Death came a visitin'

Another depressing post about deaths in our small, furry/feathery family.

1 Gerbil, one chick and a quail all died in the space of 12 hours last week.

RIP :(

To market to market to buy a...

Today was school strike day, so Hubby, Small Boy, Small Girl and I went to the market to 'buy a chick or 2 to go with Dinky and Broody Hen'.

On arriving there were only 4 'chick' lots- a mottled pekin and 3 chicks, 4 legbar chicks, something else, and a box full of little tiny black chicks, going 'cheep, cheep, cheep'.

I was prepared to spend up to £20 for some chicks, but ended up buying the box of black chicks for £6.

Now to try and persuade broody hen that they all belong to her...

The only child *I mean chick...*

Of the eggs that we put under Broody Hen, 100% of the fertile ones hatched. Unfortunately, only one was fertile, so Dinky is destined to be an only chick.

Plan is to go to market on Tuesday and try to get a few more babies :)

Day 21- A hatchling!

2 cute pictures :)

We woke up yesterday and I went up to check on all of the animals. I gave a glance into broody hen, and then heard a cheeping sound. We had a chick!

I had a look, and it is a boy, which is ok because we will grow him on and then take him to market. we have named him Dinky.

No other hatches before 6pm last night, but I will go and check soon for any more :)

Broody hen: day 19

Nothing to report yet. Small Boy keeps asking whether the eggs have hatched yet, and then looks sad when I reply in the negative. He then cheers up when Raa raa the noisy lion comes on cbeebies.

Starting to worry that no eggs will hatch- it is a little late in the year and all that. I will feel very sad for Broody Hen if this is the case, she has been so good, sitting there non stop for nearly 3 weeks.

Will update if anything happens.

Ikea hack stack wormery- nearly a year on

 

 

 

I thought it might be helpful to update on how the wormery is doing a year on.

Sorry about the rubbish picture- we are still in moving chaos, hence the wormery, white spirit and bird seed sharing the same space.

The wormery has been a complete success. I worried that the surface area wouldn't be enough, but it has worked brilliantly, making lots of juice and castings, and uses up some of our green waste. I even divided the worms up and gave half away, but there are loads and loads again now.

Plan for the future is to make a larger one for outside with Small Boy and Small Girl- maybe this birthday?!?!

Grumpy bees

Here are my hives yesterday afternoon before I decided to 'have a look inside'.

There isn't a picture of after because I was too busy running down the garden screaming.

Maybe wearing a boiler suit with a gap in the front, hooped veil and using a liquid smoke spray wasn't the dream combination I thought it would be.

I got 2 stings, and think I got off lightly.

Came inside, recovered from the shock, and got straight on to ordering an all in one suit with fencing veil and a stainless steel smoker.

They are not bad bees, I am a bad beekeeper.