Animal Lovers Web Blog

As extensive animal keepers and all round animal lovers some of the highlights of the summer for us this year have been attending the various agricultural and horticultural shows. This is something that we have done occasionally before but this year we have made a point of attending as many as we can.

The latest show was the Sedgefield Show 2008 which we attended yesterday and despite the dreadful weather with frequent heavy rain we still managed to have a fantastic time.

As is usually the case at shows I spent the majority of my time looking at the wonderful sheep on display. While the Sedgefield Show cannot compete in numbers and varieties on display with the larger shows it does have the advantage of being more personal, which allows you much more time with the animals and a better chance of speaking in detail with the owners and breeders.

At this year’s Sedgefield show one breed of sheep particularly caught our eye which was a rare and special breed sheep, the Oxford Down. These are a pretty rare breed of sheep with only 70 small flocks in the whole of the UK, but they are totally adorable and apparently have a great temperament and for those who consume their animals I’m told that they produce excellent meat.

I certainly plan to look into this breed of sheep in more detail and would be very interested in possibly getting some of our own, as pets but with the option to possibly breed on a small scale and some point in the future. You can see an Oxford Down sheep ewe and lamb in the pictures.

I did manage to move on from the sheep eventually to see some of the other animals on display which included some lovely cattle, poultry including game fowl, guinea pigs, rabbits and dog trials. The rest of the family spent much of the day in the dog section and watching the fascinating dog trials on display. The lovely brown and white Border Collie above wasn’t in the show but was gorgeous nonetheless and the owner was good enough to let me take a picture.

As well as the animals there were a whole host of other activities including prize vegetable, flower, cake and crafts and tasting sessions from local farm shops with many delicious meats and cheeses to sample. It was certainly not a day to be watching the waistline.

Other interesting activities were a demonstration by some fox hounds and horses, fun run and a fancy dress competition for horses and you can see one of my favourites in the picture at the top of this post.

All in all the Sedgefield show was a fantastic day out and is already in the diary for next year, as I just check what is next in line for this year!!

John

Animal Lovers Web

So pigs are clean animals are they?  No-one bothered to share this fact with our two Kune Kunes, Betty and Lottie! Delightful they certainly are but, after 2 months of living in our dog run and thrice weekly mucking out, the time had definitely come for a change of accommodation.  The poor girls had finally worked out that it would be far more pleasant to get off their lazy backsides and do their number twos outside in the run but still didn’t seem to see the point of urinating there too!!

We spent a very hot day last Saturday “pig proofing” our sheep field with spare planks of wood nailed at obscure angles with pig wiring tacked on top.  Our five sheep looked on bemused by the whole affair - little did they know what was to come.

Once we felt assured that the pigs weren’t going to be able to make a run for it through some narrow gap in the fence, the question of how to actually get the pigs from the dog run into the field became a matter for debate.  At four months old, Betty and Lottie are still just about light enough to pick up but our recent attempts when we had to vaccinate them didn’t fill us with much confidence with this plan.  Trying to catch a pig, pick it up and transport it safely from A to B seemed a little risky and was bound to be EXTREEMLY noisy!

Plan B was to lure the little darlings with food…hmm, this could be even more risky.  We would be reliant on Betty and Lottie following a food bucket for about 30 yards without being distracted by a) the chickens/rabbits/dogs, b) the lush green garden, c) our strawberry patch…Plan B didn’t seem such a good idea after all.

And so onto Plan C.  Our large dog crate was carefully placed at the entrance to the dog run with a bowl of their pig pellets inside.  As sure as night follows day the pigs couldn’t resist trotting inside to feed their piggy faces, unsuspecting that they were the victims of a cunning plan!!  With the crate doors firmly bolted we were finally able to carry our girls into their new home.

Well, Betty and Lottie thought they’d died and gone to heaven!  With grass as far as their cute little eyes could see, they couldn’t eat fast enough.  Our sheep however were less than impressed and charged over for a closer inspection of these little black creatures that appeared to be taking complete liberties over the whole food situation. If you thought pigs could eat fast, they can also eat AND run at some speed too!  What ensued was a game of cat and mouse, sheep panting and out of puff, a few head butts thrown in for good measure and squealing pigs tearing around the field (obviously with grass in their mouths!). You can see the fun for yourself on our video “Kune Kune Pigs Meet the Sheep”.

Anyway, after the initial rush of blood to the head, everyone (including ourselves) calmed down.  Betty and Lottie are loving all the extra room to play and, more importantly, the continuous sea of food that they now inhabit.  The sheep seem to think that they are really above it all and quite indifferent to the whole situation and so harmony is restored, for now. 

Diane
Animal Lovers Web.com

Spring is in the air here on the farm, with the crocuses and daffodils blooming, newly laid frog spawn covering the wildlife pond and our sheep enjoying the fresh green grass once again.  

Easter time last year was celebrated with the arrival of our lambs - it doesn’t seem five minutes ago that they were clambering over each other to be the first to get their bottle of milk each morning!  What a difference a year makes. 

And, as for this year…well no new lambs - yet.  However, the latest additions to our farm, two 10 week old Kune Kune piglets (Betty and Lottie), seem to have settled in really well.  It’s been almost three weeks since their long journey south from the SSPCA in Scotland.  Currently living in our dog run, which seems to have housed most of our animals over the years (rarely our dogs!), our pigs have had access to grass for the first time and are living up to their reputations as ploughing machines on four legs.  We were under the impression that Kune Kune pigs were grass eaters rather than rooters.  I don’t think anyone bothered to tell them this fact!

