Chick Update
The eight eggs you saw in the last blog update have now turned into eight beautifully handsome chicks. Well, sort of anyway. Here's the latest picture of them, they are now 14 days old and their eyes should be open any time now.
This is two of the chicks taken from the side camera, which unfortunately has some cat's fur from the nest cup over the lens making it a bit hazy. Hopefully when the chicks' eyes are open and they move around a bit more they will move the fur.
We're fully expecting all 8 chicks now to survive, as they have had a really good start in life thanks to one of my fellow 'twitchers' who showed me a natty adaption for a feeder which allows only the Blue Tits in. From this, Gina and Gino have been taking meal worms all day long for the chicks, and they have grown at an enormous rate.
We're about halfway through the cycle before they start thinking about leaving the nest box, and when they do I will turn the outside camera on to capture the moment they all fly to freedom. This will be a pretty hairy time for everyone as the Magpies and Crows will get wind of this and want to poke their beaks in.
Judging by the sound of the snoring coming from the sofas, Mim and Motty won't present any sort of threat to the birds when they leave the box.
The hens.
While we have been watching the growth of the Blue Tit's unfortunately one of our hens was decidedly unwell for a few days, so we had to isolate her. Martha had stopped laying, and had developed what looked like a fungal infection at the rear end and after looking up the symptons we gave her rear end an Epsom salt bath, and fed her some mealworms doused in yoghurt. This appeared to be working well, and her comb regained its bright red appearance and she was on song for a few days. Unfortunately when we put her back with the others she started to go down hill again.
So, rather than put the other hens at risk we whisked her off to the vet straight away. The vet was intrigued and could not come up with an answer to what the problem was only that she was quite sore, and to get to the cause of the problem would mean some serious investigation.
The vet allayed our fears as to whether she would infect the rest of the flock, and rather than put Martha through any unnecessary suffering or pulling about, we decided it would be kindest if the vet put her to sleep.
So, now we have only three hens who are still laying, in fact Pixie, the lead hen is laying double yolks every other day.
We have built a new house for them which has given them about four times the amount of room they had previously and they have all taken to it very well. They are also right outside our kitchen window now and not only can we watch them, but they watch us too.
The field next door
Over the past week or so, all the fields surrounding us have been bristling with lush green grass about two feet high. Our neighbor has rented her fields to the local dairy farmer, and this week he came and took his harvest for winter silage.We spent most of the evening last week watching the action in the fields, the first night which was cutting, went on pretty well most of the night.
On day two came some more machinery, which we've called locally, 'The Scatterer', 'The linerupper' and 'The Hoover'.
The Scatterer. This machine went round and round the fields just turning over the cut grass so that it all had a chance to get dried in the sun. This got a little boring to watch, however, we didn't know what was to come later.
The Linerupper. Well, basically this was the same machine with the blades turned at a slightly different angle and the farmer drove it up and down in a line, piling up all the grass he had turned over the previous day into long, neat piles. This is where The Hoover came in.
With a big funnel dropped to the side into the empty lorry, the farmer then drove into the lines of grass and neatly deposited them into the lorry which was travelling alongside The Hoover.. There were three lorries in all, and once each one was full, they took it about 2 miles away to the dairy farm where the farmer would bale it ready for the silage container.
The three lorries all worked in unison, and at no time did The Hoover have to stop what it was doing; as soon as one lorry was full, the next empty one was waiting in line to take over.
We had a very enjoyable couple of hours watching this in the week.
All of this had disturbed thousands of insects, and the air was full of birds picking them off. Later that evening about dusk it was the turn of the bats to come out and feast. We took the bat dectector near the edge of the field and it recognized at least 3 different species of bats.
Badgers and Foxes
It's still been very quiet in the Paddock and the cameras have picked nothing up for a while. Perhaps they have all moved on, we're not sure.
I will put some cameras down in different locations for the next two weeks to see if we can pick them up again.
