And the 2nd Prize goes to...... Delila

"I've had stern words with Delila" said Linda yesterday after work. "She's not to have her piglets till I'm back on Tuesday!".
Clearly Delila was listening to her every word and is a very obedient sow!
Her pen is alongside one of the chicken pens and every night when I shut them up she comes over for an egg! She was a little slow last night and it did make me wonder, specially since I'd noticed her re-arranging the bedding earlier on in the evening. Anyway, come out she did eventually, chomped her egg and sauntered off back to bed - as usual.
Recounting this little incident to the Big Boss over early morning tea today I did say that it would be amusing if I went out and found piglets! But I didn't really believe it. After all two litters born on Linda's day off would be too much of a coincidence .......
So I went about the morning feed as usual: fed the horses then Andromeda and then Delila, who was running about (albeit a little less vigorously than normal) and moaning about the slow service. As I walked along to the chicken pen beside her Gunner was stood on the path pointing down at the fence. I looked and saw what I thought at first was a rat.... but no.... a rabbit..... but looking closer recognised it as a tiny piglet. Clever Gunner. I'd have walked right past it - after all, it's not what one looks for in the fence.....

I legged it over the gate and across to her Ark - Delila meanwhile still chomping on her breakfast like the starved sow she clearly is (!) - and found a bundle of 8 very healthy warm piglets tucked up in the straw. So I'd guess she did  have them last night --- doubtless she had to contemplate whether she had enough time to come out for her egg first........................... What the story of the little one by the fence is we can only guess. But it was also very wet there - was it first, or last to be born? Only Delila knows......
As for names. The Big Boss suggested that since it was HRH's birthday we should call them House of Windsor and I thought The Royals.... perhaps we'll leave it to Linda to choose!!!

Welcome mini-Merkels

Regular readers will know that we currently have three sows - Delila, Ginger and Mrs Merkel - farrowing within a small timeframe.  We've been watching them closely: "Delila will be first" one day - then "Definitely Merkel" but then "Ginger's lying down a lot" ... We were almost taking bets...
When I looked out of  the bedroom window this morning I couldn't see Mrs Merkel - unusual because she's normally rootling around first thing - "Wouldn't it be funny if Merkel had her piglets today?" I said to the Big Boss as we sat in bed drinking our early morning tea!!!! (Funny only because Linda loves to be here when the piglets are born but the sows try to fool her by farrowing when she's on a 'day off' --- where was she today? Yep: rare Saturday 'off') If anyone was going to be first it had to be a Merkel (well would her namesake ever let anyone beat her?)....  She wasn't out for breakfast which was a dead giveaway...... I went quietly over to have a look and sure enough there she was on her feet with a couple of squiggling things around her. She didn't notice me: I left her to it. Clearly it was too early to pay even a courtesy visit....... when I went back at tea time she was relaxed enough to come out to eat - I don't think she'd realised I'd put her food outside her ark - anyway she came out and ate hungrily which gave me a chance to take some photos ... 6 or 7 healthy squigglies of which 4 are swallowbellies.
Clever Girl and Clever Black Banana - 'specially if the swallowbellies retain their colour...... lots of mini-Merkels --- we'll be having some fun over the next few days giving them a name ---- although, born on Con, our Handymany's birthday we could call them all 'Conmen'!!

Breaking News......

To Mrs Merkel & Black Banana - at the break of a most gloriously sunny Saturday - their first litter.... of 5? or 6? or 7? bouncing squiglets.......
Full details and pictures to follow ....................

More of the same

 Contrary to what we thought last week - nothing has changed! It is still very, very windy and, consequently, very, very dry everywhere.  Andromeda's piglets are ranging further and further afield - sadly they will have to be weaned tomorrow and that will be the end of their adventures...... Jaunty however will be relieved. In the Book, it says to train your puppy in the absence of all distractions... there he was in the midst of a retrieving lesson this afternoon when up trotted 9 little piglets --- hardly "no distractions"!!.  No wonder we're having a few (minor) problems with this particular lesson.......
Meanwhile, the three Ladies in Waiting - Delila, Ginger and Mrs Merkel  - are still keeping us waiting.  "When will the piglets arrive" we are all asking ........ When, indeed... Watch this space.....

Thanks to the dry spell....

Sadly, the dry spell is about to end: for the past three weeks or so things around here have become progressively more bearable. We humans no longer slip and slide or, simply, get stuck in the mud and mire. We can walk about freely without having to scrub our wellies every half hour or so! Linda is down to less than 7 layers of clothing......We are almost clean at the end of a working day!  The chickens are equally relieved;  able at last to bathe in dust - one of their favourite past-times - these bantams, for example, snuggle up to each other and flap their wings to raise dust over each other....

During the dry spell, The Ides of March have become bolder from day to day; it is no surprise now to find them on the bridleway, down the bottom of the Church Field, over by the greenhouse, up around the house ------ anywhere. The fact that there are 9 of them darting to and fro lends all the more humour to their antics..... It is impossible to be in a bad mood when being confronted by a herd of gruntling little swine!

They're into food in a big way now so we can get them to go more or less where we want just by positioning their feed bowls in the appropriate place. In this way in a couple of weeks they will be ready for weaning - they won't even know ... one day they'll be eating their breakfast from their bowl in the barn and one of us will simply shut the door. And that'll be it. Andromeda won't miss them for several hours or maybe not till next day. By then her hormones will be persuading her to think of big boys not little chaps....

