We have a red mite infestation in the hen house. Is it a coincidence that that occurred so soon after introducing new birds? probably not. Then again we have had reduced egg laying. We put it down to the rat problems, and you cannot deny the evidence of rat runs, 7 dead rats (thanks Ebby) [...]
Archive for July, 2008
red mite
Posted in chickens, grow your own food, livestock, make it yourself, recipes, self-sufficiency, smallholding, vegetables, tagged chickens, red mite on 31 July 2008 | 4 Comments »
harvest, blanch, freeze
Posted in grow your own food, livestock, self-sufficiency, sheep, smallholding, vegetables, tagged vegetables on 30 July 2008 | 3 Comments »
It seems the days when we are out working until its dark, are upon us, even when its raining, and oh how it rained today. Just as well too, as its been hot and dry for some time, both greenhouse water butts were empty and we were having to carry water from the large tank. [...]
chicken behaviour
Posted in chickens, grow your own food, livestock, self-sufficiency, smallholding, tagged chickens on 28 July 2008 | 2 Comments »
The two not-very-welsummer-like-obviously-cockerels (NVWLOC) were chirping away, making as though they wanted out of the broody coup. They seemed so small compared to the rest of our hens, we had put them in there for a few days, where the others can see them but without the chance to bully. So we decided to open up [...]
burgh island
Posted in chickens, grow your own food, livestock, self-sufficiency on 27 July 2008 | 2 Comments »
After a certain amount of cursing over buying the wrong thing yesterday etc, it was nice to see the light Sussex hanging around with the rest of the flock, and not being overly attacked. She even went into he nest box and we got hopeful, but no egg.
On the upside, the browner of the chicks [...]
new hens
Posted in chickens, grow your own food, livestock, self-sufficiency, smallholding on 26 July 2008 | 2 Comments »
We decided to buy some more POL chickens - increase our egg laying. Although we had decided to increase our flock from raising our own, after the egg numbers were hit by the rat problem, and the copper headed marans being generally useless, we thought a couple more egg layers would be good. And decided [...]
potato production line
Posted in frugal living, grow your own food, self-sufficiency, smallholding, vegetables, tagged vegetables, blight on 25 July 2008 | 3 Comments »
There are lots of different opinions over what you should do next, once you have blight on your potatoes. Given that we opt not to use bordeaux mixture - part of our chemical free gardening policy, and also the potatoes being next to the grazing we keep the sheep in. Bordeaux mixture is copper sulphate.. [...]
making hay..
Posted in chickens, fruit, grow your own food, livestock, self-sufficiency, sheep, smallholding on 24 July 2008 | 2 Comments »
… while the sun shines
After a week of hot weather, the grass that himself cut with the scythe at the beginning of the week is lovely yellow and dry. This is only in the area that was previously our fruit patch, which will be made over to the sheep again in the autumn, once we [...]
potato recipes
Posted in grow your own food, recipes, self-sufficiency, vegetables on 23 July 2008 | 1 Comment »
Yesterday, as I noticed the first of the perpetual spinach was ready for harvesting, we had a chicken curry, with a spinach and yogurt raita thing (known as ‘the spinachy thing’ in our house) and Bombay potatoes (part of our main meals should include potatoes plan). It was very nice, and didn’t really need the [...]
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