More Random Acts of Husband

" Hey - Come out and see what we've got!"

These are the words that fill me with trepidation. Especially the 'we' part, which inevitably means more work for me.

And what have we got?

Meet Hattie -

Yes, Mike brought home another dog. A ninth dog. "But she needed a home! And isn't she sweet?"

Of course she's sweet. In fact it was hard to get a photo of her because she kept trying to crawl into my lap for a cuddle. Mike knows any resolve I have to be hard crumbles when I see the dog.

Hattie is destined for Underkeeper Ian, as his first working dog. She's a four-year-old cocker spaniel who's already had experience on the shooting field. She's biddable and lovely natured. She now belongs to Ian, but she'll be spending a lot of time in our kennels (and kitchen) while Ian finishes his course at Gamekeeping College.

I have learned to accept the inherent chaos of the universe. And of a husband. Plus, what's another scoop of dog food in the grand scheme of things?

It's Showtime

It has been raining for three straight weeks now. I haven’t been exposed to sunshine for so long that I think I’m in danger of getting rickets. I’m living in my rubber dungarees and swapping to a drier fleece top only when I have to wring out the sleeves like they were sodden dishcloths. So when the local sheep farmer offered me a chance to come and wash sheep in preparation for a show I thought “Well, I can hardly get any wetter.” and jumped at the opportunity.

Sheep are about the greasiest creatures you can imagine, which is great when you want a water-resistant sweater to wear, but hard work when you’re trying to clean one. There’s no science to it: simply fill a bucket with water and soap and get scrubbing. It was oddly therapeutic work – enjoyable even. Sheep are peaceable companions.

Once the half dozen sheep were scrubbed clean we put them back into the sheep wash for a final rinse in mud. Mud? It seemed counter-intuitive to me, too. A 25 kilo sack of field soil is tipped into the sheep wash to dye the now grease-free but white sheep the colour of their local soil type. I assume it's one of those traditional things best accepted without question.

Sheep are excellent swimmers, and appear to be naturally buoyant, popping straight up every time the farmer dunked them under with his brush.

See? Everyone's rocking the Rubber Trouser look. Accessorised here with bailing twine belt.

As my mother always said "It hurts to look beautiful" Or in this case, it takes a lungful of water to get to show standard.

I apologise for the lack of photos to accompany the whole process. I'm really there to help not document, and even taking these couple of photos elicited a sideways glance of bemusement from the farmer. He'd already shown remarkable patience towards his chattering, enthusiastic amateur sheep washer. In the few hours it took to complete the task, I watched him handling sheep, using equipment I knew nothing about, and handling his shepherding dog. I did my best to take in his thoughtful, complex responses to my simplistic questions.  With a collection of prime sheep to compare and contrast, he showed me how to feel for width and depth in the loins, and what constitutes a good head. I'm doing my best to watch and learn, but it’s a steep curve and much will simply take time and experience to master. Check back with me in 25 years.

Sadly, a day spent washing sheep has done nothing to dissuade me from my plan to show my own sheep at a local show. In fact I’ve already asked if I can come back and watch the farmer trim the sheep’s fleece, which is done to enhance or conceal, and present a pleasing overall shape.  So far I can only do one style of sheep haircut, and I don’t think there’s a show category for Most Naked Sheep.

While the sheep seem impervious to the weather, our laying pheasants aren’t fairing as well. We provide them shelters and cut greenery as windbreaks, but their usually green pens have turned to mud. I’m struggling to find the eggs because they’re laid in puddles deep enough to cover them.

This evening Mike found a hen that was hypothermic in one of the pens, laying on her side near death. We started up the tractor and put the heat on in the cab, and left the hen in there to dry off and warm up. When she was revived, Mike took pity on her and set her free. I think it was a symbolic gesture, to try and alleviate the guilt he feels that his laying flock is subject to the elements. (This courtesy doesn’t extend to his wife, who is subject to the elements just the same, but never excused from egg collecting duties!)

We've taken two hatches out of the machines, both very successful in spite of incubator breakdowns. Most of the chicks are already out of the shell when we open the machines -

Of course, there are always the late arrivals which need a helping hand. 

Each time I removed that shell from over a chick's eye, and it sees the world for the first time, I feel amazed. Elated to bring life into the world.

I don't enjoy the other end of the process so much. By far the worst chore this week was taking Meaty and foster lamb to Ice Camp. Meaty’s name seems to be ironic; although he weighed 31 kilos it appears 20 of those kilos is fat. I butchered him and restocked our freezers.

No points for spotting the glass of wine.

