We have posts here, here and here for the sheep with our final count being each of the four ewes bearing full-grown twin lambs, 3 boy-girl sets and 1 boy-boy set across a 2 week period (August 21, Sept 1, Sept 2, Sept 4). Unfortunately we lost the last boy-girl set post natal.
The rest of the lambs are growing very well and very quickly, huzzah.
It has been a very weird year for the geese. First, Mary decided to nest in a new arrangement which was very conducive to having her nesting materials being eaten by Bernie on a whim. Then Mary went off the lay (possible related) so that we now have Vicki sitting first for the first time. Then when Mary did go to sit she did it in a very on-again, off-again manner, more like Vicki's standard behaviour. Final sitting dates: Vicki 17th Sept and Mary 10th Oct. The long and the short of it is that I have no idea how our clutch will go this year; fingers crossed. Coming due middle of this week to Cup Day.
Bernie was mated early this year and is now expected to be less than 2 weeks off (28 Oct). She is starting to fill up in anticipation. It is very exciting, she has a new small paddock separated from all the other animals and an enlarged byre to take two....aaawwww.
We have had our failures this year concentrated in the last few months with the loss of most of our ducks (7th Sept) and my favourite gander Bertie back in Jan but our most notable was the loss of our entire flock of chickens in early May, all due to fox predation. That disaster coincided happily with a planned chicken auction which was a fascinating experience.
Since then Louie, Billie and Ella have been fabulous. They are healthy, fun birds and quite easily managed. Joy of joys when they started laying in Late August, I decided to pop seven of Billie's eggs into the incubator on the 15th of Sept. On the 7th Oct 6 chicks hatched (over what seemed like an eternity it was actually first pip was early the 6th, last hatch was late on the 7th); the sixth chick did not do very well and died in the incubator and the seventh egg showed no signs of development.
So happily we have five healthy chicks:
Our final animal instalment is another newcomer, please meet Del:
Delwyn is a short-haired border collie x kelpie of a farm in central Vic. She was bought from Pet's Haven on the 9th Sept unexpectedly. She is already made herself quite a member of the family with even the glorious Franklin utterly fascinated. I hope she can be trained to leave the animals alone and help manage the sheep and cows when she is a bit bigger. Currently she can manage "NO" and is working on "Here", "Sit" and her name LOL. She is cutey and she smells like a puppy x.
So although I have touched heavily on things that have been captured previously as far back as a year the culmination is all in the last month and explains some of my sense of crazy busyness.
