March 19, 2008
Spring’s new arrivals and sad farewells
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
