Who says dogs can't talk

"....And there goes another bird......"

Sometimes people ask me why I go bushbeating in all weather. Waterproof, windproof, brambleproof gear and wellies is hardly the height of sartorial fashion. There have been days when the weather's been really awful - pouring with rain, blowing an icy gale, or blizzarding with snow. But they have been very few and far between.
Many days we have brilliant sunshine, clear blue sky and just a hint of cool in the air. Ideal for a long walk in the countryside with the dog.
And the dog loves it. From the moment we leave the house in the morning he is 'in the zone'; his whole being focused on his 'work'. He knows his job so well I could probably drop him off at the shoot in the morning and collect him again at the end of the day. In fact, there are days when he clearly thinks that too!

"...I'm not taking my eyes off that one either....."

He watches every single bird ....
We were out the other day and one of  our 'beats' was along the bramble-thick edge of a large wood. We had a 'gun' about 200yds to our right - in position for any birds that might fly out the side.
Gunner spotted him as we lined up.
He spent the entire drive flushing birds out of the briars and then running to the outside of the wood where he would stop and stare intently at the gun. If the shot reached its target, off charged Gunner full pelt to fetch the bird, returning as quick as his legs would carry him: quickly he'd deposit the body in my hands and dash back into the depths of the briar filled woods again. Within a short spell the scene would be repeated. On those occasions (and there were several) when the gun was unable to connect Gunner would stop dead when the bird failed to drop from the sky and stare at the offending person:
His every fibre seemed to say:
    "What? You missed? But I just found and flushed that bird out for you!"
After a few seconds he'd turn abruptly and rush, hell for leather, back into the woods to find another bird.
This little bit of theatre repeated itself until, by the end of the drive, the gun had shot - and Gunner had retrieved - 5 birds.

"There's a man with a gun over there"

    "It's a real treat to have my own picking-up dog!" said the Charming Gentleman after the horn had blown  and we walked, birds in hand, towards his colleagues.
If he'd had his own dog by his side, of course, he would have had a very different attitude!

At the  beginning of this season I would joke that Gunner was auditioning for the role of 'picking-up' dog but I no longer joke! In fact I believe he thinks that I am at my most delighted when he is filling my hands with shot birds and that it is up to him to bring me as many as possible.
 "Here you are Mum, you just grab this while I hurry off and find you another" he seems to say.
And that's really why I go out bushbeating regardless of the weather: the joy of watching the dog do what he so clearly says he loves doing most it beyond measure.
If he could  talk he'd say:
                                 "Just trying to keep you happy mum".....................

Compare and contrast

What's that over there?

 Six years ago this blog reported on Gunner's progress from would-be bestestgundog to proven bestestgundog. In his first season - 2009/10 - he had already worked 13 days by the third week of November. Bugler, who started work at the same age as his day has, by contrast,  just completed his 4th working day (Gunner having done 18 so far). That's the advantage of having two dogs to take to work!
By 21 November 2008, Gunner's 13th working day, his tail (which regular readers will know had not been docked as a pup) was so torn and sore that he refused to work after mid-morning and I brought him home in the lunch break. He didn't work again until several weeks later having had his tail amputated on 5th December.

"The proof of the pudding... "

The Bestestgundog waiting for the drive to start..

So - the decision was made: Bugler would start his working life on Wednesday 12 November at Baumber shoot. But "How?" was the question. It was not an easy decision to make. Seven years of setting off to bushbeat with Gunner was not a habit to be broken easily.  He knows from the moment I get up on a shoot day that we are going; watches me make the pack-up (his too) and follows me when I put everything we need in 'the bag' then shadows me whilst I do the jobs that need doing before we leave - leaps into the car as soon as I open the door and settles down peacefully to wait till we 'get there' - when he permits himself a little squeak of anticipation.
As ever, the Big Boss came up with a solution. "If you don't want to upset Gunner and you only want to test Bugler out on a few drives, why not take Gunner for the morning, bring him home at lunch-time and feed him and then take Bugler for the afternoon?"  So sensible. After all, Gunner is used to staying indoors while I exercise the Understudies and perhaps he would accept that a short day's work was nothing out-of-the-ordinary - especially if lunch was served!
Well; the trick worked. Whilst Gunner was preoccupied with his chicken dinner I fetched Bugler and off we went! It was later reported that he slept all afternoon............