Foster lamb is much less fatty, and the best lamb carcase I've produced yet. He’s been sold, and will hang another day or two before I butcher him. That’s two lambs down, and three to go. Later. When I’ve recovered from this trip to the abattoir. I still take a Valium to help me cope with that trip, but a glass of wine is enough to get me through the butchery. I think that's progress, don't you?

Under surveillance

Eggshausting

This must be the start of my egg pun series. Feel free to contribute your own in the comments section.

Mike and I are both so tired that we've entered the hysteria phase - you know after denial, sadness, anger, eating too many cookies, washing cookies down with wine, and talking to your animals (doing both voices).

One of the incubators is faulty, and it's tripping out the circuits so all the hatchers and incubators go off. That's 20,000 chicks on the line. There is only one person in the UK who repairs these machines and he can't get here for a few days. Mike's only choice is to sleep in the stone barn with the machines, on a cot in my L.L. Bean sleeping bag, and make sure the machines keep running and the eggs stay warm.

What we do for our livestock...

It's not just Mike who has to suffer for his animals; Our flock of sheep is too large to lamb in the small paddock outside our house this year. They will have to lamb at Milkweed. I'm trying to source a small caravan on Ebay that I can sleep in, for pretty much the whole of October. I'll need to borrow that sleeping bag back from Mike.

I'm keeping the home fires burning - both of them, as north winds have brought winter back to England - and managing the non-pheasant related jobs. The tired hysteria has extended to my cooking, and meals appear to be a random amalgam of leftovers: beef stew over nettle pasta last night, fish with wilted spinach and macaroni cheese tonight. I think Mike is afraid to come home because of the food.

Be extra concerned because my job at the cafe started this week. In fact I was late for my first day of work because I had to break up a cock fight between Patches and our newest cockerel, and four hens tried to follow me to work. I had to bribe them back by throwing part of my lunch (a peanut butter, honey, and cinnamon sandwich...) up the driveway and shutting the gate. Chickens appreciate my culinary talents.

There is some good news on the animal front: Alan got a new foot today from the farrier. His infection is gone but it took the outside of his front hoof with it. The farrier used essentially acrylic nails for horses and built up the missing hoof. As a horse carries most of its weight on its front feet, conformation and stability is paramount; badly-shaped feet can lead to leg injuries and back problems. We're going out riding tomorrow morning (weather permitting) to try out Alan's newly fitted saddle and newly made foot.

We'll ride by the hatching barn and give Mike a wake-up call.

Weaning Day

The new handling yard at Milkweed is working. All but my grumpy ewe went into the enclosure this morning. I soon changed her mind, by chasing her down with the Land Rover until she relented and joined the rest of the flock.

The lambs and the half breeds have stayed at Milkweed. I moved the ewes to graze some better grass, as part of their pre-natal care regime. A few weeks of ovine binge-eating is supposed to produce a metabolic response in their reproductive system: food is abundant so release extra eggs. I hope the end result will be more twins and even triplets in autumn. This year, after the ram's visit, I'm going to have the ewes scanned so I know - in theory - what I can expect.

Enjoying a break from motherhood

Unfortunately, this year is turning into a sinister crap shoot for all farmers with sheep, goats, or cattle. We've been hit in the UK with a new disease called the Schmallenberg Virus (SBV). It's spread by midges from Europe. Infected animals show almost no clinical signs of infection, and the farmer only knows she's got it when the lambs and calves are born with terrible deformities. As yet, there is no vaccine available. We're all just holding our breath and hoping that our own crops of babies will be spared. Maybe they should have named it the King Herod Virus.

My 4 p.m. pheasant egg collecting job is looming, but after the eggs are all washed and trayed, I'll drive over to Milkweed and check on the now-weaned lambs. It can be a distressing process for mums and offspring, but neither group was complaining, even when they were initially separated into trailer and shed, respectively. The lambs were way past due for weaning. I expect the mothers closed the milk bar weeks ago, when their now sizeable offspring lifted them off the ground while trying to suckle.

If all's well with the sheep and there's still enough daylight, I'll fit in a evening's deer stalking. And I really need one - we have only scraps of venison left in the freezer. In fact, I had to buy stewing beef from the butcher's today, which felt all kinds of wrong. Mind you, when you see how the beef animals are kept -

Outside, in a herd, rotated regularly onto fresh grass, being raised on their own mother's milk for a long period of time - it's hard to feel too badly about buying beef.

This is part of our neighbour's herd of suckler cattle. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for him next calving too.

Quincy's Big Day Out

Quincy and I competed in our first Gundog Test today. We completed a series of 3 tests: field retrieves, water retrieves, and hunted retrieves in cover. Quincy struggled a bit with the first, I let her down on the second, but once we got over our nerves we achieved a perfect score of 20 on the last one.

