easter weekend but the postal service let us down
horrendously with the delivery of the order for lamb care items. Kit was very
understanding but we came to a decision that we would drive to find the
necessary items for sale and then pick up our lambs. This all happened in a bit
of a blur and we were suddenly in charge of three lambs!
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| Lambs enjoying some company outside |
Memories of bottle feeding babies came flooding back with
Kit’s words still echoing in my ears that you don’t need to feed them at night
as you could get them into the habit of expecting a night feed. It also soon
became clear that I couldn’t feed three by myself and the family were recruited
as extra hands when it came to feeding times. We collected them and then
subsequently kept the lambs in yet another dog crate (very useful things) until
it became clear that these lambs were growing fast. I purchased a heat lamb in
case we needed it but also purchased an indoor sheep pen from Solar
Recyclables. This is a clip together pen made from recycled plastic. It came
with a heat lamb fixing and it all very cleanable. Superb! The lambs were moved
from the crate to the pen and seem much happier. It also soon became clear that
we were going to need straw, lots of straw. Luckily the homestead already
receives a hay delivery from a local supplier and an order was placed for
twenty bales of straw. Sorted!!
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| Ronnie the lamb meeting Petra the cat |
All of this seems ages ago now. The lambs have consumed 20kg
of ewe milk replacement. They are too heavy to carry around and are walked to their outside space using dog harnesses and leads. I think we may have found the new sport of lamb racing!Their tails have fallen off and testicles have been
found dotted around the place. We have created a safe enclosure for them
outside and they are now spending hours outside although they haven’t managed
over night yet. We recently discovered that at night we have a predator
entering our land. The hen house took an attack which resulted in two dead
hens. The back door of the house had been ripped from its hinges and bits of
bluebell were left strewn around the area. One of the legbars was completely
gone. We would like to think that Henry the cockerel was on hand to fend off
any further attacks but on further investigation, our attacker was most
definitely a badger who only attacked hen houses for food. The bluebell had
been partially eaten and he had taken the legbar for his young. It’s all part of
the circle of life etc, but still annoying. The hen house was duly fortified
and the electric fence, which was in place, is now fully operational. All this said, I am reluctant to leave the lambs
outside until they can defend themselves.