Bugler waiting for the first drive on his first 'day'

The shoot I'd chosen for Bugler to start on is a 'small', well run, compact affair with ideal 'cover' and terrain to allow the dog to be seen at all times (assuming he stays on his 'beat' that is!!!). From the moment his feet touched the ground Bugler sensed something different from his normal training run was going on.  For a start, there were other people walking with us. That's never happened before.  He looked at them as if asking why they were there! Trembling with excitement he nonetheless remained totally on command and whistle when the drive was on: OK - he did stretch the distance on  his quartering but only due to the speed he was travelling! He flushed a rabbit and stood back in amazement - giving me time to 'turn' him with the whistle. He flushed the first bird without noticing it was due to his efforts that the pheasant flew out of the cover. Another flush a few moments later and I could almost hear the penny clang! His nose - and his paws - went into overdrive and I had to concentrate really hard on his every move to contain his enthusiasm for the rest of the drive. He climbed back in the beater's wagon with only half the hesitation he showed first time in and settled down spending the journey inquisitively glancing at his fellow travellers.
The next two drives passed in a flash; he didn't put a paw wrong. He's never heard gunshot before and the surprise made him instantly sit down and look at me! I could have kissed him! Such a natural. When I cracked my flag he immediately came to my side and looked at me - another natural reaction. I could not have trained that into him!
Since he was born I'd hoped that the 'son of Gunner' would be a chip off the old block - and last Wednesday afternoon he proved that he is - with bells on!!!!!

"Are we off again?"

"The young dog done good" our 'beat captain' said at the end of the afternoon.
Compliment indeed.
All those hours of training and the sleepless hours of wondering if he'd come good melted away.
Son of a Gunner proved worth the wait......
I drove home quietly elated. The boy slept all the way!

Waiting in the wings.....

Gunner's just over a month into his 7th bushbeating season and enjoying every minute of it. However, the effort he puts in takes a greater toll on his limbs than either of us wants to admit. The past 5 weeks have provided a relatively gentle lead-in. From now on though the 'work days' come thick and fast; some weeks we have 5 days booked. I'm not entirely sure that the human side of the team can cope with that (!)but I'm certain it would be too much for the 'faithful friend'. He would obviously disagree..... Being a typical spaniel, he would work all day every day regardless of aches and pains.......

But we have a remedy: waiting in the wings are the Understudies.

 Understudy #1, Jaunty (AKA "The Norty") was picked for the job over two years ago. I did a lot of research into finding "the right pup": Talked to a number of 'experts' about what to look for: Found a litter: Made three visits and still agonised over the final selection. He's well named: Jaunty by name and by nature - an irresistably lovable dog. But is he ever going to be a trustworthy working companion? He's intelligent, quick to learn, hugely enthusiastic - and a real trial to train. He's tested my patience and my resolution every step of the way. Fortunately, a bushbeating colleague told me the tale of how one of his best dogs was 2 years old before the penny dropped. I've carried that in my mind throughout Jaunty's education! Now he's turned two and the Norty is the "Not-so-Norty" and I'm entertaining the notion that he could be a very good Picking-up dog. He is tireless, resilient, boundlessly energetic and beautiful to watch. His occasional hunger to see what the rest of the world has to offer suggests that bush-beating would not be his metier!  However, he's still very much a play-dog and approaches life as a wonderful game so I think it will be next Season before he joins 'team Gunner' in the Field!

Understudy #2 is Gunner's boy Bugler. If ever a dog was bred for the job this one was. I had always hoped that Gunner's offspring would carry his good traits and this chap certainly does that in buckets. What he has uniquely though is a built in turbo which charges all those traits. Gunner was happy to learn; Bugler is a sponge. Gunner is steady: Bugler is steady-on-speed; Gunner hunts with enthusiasm; Bugler hunts as if his life depends on it. In contrast to Jaunty, Bugler has been a pleasure to train. He's absorbed and remembered every lesson - his main drawback has been having a handler who doesn't think quite as quickly as he does!

So the decision has been made. The #2 will supercede the #1 and join his dad at work this season. Interestingly he's the same age his dad was when he first started work! The plan is that he will work the alternate days when Gunner is booked for a string of consecutive dates. It's not quite so straightforward because he needs to start on small, well contained shoots. He's such a livewire that he could easily pop his cork and go wrong - wasting all the training. 

His first day will be Wednesday 12 November. It's a shoot that Rory-the-Trainer attends so it it all goes belly-up I'll have someone to hold my hand!

We'll see how we get on and take it from there.

