Old McArthur had a cattle property and on that cattle property he had, apart from a few thousand beef cattle, a brand new batch of Sussex chickens. Six to be exact, and naturally there was one black one. While Rob was gifted an incubator for Christmas and it is humming away in a safe place in the laundry, nature’s incubator has done its job in the meantime. Always a pleasant surprise to check on the clucky chook nesting in her private box and find little beaks and soft as butter feathers peaking out from underneath her maternal wings. The Sussex are such good mothers, always ready with open wings to gather the chicks at any sign of danger.

Seems that the 38mm of rain we had last Monday stimulated lots of hatching and batching.

Mumma Pig delivered a very healthy and robust crop of 12 piglets during the rainstorm. These purebred Berkshire are the first batch sired by our newest resident boar from Freckle Farm. There was certainly some hybrid vigour on show if the piglets’ size and sprightliness was any measure!

Also loads of cuteness and fun delivered.

Seems our pig enterprise is expanding rapidly.

We have all pigs out on pasture now.

An electric fence which is easily shifted means they get fresh paddocks regularly.

That certainly makes for happy pigs!

While they do eat some grass and they relish digging for roots, their diet is still mostly grain based.

The occasional mango is well received as well, it makes for great tasting, homegrown, homemade sausages!

Keeping with the homegrown, homemade, real food theme, Speckle, the house cow, continues to keep us in fresh milk. She does this, while also feeding a couple of poddy (orphan) calves.

A bucket of grain while she is in the milking bale is certainly helping meet the cow’s nutritional requirements so that she can keep up with the demands of 2 calves and a family of eight!

Temperature’s have soared the past week and while we have enjoyed the pool to keep cool, one of our resident kookaburras has taken to the water feature as his preferred cooling option. This fellow sat, with water washing through his feathers, for a good fifteen minutes before flying off to a shady tree.

We’ve also had a lot of horse adventures happening over the past few weeks.

So much to share that I think that may be another whole blog post.

EIEIO!

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