Free Range Guinea Pigs

Once you have a mixed pair of guinea pigs you no longer have just a pair. So this is what we are doing to make them useful and not productive. We have kept the main breeding pair and separated out the other males and females.
The males are released into a caged section of the orchard that contains the grapevines. Corrugated iron has been dug in all around the base of the cage so that the guinea pigs have a hard job to escape. Here they can eat the greenery that grows under the vines but will not eat the grapes (as the chickens used to do). Their numbers are stable as they are all male. The tunnels between the clumps of grass are cool and secluded so they should be able to survive hot weather. The only need for human intervention is to keep up the water supply.

The Guinea Pig house in the orchard.

Guinea pigs are among the only animals that cannot regulate their body temperature through making their own Vitamin C. This means that they are prone to death in heat or cold. However our guinea pigs seem to adapted very well to the challenges of cold. All survived outside last winter with only each other and some straw to keep them warm. It snowed three times but they were fine. It slows the reproduction down, though!

Home Butchering

Three days ago three fat lambs were dispatched and skinned. While their carcasses hung in the cool room the skins have been left to soak in lime to start the leather-making process.

Today was set for the butchering. The table was cleaned, the tools found and wiped, the buckets filled with hot water and the bags readied. The spare freezer was turned on. The initial freezing will take place in this spare one so that the bags do not freeze together and so it is easier to sort once frozen.

The butchering is done by our neighbour and the meat shared. My role was to be gopher and packer.

 

The prepared tools

 The first job was to cut the carcass in half with a sharp handsaw. Then one half at a time is brought to the shed to be chopped. The cool room is insulated and clad with tin. The temperature is reduced with an air conditioner set to about 6-10 degrees. This is sufficient to allow the carcass to hang for long enough to taste good.

 

These lambs have been in a very lush paddock and have a decent layer of fat.

 

 

The leg and shoulder are cut off each side which is then cut into two with a saw. A sharp knife and cleaver separate the chops and ribs while the fat and more gristly parts are cut for the dogs and the chickens.

Two hours work and three families have plenty of fresh lamb to eat and the shed is cleaned up. At $15 a kilo for organic lamb it is a very cost effective way of producing food as well as representing zero food miles as the lambs were born and raised within a stone's throw of where they will be eaten.

 

Getting the Orchard Ready for Summer

 

The 'bottom' orchard yielded no fruit for seven years. The parrots took it all. So we caged it and since then the harvests have been more bountiful. The main problem is keeping the trees low which takes some hard pruning but these apples are getting a fine vase shape and yield heavily.

Over winter the trees have been pruned and the cuttings removed. The blossom has come and gone and the fruits are forming.  

 



 

To be ready for summer the grass has to whipper-snippered as low as possible. I try to keep the grass away from the trunks of the trees so once it has been cut, the trees are mulched with Lucerne hay. If I run out then I use the grass clippings.

 

The orchard is watered using an on-ground sprinkler system. This delivers water to the drip lines of the trees with three sprinklers per tree. Having the pipe on the ground leads to a number of problems - the grass grows over the pipe, the mower has restrictions on where it can cut without severing the pipe and the sprayer fittings get cut off by the whirling snipper string.
So each spring the pipe needs to be pulled up from the grass so it can be seen and the sprayers checked and replaced if they are damaged.
As this orchard is at the lowest point of the property, water can be gravity fed from the dam. A timer is set on the tap to make sure it turns off. Once mowed, mulched and the water pipe checked then the trees are ready  - only occasional summer pruning and mowing needed. Three overcast hours and the job was done.
 

Plumcot fruit forming



How to Sex Sussex Chickens

When you incubate your own eggs not only can you not count your chickens before they're hatched but you can't predict how many will be hens and how many will be roosters.
Last year I just had six and for a long time I optimistically thought I had five hens and a rooster. Wishful thinking and ignorance on my part. I actually had three of each. Now that I know how to tell the difference (without waiting till they lay eggs or crow) I am interested to see how young it is possible to tell.
These chicks are one week old. Four are yellow and three are lighter with a black stripe on their heads. The black and white wing feathers are the first to develop.

 

These chicks are four weeks old. The wing feathers are mostly in place and they are beginning to develop the collar feathers on their necks that are the key indicator of gender.

 

 This four week old chick is the tallest and has the most developed tail feathers. The photo shows the neck and the difference in these collar feathers is that roosters have pointed feathers and hens more rounded. It would seem from this photograph that at four weeks it is possible to deduce that this bird is a rooster. For some of the other chicks it may take a week or so longer.

 

 In the foreground the two hens have the darker necks with rounded collar feathers. The roosters in the background have lighter but more pointed ones.