Leaving Mum

"Hello little ones, I'm your mummy" Andromeda 15.8.14

Andromeda gathering nesting materials

Mangalitza sows make excellent mothers. They carry their piglets for 3 months, 3 weeks and 3 days.
When it comes to "the due date" they gather nesting materials - sticks and batches of leaves mainly - disappear into the ark, rearrange the bedding and quietly give birth to their litter with no help from us... in fact, they'll invariably pick a time when we're not around.
They quickly train the little ones to pile up in a corner - a useful lesson for whenever mum needs to move around or go out to eat - or humans want to 'peep inside'. For the first week or so our sightings of the piglets are restricted to various combinations of tumbling bodies - they may pile up, but they are rarely still - jostling for the snuggest space (usually somewhere under everyone else!).
After a week or so they are strong enough to snuffle and scamper around inside the ark; soon after they get inquisitive about what's through the hole.....

Andromeda's 'Humbugs' at 9 days old

If it's winter it could be three weeks or more before they pluck up the courage to venture out but in the summer it can be as little as 6 or 7 days. From the mud on their noses, it's easy to tell that these little guys had already been outside rootling about! They may seem small, but they are already capable of tossing a brick up in the air! 

"Come back in - time for a drink"

Andromeda's very watchful of her little ones. She's happy to let them scamper about all over the place but regularly checks on them and calls them back indoors when it's time for sustenance. As the days pass and the piglets grow stronger, their curiousity takes them further and further away from Mum. In no time they start calling on the aunts and uncles - the Humbugs thought nothing of borrowing some relative's ark to snooze in.  Perhaps Andromeda snored and kept them awake?
By the time they are three or so weeks old, Mum's milk on it's own is not enough to sustain their growing appetites.  As soon as we notice them sharing mum's food we start leaving a bowl of food close enough to their pen for them to find but not so close that Mum is tempted by it. As their appetites grow, so does their courage.
As the days go by, we move the bowl further and further away - and closer and closer to the Old Coach House. Their travels take them everywhere - round the pens, down the fields, up the drive, along the bridleway - if we had £1 for every time somebody said:
"Did you know  your piglets are........" we'd be rich. We recently had the hedges cut. Coming home at lunchtime, one of the workmen came rushing to meet me saying some piglets had been running loose but not to worry, he'd shut them in the barn!  I thanked him - then opened the door and let them run free again!
By 5 or 6 weeks of age the piglets are scampering up to the old stalls in the Coach House two or three times a day - the running around makes them hungry but it also builds up their skeleton and makes for good healthy bodies.
At 7 weeks it is not unusual for us to find them waiting for breakfast outside the back door first thing in the morning, having already scoured the garden and orchard for anything else that might be remotely edible........ By now they are spending hours away from mum, often sleeping on their own in a 'favourite spot'. Mum never worries because she knows they'll eventually come home for a drink.

10th September and the piglets are off adventuring

They follow us anywhere and everywhere because they know we feed them. That doesn't stop them turning on their heels and tumbling off if we do something unexpected or sudden! Every now and then one of them will 'lose' his mates and trot hurriedly around, squealing plaintiffly till all are reunited..... or they'll suddenly 'en masse' rush around a corner and bump into a human, turn on their heels in shock and dash uncontrollably in the opposite direction. Never ceases to make us smile!

"You looking at me?" Andromeda 22.10.14

All too soon though they are old enough to leave mum. And by now, she is losing patience with them - not letting them eat her food is always a sign that she's had enough.
So, one day, when the little ones are tucking into their food in the Old Stalls we simply shut the door.
And they are weaned.
No fuss. No stress. No noise.
Strangely enough, no piglets have ever fussed at this process. They all seem to accept that the time for running around as they please is over and it's time to start growing up. Of course, ad lib food helps. They spend the next two or three, sometimes four weeks inside so we can check they are all OK and eating properly. They get plenty of food and rest which builds them up for the next stage when they have to go outside and 'take care' of themselves.
Mum meanwhile might make a bit of fuss the first night when the piglets don't come home but by the next morning it's almost as though they never existed. She's relaxed and gets on with life.
Andromeda did make a bit of fuss this morning but I gave her a chunk of hay to chew and next time I looked she'd settle down on it and was quite comfy.
This all contrasts hugely with the way we weaned piglets when we first started out. Firstly, we'd try everything to keep them in with mum till 7 weeks old - forever repairing holes that they'd make to get out. Then we'd have to go in to the pen to take them away from mum. Neither party was ever too pleased about that; you can imagine what it was like trying to pick up squealing, squiggly, porky piglets in the mud when the sow was trying every way she knew to stop us.....  It was a nightmare for everyone....
Now it's all totally painless and the piglets leave Mum of their own volition. Result - everyone isrelaxed and a whole lot happier.......