This is my Noble Canine pose...

Doesn't she look proud? She should - she earned a 3rd place in the Puppy Retriever Class, with a respectable score of 46/60.

I think she's smiling in this picture!

If I'd not made a mistake at the water retrieve, it would have been 2nd place. I think Quincy forgives me but, just in case, I've made her a conciliatory dinner of scrambled pheasant eggs and pasta.

We move up to the Open class, and will compete again in July. Quincy has plenty of time to train me between now and then.

Fun with Sheep

Heavy persistent showers have driven me indoors and forced me to do battle with my pile of paperwork - bills, tax returns, overseas voting forms, flock plans. In fact, I'm due at the vets in a hour to go over this year's sheep management programme with 'Bloody' Mary.

Mary is a very capable, tough, large animal vet who earned her nickname from us because, every time I bump into her, she's covered in blood from performing emergency cesareans in the field or other such heroic life-saving procedures. I have all the time and respect in the world for a hands-on, can-do woman like Mary.(The boys do too, possibly because of the huge cauterising bull castration pliers she keeps in her van.)

The sheep are doing well. You will not be surprised to hear that I've not yet booked the lambs in for Ice Camp (I used Easter as an excuse last week). So, they're happily putting on a useless layer of fat as the lush grass comes in.

On top of good grass, I'm still hand feeding them a little barley, just to encourage them to come close enough that I can check them over every day. We finished building a small holding pen with a system of gates in and out which, in theory, will make handling them easier.

If I can figure out how to get them all to go in there.

Now, I'm a big fan of operant conditioning. Sheep behaviour is relatively easy to manipulate using association and positive reinforcement, as long as you are specific about your training goal. For example: I'm inherently lazy, I hate walking all the way across a ten acre field to round-up sheep. I wanted my sheep to come to the gate to greet me. I started by rounding them up, and simply feeding them by the gate around the same time each day. Once they were habituated to eating by the gate, I added a stimulus - beeping the Land Rover horn - before I parked and put food in their trough.

In less than a week, that flock was conditioned to come running for food as soon as they heard me beeping the horn as I drove up the road. Only a few of the "brighter" sheep need to respond, and flock mentality draws the rest of them in.

Training works both ways. Ewe 0002 - the Texel cross - is especially receptive to rewards and habituated to me. She's trained me to give her a handful of food as soon as I arrive by standing on the gate, which amuses me, and causes me to reward her -

I know - cute, right?

I'm such a sucker.

My first rule of animal training is "Feed them, and they will come." This nearly always produces a successful result (possibly because I keep Labradors and Cob horses, both notoriously greedy breeds). The wary sheep simply need time to get habituated to the new enclosure and if I show a little patience I'll be rewarded.

While wading through my mound of paperwork, I've just come across the bill from the fencers for putting up the small pen. For the same amount of money, I could have purchased a fully-trained sheep dog, so smart that it could have rounded up my flock then helped me with my taxes.

Live and learn.

And I thought they only contained monkeys...

Our weather has been so consistently sunny and freakishly warm that I've refused to come in until dark. Lots of outside jobs are done, including a new fencing project at Milkweed to create a small handling yard for sheep and lambs. My computer has dust on it. In fact, every surface in the house has dust on it, the carpets have a layer of dog hair, and the washing basket is overflowing. It's fine because it's nearly impossible to see the dirt at night, and if I trip over the laundry, it will afford me a soft landing.

I don't know if that rationale counts as 'thinking outside the box', or just plain denial.

My one "indoor" exception was a lambing class held at our vets' surgery last week. After all the lambing difficulties of last season, I wanted to rectify the pre-natal care and get some advice on dealing with problem births. The course finished with a Problem Birth test: a cut-away, 50-gallon drum on its side, with one end fashioned into a birth canal, and fitted with a see-thru plastic womb, was "impregnated" with a dead lamb. A real dead lamb. The vets arranged the poor creature into different problem delivery scenarios, and each student had to don the armpit-length glove, lube up, and go in. The rest of the class could watch the progress inside the barrel sheep, through the clear plastic womb.

Some towns have art centres where people gather and socialise. Some have museums and other cultural venues to patronise and enjoy. Dorset? We have lambing courses at the vets, where we take turns pulling a dead lamb out of a barrel, while drinking tea (remembering to hold it in the non-gloved hand; lube is slippery).

Truthfully? It was as much fun as a barrel of....OK, it was so fascinating that I've signed up for the next course on worming sheep.