Betty and Lottie are slowly getting used to us and will happily enjoy a good scratch on the back whilst troughing into their dinner. However,  they have been a little more wary this week after we had to pin them down, quite literally, to get their worming injections.  They’ve only themselves to blame.  After turning their noses up at their dinner laced with worming medicine, we really had no choice but to resort to the needle.  I think a pig refusing to eat their medicine was a first for our vet - whoever heard of a pig refusing to eat anything!!

Well, we’ve injected sheep before but a pig is a whole new ball game.  Despite weighing a mere 13kgs, our attempts to restrain the little swines turned into a wrestling match which we just about won.  I think that the demonic screeching emanating from their ever-so-sweet mouths, just ratcheted up the stress levels for everyone and our neighbours must have wondered who was being murdered!!

Rather like the tantruming child that gets the candy, as soon as Betty and Lottie were released from our clutches, normality suddenly returned - for them at least.  My heart was still palpating an hour later!  AND we’ve got to repeat the whole process again in the next few weeks with further vaccinations.  Can’t wait!!

With mixed feelings, we have had to say a fond farewell to our cockerel, Primrose.  Despite our best intentions, he was struggling to fit in with our other chickens and our older cockerel, Tiger was making his life a misery. 

Determined that he would continue to live a happy, free-ranging lifestyle and avoid the dinner table, we weren’t too optimistic that advertising locally would find Primrose a new home to fit the bill.  So it was with great relief that we received a call from a like-minded animal loving family, who were just looking for a cockerel to keep their hens in check. 

Primrose is now happily strutting around in an acre of woodland with eight hens for company as you can see in the picture above. He is also soon to have a new and more appropriate name, more  in keeping with his new manly role in life! But he will always remain Primrose to us.  For us, peace is restored back in to the hen house at last and we can enjoy the more tranquil spring birdsong once again.

Diane

Animal Lovers Web.com

Keeping sheep on the farm has become a whole lot chillier over the past few days. With winter temperatures really starting to bite, our poor lambs have experienced their first proper frost these past two nights. This morning just looked like a Christmas scene on a greetings card and I think, if the sheep could talk, they’d be mighty perplexed and quite cross that their grass seems to have disappeared!

You would think that the sheep might blend discretely into the white canvas of the winter frost but it was really funny to find tell-tale signs that they were not far away. Much to our amusement, there were five oval-shaped green outlines where the sheep had slept overnight and the grass had taken respite from the plummeting temperatures.

It seems strange that our sheep don’t shelter much in their barn and are quite happy in these inhospitable conditions. In fact, it appears to be the heat of summer that bothers them most which probably isn’t surprising with such a thick woolly coat stuck to them all the time.

Our sheep do need that little bit more attention during the winter with regular topping up of the hay rack and defrosting of their water trough with a hot kettle full of water. They still get their morning pellet feed (plus a bit extra as I feel so sorry for them!) and their sheep lick is going down at some rate!

All this extra attention is just spoiling me really - ANY small excuse for an extra cuddle is what keeping pet sheep is all about. They’re just adorable.

Diane
www.AnimalLoversWeb.com

Foot problems and sheep are almost synonymous with each other and, following our terrible experience at having to have Jemima euthanised due to her lameness, we were conscious that we needed to ensure our remaining sheep’s feet were as healthy as possible.

Inspecting our sheep’s feet for the first time turned out to be a family occasion - it might look easy to “flip a sheep” on its rump in the text books but the reality is somewhat different! With John taking on the role as director of operations and chief sheep grappler, I was armed with the hoof trimmers and antiseptic spray and we were relying on our daughter Laura to persuade the sheep that this was really in their best interests, by bribing them to cooperate with handfuls of food pellets!

We found that the sheep, once settled on their rears, were generally quite relaxed, although the grunting and deep breathing did have us a little alarmed at first. Only Fluffy took great exception to be manhandled and we had to leave her to the end by which time we’d got a bit more proficient and could get her hooves trimmed much quicker.

It was quite a nerve racking experience trimming the hooves, although we had done our best to read as much information as we could find that would guide us. We printed diagrams off the internet but it’s funny how it all looks so different once you’re faced with the real thing! Laura and I had recently attended a donkey care workshop where we were lucky enough to see a brilliant demonstration by a specialist donkey farrier - he made it look soooo easy. I suspect that I was probably over-cautious on this first attempt - nearly all the sheep had some heal overgrowth which really could have done with a more aggressive trim. I felt that it was better to just nibble away at the hoof a little and repeat the process in a few weeks time. The alternative of just “going for it” and risking a bleeding foot just might have put me off ever trying again!!

It took us about an hour to get through all five sheep (we’d never make a living out of it at that rate!) and it does give you a real sense of satisfaction to see their hooves looking a little more like they did as baby lambs. I just hope that sheep are as satisfied with the whole process as we were - somehow, I don’t think so!

Diane
www.AnimalLoversWeb.com

We are John & Diane and it is only 3 days to go to the official launch of our new website Animal Lovers Web on 1st November 2007. This is a website which is a site dedicated to animals.
We are smallholders who keep a variety of animals including sheep, chickens, dogs, rabbits and hamsters. We wanted to share our animals and our experiences with them with other smallholders, or anyone who is just interested in animals.
We plan an active user forum to discuss any animal related issues and we have a special area dedicated to kids the “Kids Zone”. My daughter Laura will be in charge of the content here and hopefully this will contain a lot of fun things for kids in relation to animals.
We also wanted to run a blog in parallel with the website for frequent updates and entries about what is going on here as with all of our animals life is never dull.
So if you are interested in animals be sure to have a look and see what is going on here. We also would welcome any comments or suggestions that you may have and you can leave either here or on the main website.

John
www.AnimalLoversWeb.com