Nearly there.......

Misty mornings. Windfalls. Tumbling leaves. It's that time of year again.
We're nearly there......The Bestest Gundog and I will soon be starting our 7th ''working' season. I have difficulty with the mathematics of that - after all the dog is only 7 and a half years old.  He 'entered' the field at just 18 months old so we find ourselves going into the 7th season just ahead of him turning 8.

Gunner's destiny was mapped out even before He arrived to live with us in June 2007.

Knowing that he came from "working stock" and from a respected 'dog man' up in Scotland, I was determined that if he showed the slightest inclination (i.e. did even one thing right) I would "train him up to be a working gundog". At the time I had little idea what being a 'working gundog' meant.  It sounded good though.
Nor had I the faintest notion what "training" would entail.
Up till that point, all our dogs had been 'trained' in the basics - 'coming' when called (sometimes), 'sitting' when told (usually), not running off most of the time (and, when they did, we didn't worry - they always came back sooner or later!). That was about it really. We had a lot of fun together and very little stress.
We laughed when Bugsy (our first dog) ran off to the woods for three hours (exactly) at a time; we shrugged in exasperation when Captain (our first spaniel) disappeared - frequently - in those same woods and we had to search for hours - there was the occasion when two old ladies accused us of maltreating him when they saw him covered in blood from a brambletorn tongue - and tried to take him away from us. So many more tales of Captain running off - he seemed incapable of returning to our calls! And Pilot - well, we'd frequently hear him barking 'miles' away as he dug up yet another rabbit burrow; we'd smile knowingly when we saw him charging across the fields towards the distant horizon - he'd be back in his own time: frequently with a fresh dinner! Then there was Lancer - our second Springer Spaniel who was undoubtedly the Best Dog in all the World and never did anything wrong. He probably could have been trained if we'd not been doing other things in our busy office phase. Oh - and not forgetting Trooper, the little black mongrel who only ever wanted to chase balls and carry the biggest possible branches. In all his 17 years he was never naughty.
Gunner came into our lives at a time and place where training a proper "working" spaniel seemed the natural thing to do. The first morning after we collected him from Danby, N. Yorkshire (his owner travelled with him down from Inverness to meet us there and hand over the pup) I took him to the vet for his second injection. Getting out of the car I popped him on the lead and he accepted it as if it was the most natural thing in the world despite never having seen one before.
That was it.
The One 'right' thing.
Clearly he was trainable.

I asked the vet to recommend a gundog trainer & the rest is history! Well - it is if you've been following this blog from the beginning.
The journey we embarked on to transform Gunner into Gundog is recorded in detail: every 'lesson' and every step, whether forward or backwards! It proved to be a steep learning curve for dog and master. And a pretty bumpy one too. Ignorance is bliss.  Had I known at the time how little I knew at the time and how hard it was going to be for the dog and I to learn what we needed to know, I might - as our Trainer has since pointed out to me - have stayed as a person with pets! Poor Dog. No wonder he still gives me that long-suffering look from time to time!!!!

Having never been involved with training a dog to actually 'do' something, I was totally over the moon with everything the dog learned to do, or did naturally. I had no vision of how the training would fit into 'everyday' work. Rather like designing a car without knowing what one looks like! The trainer kept commenting that he was "very steady" but I hadn't a clue what he meant by that.
Gunner continued to amaze and inspire me to carry on. In my eyes he was good enough to take to Field Trials but when I asked the trainer about it he simply commented that "he's not really fast enough for that". Having at that time not witnessed any Trials I didn't really understand what he meant. He suggested we do a couple of Working tests to see how we got on. One of the judges said he'd make an excellent bushbeating dog. I took that as a compliment.

With hindsight, I'm certain it wasn't!!!  I'd set my heart on bushbeating though so it was fine by me.
Seven years on, the BestestGundog having won admirers across numerous shoots, our trainer admits that he never thought the dog would amount to much!
"Why didn't  you tell me at the time?" I asked
"What would you have done if I had?" he replied
"I'd probably have given up" said I.
"Quite" he replied "and think of all the fun you would have missed!"
His favourite story is the one about Gunner running off after a hare.
"Up until then" he'll cheerfully say to whoever is listening "I never thought Gunner had any gears at all"!