 

 

 

Another interesting difference with Light Sussex chooks is that pure-bred birds have grey legs - such as the rooster in the background while birds that have been crossed somewhere with a Coronation or other Sussex have orange legs. All this year's chicks were born with orange legs so I will have to wait to see if and when the grey kicks in.

Shading the Hot House

 

We call it the hot house but it is designed to stay draughty. It does get cold at Opportunity Farm and it has even been known to snow at Christmas so frost sensitive plants can have a rough time. One year we had three false starts and had to replace the zucchinis each time. Green tomatoes are the norm around here and only the last couple of years has it been warm enough for long enough to ripen them on the vine.

 

 

 

The idea behind this enclosure is to keep the birds off, prolong the life of the summer plantings and to increase the range of food that we can grow and for how long. In the morning the house shades much of this structure. By stapling shade cloth across the end it will protect the plants within from almost all frosts. With shade cloth at either end the breeze will be able to pass through and avoid temperatures inside that will desiccate the plants and require copious amounts of water. That is the theory, anyway. This project has been a slow one but with beds established and mulched, shade cloth up, a door on and pathways formed it is time for some planting.



See the blog post published 364 days later to see the next stage!

The Beauty of Nature

Sometimes it is easy to get too focused on productive plants and stress about slaters eating the tomato seedlings or which variety of zucchini should be planted where. Other days it is just head down and mow or whipper-snip or dig.

 

But when I can look up and see the glory of cascading purple wisteria flowers and the deep reds of a waratah then I am reminded of how plants can also make my heart sing and my smile wide.

 

Our area is famous for the waratahs that flower in October and November. This plant is a Tasmanian Waratah which was planted to celebrate the birth of my second child and was fertilized by her placenta. From a small shrub it has blossomed into a large bush festooned with masses of beautiful flowers. Every spring it makes me happy to see it bloom.

Chick's first moments

First there was a splinter on the side of the egg. A couple of hours later a small hole appeared as the chick used its egg tooth to batter away at its ovoid prison. An hour ago the hole was a little bigger and movement could be seen through the hole.
Then about five minutes ago the cheeping became much louder as the eggshell split in half and the chick emerged. The following video is a short documentation of a chick within a minute of its hatching.

 

Hopefully you can see Opportunity Farm's youngest chicken in action. Already the chick has headed off to the brooder to join its two older siblings. With any luck there will be more hatched by morning.

Weaning the Poddy Lambs

 

Lily our Wiltshire Horn Poddy Lamb

 

Lily is now nearly seven weeks old while Alice is five and a half. Both have been living full-time in the paddock with the other lambs and their mothers and father. When Lily first went she was forced to mingle with the family lambs but would come barreling towards me whenever I came into sight. Since she has been joined by Alice they can hang out together and at feeding time they just sit by the gate and wait.

 

Over the past week I have reduced the amount of milk that I feed Lily. She was getting a full 700ml bottle twice a day - the same as Alice. This evening she received just 300ml. She still seems plumper than her udder-fed peers and is ready to be reduced to one feed of 500ml a day.

 

The challenge will be to get her used to not hanging by the gate and hassling Alice for the one morning bottle. In another ten days if she looks healthy enough then Alice's feed will be reduced and eventually they will both be independent. 

 

Feeding the lambs is certainly a popular chore for our kids. They have even been known to sulk if they don't get to feed their favourite lamb. I think I will be quite glad when they are weaned, but it is satisfying to be greeted so enthusiastically by sheep in the paddock and to know that you have helped them to survive and thrive. 

 



The Shearing Shed/ Workshop shapes up

 

We dismantled a collapsing shearing shed on a nearby farm. There was plenty of tin, round posts and assorted lengths of timber to be recycled. The aim is to build a shed that we can use to shear our small flock of sheep, hold a workshop in and have some space where visitors can roll out a swag.

 

Working with tree trunks for posts is always challenging as they are rarely straight. We have termites so I did not want to put the posts into the ground. So each post is set on a concrete stump set lower than the stumps that hold up the bearers for the floor joists. By chiseling out each post where it meets the sub-floor each of the nine large posts can be locked in and the frame is stronger.

 

 

The south facing wall has a doorway framed with straight timber which will be where the sheep enter the shed to go into a holding pen. The pulleys and rods seen through the doorway are an authentic working shearing plant from the original shed. This will be mounted on the west wall but will be for aesthetic reasons only - Michelle will shear with an electric handpiece powered by a generator. By recycling the tin and timber and framing the shed with round poles we hope it feels as if it has been there for a while.