Also, thanks to the continued dry spell we finally managed to turn the Hogmaneigh boys out into their pen this afternoon- it was far too deep in mud for them till now. They've been inside for 5 weeks or so and had quite forgotten about 'outdoors'. First thing they had to do though was run across and get acquainted with their cousins in the adjoining pens.There was a bit of a ruccus for a few minutes but peace soon decended and off they went off to explore their new house and, joy of joys, found their feed.....

By the time I went out to shut up the chickens at dusk all the boys were tucked up in their arks - probably having worn themselves out with introductions...... peace and quiet everywhere.
Thanks to the dry spell everything is almost back to normal......   it won't last long though - we have three litters due imminently.... consecutively if not contemporaneously!!!!  Mrs Merkel, Delila and Ginger ----- our diary tells us which order they're supposed to farrow in but their waistlines tell us a different story: -
"Up to 36 piglets running around together" we all decided this afternoon could be beyond enough!!! We put it down to the dry spell.......  it makes everything go a lot faster........ or something.....................

The Understudy on lesson 3..

During the past two weeks, since his 2nd session with Rory-the-trainer, the little would-be delinquent has continued to be the bestest gonna-be-Gunner's understudy. His attention to the whistle is faultless and his willingness to learn second to none. There was just one aberration when he ran out the back door of the barn before I even noticed it was open.... that morning he disappeared for fifteen minutes or more. I had no way of knowing where he'd gone so no point looking for him. Halfway through the breakfast round though I heard a 'new' and frantic bark coming from way off in the distance. The little chap had got himself 'stuck' on the other side of the only boundary fence for miles around. We hadn't yet got to the "Learning to jump over" lesson so he didn't know how to get home. "Help me, Mum!" he kept shouting. Gunner and I went and rescued him. No scolding. He was a sorry little thing. Goodness knows where he'd been on his jaunt but he was grubby and bedraggled and - dare I say it - just a weensy bit frightened! He hasn't done it since: but I've not let him out of my sight again....as Rory-the-trainer said to me last time: "You can't multitask with this chap - you have to keep your eye on him the whole time! (What makes him so smart? Could be 30 year's experience I suppose!).

So at the start of our 3rd Rory-session I reported the good news about his attention to the whistle but confessed we'd not made much progress on the retrieving. He'll pick up everything and, in the house, will give it up to me with no hesitation - outside though he just wants to play so will 'fetch' - and fast -and bring it back towards me, but then he ducks sideways or whips round the back and off again, happily tossing his dummy around in his mouth and up in the air! Rory was unfazed and took us to a small enclosed grass yard where we did a few retrieves and got a few tips - for me not the dog! We'll see how we get on over the next 2 weeks! Till now the dog's been allowed to run in to his retrieves but Rory said he had to 'wait'. "This is new" said Jaunty - and duly obeyed - first time! The 2nd time he tested out his understanding and went to run in but as soon as I pipped the stop whistle, he did! Amazed? Me? Good dog.
"Let's take him to the rabbit pen" said Rory. My heart sank. It's such a testing environment. The pen is about a quarter of an acre of scrub grass, with scattered bundles of brash, sticks and old christmas trees plus a lot of interesting constructions which rabbits like to live in and under. It is stocked with a number of semi wild creatures. One of the biggest sins a gundog can display is 'chasing'. So the point of the rabbit pen is to give the young dog a total aversion to the little beasties...... To start, the dog is on his lead. As soon as a rabbit 'springs' and the dog sees it, his natural instinct is to give 'chase'. The moment the little ears indicate he has seen the rabbit, therefore, the handler severely scolds the dog and jerks the lead. This frightens him. As you can imagine. The idea is to make him associate the fright with sight of the rabbit so that next time he sees a rabbit he says "Oh my dog; it's a rabbit; help me - I don't want to see it!"
We spent about half an hour hunting in the pen: after the first couple of rabbits we let the dog off the lead and off he went hunting under all the piles of brash and 'constructions'. He didn't chase a single thing. He hid behind me twice! "That's great" said Rory. Well, he should know! "We won't need to repeat that anymore" said Rory; "Just make sure you do exactly the same whenever the dog sees a rabbit at home..... in fact, go in search of rabbits later today..! Well, we did -- and did we find any? No, of course not. As any self-respecting spaniel knows, as soon as you go looking for a rabbit there's none to be found - for dinner or good bickies! Clearly the next rabbit the dog sees will take us both totally by surprise and then we'll se who's quickest to react. No- I'm not taking bets, thank you.

Jaunty was full of himself when we came home and insisted on telling Gunner all about it. He was not at all impressed remembering only too well his own visit to the rabbit pen.... "Yawn, yawn" he said "Boring....we'll see how smart you are when the real thing comes along.....". Smart words. Won't we all. Clearly Gunner's not worried about losing his "crown" to the Understudy yetawhile.....................

Going nowhere fast..... yet

Well... a week later and we know we have definitely got 5 male and 4 female Ides of March... and we know they are in no hurry to leave home...... as of this afternoon only one has had the courage to explore beyond the immediate confines of the pen --- but only as far as just beyond the first gate....... they've all started trying to pinch mum's feed though and she's having no truck with that idea .... so maybe tomorrow will be the day.............. for now they're going nowhere fast.....