 The past 6 years have flown by: the dog has worked tirelessly and steadfastly through every imaginable weather and across all terrains. We have had amazing days out in the field. All of them diarised! There'll be a book there one day when I'm old & grey.......
On the last day of this month we start our 7th season together. We will be working 35-40 days on 7 local shoots. Two are new to us and replace two that have 'ceased'.  If he knew it Gunner wouldn't be lying peacefully asleep under the table beside me.
 Plenty of time for him to find out ..... over the coming four months he'll be needing all his reserves and more.

Farewell, Puddy Cat ? - 21.8.2014

"And they've even had the gall to castrate him!!!"

The prettiest kindest sweetest Puddy Cat

Some things you've said stay with you forever. Another is "If I don't like him after a week, can I bring him back?" said to the nice young lady at the Police Pound where we got our first, and definitely most memorable, dog from.
However, back to the now.
So. Soon after we moved to the Old Rectory we decided cats would be a good addition to the family. We had masses of mices and, we suspected, reams of rats. At that time we used to buy our veg from a chap down the road who, every time we went, seemed to have another litter of kittens; many of them grey and white and very pretty. So we asked if, next time he had a litter, could we have 2 or 3. They were all semi feral so we determined that they would live outside all the time and could sleep in the outbuildings.
 In due course, we acquired 3 kittens for nothing - nobody asked for money for cats in those days - after all, they bred like rabbits..... glad to find homes for them. The three kittens were called Harpo, Chico and Groucho. We housed them out in the old coachhouse. When the builders came to rebuild and extend, we tried to contain the kittens but in no time they were running all over the place and we just hoped they'd be safe. One morning I woke up early and, coming downstairs, looked out the window and saw a fox with three kittens gambolling around its paws. An amazing sight, but after that I didn't worry about the kittens..... As they grew, they got bolder and bolder - I remember one morning looking out of the bedroom window and seeing Chico bounding across the orchard.... followed some while later by Groucho. Harpo was always the quieter one.....
In their second year Chico became more and more adventurous... one day he wasn't there in the morning and then he wasn't there in the evening either.... the next day he wasn't there at all..... A while later, Groucho went.
Harpo stayed behind, lazing in the sunshine and generally appearing for cuddles on what we called the "cuddle chair" when we did evening stables.
Then, around harvest time in his second or, it could have been third, year, he too disappeared. I dreaded that he'd been swept up by the combines - it was that time of year..... we looked and called everywhere but he never came back. I ran off photos and put them up in the local vets and feed merchants.
We heard nothing. For months.
We gave up hope of finding him.
I arranged with the local Cats Protection League rep to rehome two semi feral cats. We were scheduled to pick them up on Thursday.  On Wednesday she rang us and said someone had reported a stray cat who looked just like the photo of our cat that we'd posted in the local vet's practice.
We arranged to go visit the men and see the cat if it was around - they'd been feeding it for a few days and had become very fond of it.  We looked, it appeared identical to Harpo. The photo bore this out. The men agreed. We took the cat. It was a little hesitant. Why wouldn't it be. When we got 'him' home he behaved differently.
"Whoever's had him" I said to the Big Boss "Has trained him to the house...." "Why" said the boss. Well he pooped next to the loo so I produced a litter tray and put it there and lo and behold he pooped in the litter tray - we'd never taught him that so someboy in the intervening months clearly had. And

Queen of all she surveys

so it went on; little changes in behaviours - this cat came in happily whereas Harpo never did; this one pooped in the litter, obviously Harpo never did; this one jumped on the table to eat which, clearly, Harpo never would have done..... and then one day as he was eating on the table in the scullery with his back turned towards me I noticed, for the first time, that he had no 'dibblies'.
"Well, would you believe it" I said to the Big Boss in high Dudgeon "not only has someone hi-jacked our cat for months but they've also had the cheek to castrate him" Initially, I thought of contacting the local vets to ask them who might have brought in a strange cat..... but time passed and I didnt do that.... Meanwhile, the cat whom we still called Harpo continued to surprise us with his 'new' habits.
But we thought no more of it - happy to have the cat home..   Months later  I took him to the vet for the annual check up. During conversation and my recounting the story of the cat's disappearance, including the bit where whoever had him, had the cheek to castrate him, .....well, the Vet looked closer and declared Harpo a female, and worse than that, one that had been spayed!
So not our cat at all. I felt awful. We'd had this cat for some 8 months by now and it had settled in. "No" said the vet in response to my question - "don't give it back to the men who found it". "If it's settled down, keep it".
So We did.