 

There is a big window to go in the north facing wall which is not a feature of an original shed but should let plenty of light in and allow visitors a good view down the valley. Plenty of work to go but the project is at an exciting stage where the shape and feel of the shed is emerging.

Clipping the wings of chickens

If you have chickens and don't want them to fly the coop, then you will need to clip their wings.
All you need is a clean, sharp pair of scissors and a chicken.
One of our flocks at Opportunity Farm usually lives out in the paddock in our chook tractor with an electric netting fence around it. As the fence is only three feet tall clipping the wings is important. So this morning I caught each chook and checked the status of their wing feathers.

The only feathers that need to be cut are the primary feathers on one wing. These are the longest ones that are closest to the front of the wing when it is spread out. There are generally about nine or ten of these.

 

After fanning out the feathers I cut them close to where the secondary feathers start - about two-thirds of the way down. If you cut them longer you may cause bleeding but at that length the chook will not be bothered - except by the fact that it can't fly!

 

 

This is our rooster with his feathers clipped ready to return to his coop. The feathers will regrow and need trimming again but it varies from breed to breed and at what time of year you are clipping as to how long you can safely leave it between clips.

 

How to raise a Poddy Lamb or two

We have only a small flock of sheep - mostly self-shedding Wiltshire Horn sheep, but we also have a growing collection of coloured Merino and Crossbred sheep. The Wiltshire Horn ewes are a hardy bunch and normally birth with few complications and are good mothers.
Sometimes however the weaker of twins is rejected and if we find it in time we end up with a poddy. Or a local farmer with a soft heart wants to keep an orphaned lamb alive but hasn't the time to raise it.

Larger scale sheep farms often have a set-up with a designated pen and buckets with multiple teats to raise a commercially worthwhile number of lambs. We start off with a large cardboard box in front of the fire. As long as you put some bedding in it and don't keep the lamb in there so long the urine soaks the bottom out, it works well.

The most important thing for a newborn lamb is drinking some colostrum - the initial milk which is filled with antibodies, fat and protein to protect the newborn. If your poddy lamb did not get any of this from its mother then its chance of survival is lower.
We try to keep some calf colostrum in the freezer for such emergencies (cross species colostrum is way better than no colostrum). If you haven't any, try a local dairy.

In spring our local supermarket stocks plastic teats suitable for lambs. If desperate a baby's teat will do but lambs need a much longer teat to be able to suck it comfortably without assistance.

 

The teats can be carefully stretched over any sort of glass bottle. We started off with a 330ml juice bottle and have moved on to a 750ml ginger beer bottle. Only for the first 24 hours do lambs need four feeds, then for two weeks it is three feeds so we found it worked with 7am, 2pm and 9pm and wasn't too disruptive.

If you have a milking cow you could feed them your excess otherwise you will need some formula. Our local farm store sells a premium milk replacer designed for lambs. One 16kg bag will feed two lambs to weaning. The instructions about how much to use is given on the packet. I boil the kettle, put the approximate number of scoops in the measuring jug and pour in water to about a third of the total volume required. This is topped up with cow's milk but it could be tap water. This works out at a warm temperature suitable for a young lamb.



 
 
 

Lily the Wiltshire Horn poddy in the enclosure on the verandah.

 

Once the cardboard box in front of the fire is heading beyond its use by date I build an enclosure. This year it was on the front verandah and used a corner as two walls and two large wooden sheets as the other two. A toybox and a desk were used to hold it together. Here I have to confess that the my teenage daughter, in her role of designated bottle feeder, managed to overbalance and collapse my enclosure on herself without hurting the lamb but breaking her arm in the process. While this was a distinct pain for her the consequence of my hasty construction was not having assistance with the feeding!

This enclosure needs some plastic on the base to trap the urine and plenty of fresh bedding, which will need regular changing.

I also made an outdoor enclosure. We have two dogs that like to pester lambs so it needed to be dog proof and mobile. This was made from a 6m length of pig fencing surrounded by some chook netting.



 

 

Lily and Alice (a crossbred) in the outdoor enclosure.

 

After three weeks the lambs are introduced to the paddock and the rest of the sheep by day and returned to their enclosure at night. They tend to hang by the gate when it is close to feeding times or if I am close but they gradually learn to explore and copy the other lambs in eating grass. By four weeks they stay in the paddock full-time. The quantity of milk is gradually reduced until they are about six weeks old and can feed themselves.

 

It is quite a responsibility to take on a poddy but children love the soft cuteness of lambs and are often keen to do the feeding. We make sure that new lambs survive three days before we give them a name as that is the danger time. Once you are set up for a poddy it is just part of a routine and an enjoyable way to raise an animal. Having a poddy or two in your flock can also help when you want to move or call the sheep.