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Recent Entries to this Blog
Season Starting 2009 (part II)
Posted: 02 Mar 2009 Posted: 01 Mar 2009 Posted: 25 Feb 2009 Posted: 20 Aug 2008 Posted: 16 Aug 2008 All Entries |
...comings and goings in nature...During the last few days, there has been quite a lot of animal coming-and-going activity here at home and it's 'been emotional'. Flapsy's 63 days gestation was to be up last Sunday but in the event, she went into labour on the friday night and after several hours of 1st stage puffing and panting, she began to birth at 6.45 a.m. on the satarday. I'd sat with her from the start until 6a.m. when I had to get some rest and it was at 6.45a.m. that Himself looked in on her and found her with a puppy, which wasn't breathing. Flaps had cleaned the puppy really well but despite our additional efforts, we weren't able to revive the puppy further and it died. Over the next few hours, four more puppies came: three chocolate and another black: the chocolates all male and the black female, mirroring the colours of the parents and I'm pleased to say that the little family appears to be doing well. This picture shows them today (day 4). [img] 
Flapsy's confinement however, has been an object of interest for another, other than us... To explain... Flapsy never barks a greeting, she never makes a sound unless she sees, smells or senses, a 'foreign' visitor to the premises. On many nights when we've taken both her and Bricky out for last walks, she tears over to a particular corner in the field, or runs along the trees and hedgerows which form a border between us and the field next door...this is a constant and we thought maybe it signified foxes passing by in the night. On satarday, with Flapsy busy and ourselves working mainly outside, we came inside for a hot drink and a sandwich and I thought I heard a commotion with a hen. I queried it with Himself but it had stopped. We were indoors no longer than 20 minutes and when we went out, the first thing we saw was feathers spread all over the middle of the field...my little Cocker-boy's feathers: one of my 2 Orpington cockeral brothers. Here they are together, pictured in happier times... [/img] 
We didn't know how many hens might be missing too, so we herded those we could, back inside to their enclosed run. Generally, they free-range on the field. We've all been very lucky to not have had a fox calling in prior to now - 9 months of hen free-ranging - but it may have been this which limited the numbers of hens taken because when they're on the field, they go into separate little groups of cockeral and hens and thus are not a single target, as they are when enclosed. It seemed that apart from Cocker, we'd lost a white leghorn, a Welsummer hybrid and a little brown Warren hen, which was always to be seen out and about with Cocker-boy. We followed the feathers up to where the fox had come through and it's a well-used situation. I took this picture ages ago, standing with my back to more-or-less the point of entry although of course I didn't know this, then. Talk about a fox's eye view; right down into the hen-run! [img] 
It seems a very great coincidence that up until now and Flapsy's confinement, there has been no apparent fox-activity here; certainly the rabbits haven't been staying away in fear, as evidenced by my veg plot carnage. We noticed on sunday however, that the field, which is generally over-run, was near-empty of 'buns. Last evening, I was up watering the greenhouse when Himself came rushing to say that one of the missing hens, the hybrid Welsummer, had returned from across the field. We were really happy for her and assumed she must have just scattered when foxy struck. We didnt realise just how lucky she really had been up until later that night however, when Himself was walking Flapsy on a lead and saw, just from the corner of his eye, a fox slinking through the hedgerow...a couple of metres from the enclosed hen-run. He let Flapsy go and she tore across to the gap in the hedgerow which the fox had disappeared into but it had gone. I can't wait to have Flapsy up and running again, keeping a guard on the land and the poultry from this and any other predator. I don't know what action we will try to take to deal with this one; it is, after all, normal comings-and-goings in nature...but that don't bring Cocker-boy back, or 'his' girls...[/img] This blog entry has been viewed 420 times
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What a lovely photograph of the new family you have Sharon. The pups all look fit and healthy and Flapsy is every bit the proud mum.
Nice fotos Sharon...but even better was the account of the fox's raid upon your hens.
What a cute new family.
Congratulations on Flopsy's litter, tell her well done and good girl from me! So sorry about your poultry, dratted fox... I hope you'll manage to stop him from catching any more of them. He can go eat the bunnies that invade your kitchen garden instead. Login or register to leave a comment. |
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