With new pal Waifa

And renamed it Puddy cat because by then we had no idea what to call it.... it not being Harpo..... And gradually Puddy Cat wove herself into our lives and into our hearts. She soon found the way upstairs and slept every night on our bed curled up in the hollow of my side....She had the loudest purr - quite extraordinary in one so small. Later she became the Computer Cat spending all her waking hours sitting on the Mouse Mat (the only mouse she was ever really interested in, although I think she did catch a handful of her own over the years) or the modem.

Loving the fireside

When the fire was lit in winter she'd often be found sleeping there;she was certainly a comfort cat. Feral was not a word in her dictionary.
In summer she'd be found in the garden sleeping in a flower basket or lazing on the picnic table..... such a small thing, she needed the sun to energise her.... it was a rare sight to catch her running, but

Snoozing in the sun on the picnic table

when she did it was an exuberant hop and skip just for the fun of it..... she'd dash about the house as if she'd been stung by a bee... for no apparent reason. Then collapse on the bed & sleep all day.
She was the sweetest thing.... sure of her place opposite the dogs, she never ran away and would happily spit at any who dared to try and bully her..... Gunner treated her with the utmost respect, daring just to give her the merest sniff and then pass on. She respected that. She never spat at him; she often did at the pups tho. Pilot was never on her radar - far too 'strong'. They had nothing to say to each other.
A few months back she started to look a bit thin. More recently she became fussier with her feeding. About 6 weeks back she moved out of the house and into the old stalls on top of the hay. The pups were too much for her I suppose. I took her to the vet eventually. He found a big lump. Tumour on her bladder - gave her a steroid injection and she picked up immensely. Went back a week later and the lump was reduced to tiny. Another steroid injection and for a few days she was quite bright. It didn't last though and she declined slightly day by day until she was just a skinny thing with such a skinny appetite. After last weekend the weather turned cool so I brought her into the house and put her bed by the aga. At night she moved into the dining room to be quiet and away from the bouncing pups.
The sun set beautifully last night.

When I came back in after 'doing' the animals she was curled upon the 'big'chair.
We had a cuddle; she purred - not quite so loudly. Went to sleep.
This morning when I looked, she had passed on.



Miss you already Puddy Cat.

Gunner & Puddy Cat sharing a thought

Humbug

Andromeda counting the little ones....

"Hello World"
Andromeda is being very protective of her new family, partly because we keep changing her neighbours  but also, we think, because something or somebody (Charlie) has been sniffing around. She is very hesitant about coming out to eat too which is not at all like her.
However, she did let the little ones out to play in the sunshine for a little while on Tuesday so I'm sure things will soon be more like normal. It doesn't help that The Bestest Gundog kept going into her pen to check out the new family. He has now been severely reprimanded and will not do it again!
The piglets have been named "Humbugs" for all these reasons!

Bang on Time!

"Oh What a Wallow for a sWallowbelly"

Remember Andromeda burying herself in her wallow during the unusually hot weather a while back.....
Well, this morning - a very misty autumnal one I must say - she gave birth to 5 little swallowbelly piglets..... on precisely the date we had pencilled in the diary.
Clever Girl.
Pictures of the little ones to follow ....

P.S.to the previous

Just after writing the previous ... literally just after -
I went outside and there by the back door was this little thing...... a perfect tiny bird nest.

Birds nest showing good use of local materials

Looking closely I could see strands of baler twine..... there's a lot of that around here ..... and, lining the inside, what is obviously pig's wool.
Clever bird.
If there's one, there must be more.......................

Don't suppose their wool can be used for anything?

I wish I had a £ for every time somebody asks this question....(and if I had another £ for every time someone said "It  looks like a sheep..... or is 'it' a pig I'd be a millionaire by now!)
The next question is: "Do you have to shear them like sheep?"
 Well - The answers to the above are:
 "Yes" their coat does have uses
and
"No" the pigs don't have to be shorn.
Just as well because I cannot imagine who would be strong enough to toss a pig over on its back and get to work with the shears - assuming, that is, that the creature in question would be so obliging! Fortunately, nature has a more sensible method! Once a year the coat moults of its own accord. Having said that, it is not guaranteed to moult every  year. The unusually wet summer of 2012 passed with hardly any loss of wool from the entire herd of 70 or so. We never see a sodden pig, even in the heaviest of rain, which would seem to indicate that the coats are extremely water repellant.

A group of gilts in varying stages of moult

The coat is a mix of coarse, fibrous hair intertwined with short, soft 'wool'. It is difficult to knit in the traditional way, having to be mixed with something like merino to produce a 'piece' of fabric.
Nonetheless, years ago, when woolly pigs were prolific, the coats were gathered and transformed into 'vests' for the farmworkers - presumably the original 'hairshirt'. The water repellant properties may have acted much like the modern day fleece. This quality may also explain its use for fishermen's gloves in Scandinavia. Records also show that the wool was woven into the uniforms of the soldiers fighting in the American Civil War. Sadly no examples of any of these objects exist today.
What do we use it for today then?
Read on.....
If we don't shear the pigs, how do we gather their 'wool'?
We use a very simple and unscientific tool.

The wool gathering tool

 A dog brush.

We wait until the coat is starting to drop out and then brush the pig in much the same way as you would brush a dog. Except most pigs will not keep still no matter how much you tell them to do so! You can't just walk into the pen, ask them to keep still and then start brushing. As soon as you touch them, most will dash quickly away and once their suspicions are aroused there is no way they are going to come back and let you try again. So we have to be a little bit sneaky. Since we feed them mostly vegetables they get quite carried away when we change to hard feed for a meal. That's the time to be ready with the brush and grab a quick few brushstrokes before the pig realises it's not its neighbour rubbing alongside during the feeding frenzy. In this way it is sometimes possible to garner some wool from each member of the group before they all get wise and start jiggling away again. Hence, it is a slow and frustrating job. The most frustrating bit is being able to see the coat almost fall out on its own but the pig won't let you near! And no - for some reason it does not lie around on the ground when it falls out just waiting for us to pick it up. I don't know where it does go. Perhaps the birds take it to line their nests? Lucky them. Warmth & waterproofing in one go!

Packs of cleaned & dyed Mangalitza wool

Finally, when we have gathered all the wool we can - which, in view of the size of the herd, is really not such a great amount - we give it a quick clean: i.e. we put it altogether in an empty feed sack and give it a good shake!
This gets rid of much of the dry dirt and miscellaneous debris.
We then package it up and send it over to the States.
Where a lovely man (who 'found' us via the wonders of the www soon after we got our first pigs) separates wool from hair, cleans it properly (!) and dyes it into many colours using natural vegetable dyes: And then packs it into lots of little transparent bags.
"And then what happens to it? "  Well may you ask.
Thanks again to its water repellent properties, this material is highly sought after by fishermen the world over for fly-tieing!

Flies made, inter alia, from Mangalitza Pig Wool

A couple of years back Bill (he the Man in America) enlightened us, gifting us the wonderful collection shown here. I know absolutely zilch about fishing and even less about 'flies' but I can appreciate the beauty of these amazing bits of kit. Apparently the addition of the pigs' wool enables the flies to float at the optimum level for longer than would otherwise be possible......
Who would have thought that something so beautiful would result from the mix of fibres shown in picture 2 above which derive from the pigs who lounge around here in their wallows in summer..... or pure mud in wet winters.....
Not only beautiful but £ for pound, the most precious part of the pig......... 
"Everything but the squeak" as the saying goes.......

Oh! And if we could gather enough 'wool', the coarse hair which is not used in fly-tieing could be used to stuff our Sofa or mattress!

Heckington Show 2014

One of the Shire Horse class winners

We have been at Heckington Show today - and will be again tomorrow.... the weather is glorious and the people are turning out in their thousands...
Heckington is the largest village agricultural show in the country. It hosts the largest Shire Horse classes after the National, including qualifiers for the Horse of the Year Show plus the regional Grade A Show jumping qualifer. It also hosts the largest number of regional rare breeds - Lincoln red cattle, Longwool sheep and Lincolnshire Buff chickens - and, of course, the curly coat pigs. In  weather like this, with people in their summer clothes, pic-nic-ing on the grass and everyone in carefree mood, it is hard to beat.

Merry and Shirley at breakfast

We've been taking the curly coats there for the past 7 years - always accompanied by a trusty spaniel (The Bestest gundog until this year) so we're now a familiar attraction. This year the curly coat representatives are Merry (blonde) and Shirley - the first swallowbelly we've taken to the Show. They've  had a constant stream of admirers - despite showering many of them with water from their bucket.... I suspect by the end of tomorrow they'll have perfected the wallow they started this morning and will be reluctant to leave their hordes of admirers to come home.

Merry demonstrating the Art of Making a Wallow

In the meantime, people are fascinated by these wooly pigs - "Are they sheep or are they pigs/" is the most frequently asked question.......with their woolly coats it is not always easy to distinguish at first sight..... These two, being youngsters, still have most of their curls but the older ones have moulted and are now wandering around in their cool grey skins....  The wool, assuming we can gather it,  is shipped off to a  colleague in America who transforms it into material that fly fishermen will die for..... Nothing is wasted.

"Been awfullt good Mum - can we go now?" said Jaunty

.
Today it was Jaunty's turn to represent the canine horde at Rectory Reserve..... He's never been to an event like this so we thought it would be a useful step in his education. He was totally non-plussed by all the noises and people and just wanted to sniff the ground - to death....Sitting around whilst I watched the Shire horses or anything else was a bore... he just wanted to carry on sniffin..... as soon as he got in the truck to come home though he was out for the count. We'll see if Bugler fares any better tomorrow....

Time flies

Tucking into breakfast.....

One month on and Victoria's piglets are well grown and becoming bolder by the day.....
Victoria's a very good mum and 'does' them well. We had a big thunderstorm the day before yesterday whilst the piglets were 'away' from home. At the first crack of lightening she gave a couple of loud grunts and within moments 6 sets of trotters were carrying their charges home in double time..... almost flying...
Like  all piglets before them, they are full of energy and daring - go round any corner and you're almost bound to bump into them exploring yet another corner of the estate. Just every now and then, though, they run home to safety & security with mum to relax ... and snooze in the shade.

A string of sausages?

Won't be many weeks now before they are weaned.  

Bugler and piglet at the water hole

What's been going on?

Seems like nothing much has been going on lately. We've been enjoying a very welcome dry spell with reasonable temperatures and long bouts of sunshine.

Andromeda enjoying a spot of sunbathing!

After the wettest winter on record, the pigs' pens have more or less dried out and we are able to feed on solid ground instead of pools of watery mud. It makes all aspects of animal husbandry so much easier and quicker and there's no doubt working in shorts and t-shirts is a lot more comfortable than numerous layers of more or less waterproof gear!

Swallowbelly girls munching their vegetables

The exception was yesterday afternoon. We had planned to move two groups of pigs:7  boys coming indoors prior to going to the Big Butcher in the Sky and 5 girls moving to a larger pen with more ark space. There'd been rain in the morning but it dried up around lunch-time. The moment we hitched up the trailer, however, the first drops fell and from then on till the moment we finished our maneouvres (I kid you not) the heavens opened. We were all (5 of us) drenched! Someone trying to tell us something? Today we are back, more or less, to summer again. A friend in America advises that we are in for the hottest summer on record! What do they know over there that we don't? The pigs may be tuned in to the same channel though because, finally, they are starting their summer moult and we are doing silly things trying to gather as much wool as we can before it all drops off. Where it goes nobody knows: it just disappears. I have a theory that they groom each other in the dark and then bury the wool at the bottom of their wallows! No wonder they grin at us in that silly way.....

Who's the king of the castle?

Rocco looking for his friend

Victoria's Father's Day piglets have wasted no time at all in getting out and about. Within a week of being born they were happily running around their pen and a day later had found their way through the fence into the outside world.... tiny they may be but they are absolutely fearless. As for Victoria: having kept them shut inside for 5 complete days she's now like "Piglets? yeh, yeh, yeh... they're fine...". No doubt it'll not be long before they find their way up to the flower beds.....
Rocco, meanwhile, is hoping a new 'friend' will find his way here soon. He's settled down on his own now but he spends great chunks of his day just staring into the distance as if there's something out there that'll maybe eventually come close enough to see .....We have various irons in the fire regarding a companion for him so hopefully before the long summer days are over he will no longer be an only pony..... Even when we're out for a hack he's taken to suddenly stopping, staring into the distance and snorting so I know he's looking ........
As for the rest of the animals: we have 9 young bantam chicks which is unheard of. Usually, like the one here, the hens sit on a dozen eggs and when

"Are you my mummy?"

one hatches it's  case of "job done" and off they go with a solitary chick leaving the other eggs to go cold! Maybe because of the warm weather a couple of the hens actually managed to hatch 8 eggs between them and, even more amazingly, have managed to guard and care for the chicks for nearly 3 weeks.  It'll be interesting to see how many of them make it through the next 3 - like all little things, they keep finding holes in the fencing and one day there may not be somebody there to put them back on the right side again...... We also had 7 ducklings hatch in the main hen house yesterday- a first for two years (the chickens destroy any alien eggs they find).... Their mother's fiercely protective of them and, cleverly, hatched them inside the original duckling pen so here's hoping we can keep them alive to maturity...... just one of life's little challenges.
Other chaps here have been setting themselves challenges too - but that's a story for another day..... Like I said, nothing much has been going on around here.....