The Journey: A gruesome discovery

Brencis in thoughtful mood

This morning was not a good morning to start my day. As usual, Ian got up first, opened the doors for the alpacas that can be let out, half doors for those waiting for mating or to deal with skin issues and then we have breakfast. After breakfast we start our daily chores. This is our regular routine all summer. Some of the chores change slightly but most are just regular jobs. The normal routine is that Ian clears the alpaca poo from the paddocks and the alpaca houses and I see to the chickens. Afterwards we have break and a morning coffee. This week though I have been opening the greenhouse doors then going down to see the chicks that hatched last week. I take off the cover just to make sure they still have some food and water left from the evening and see they are okay before going to sort out alpacas who need bandages to cover skin breaks that the flies have been attacking. The alpacas that need it, get fly spray on each morning and skin cream where necessary. Some days I change the bandages.

A bug I'm happy to see, a dock bug - something
that eats the docks and other such plants.

Turbjørn finally has an appointment for the vet to come and
do an x-ray - 3rd September! Ian is still continuing with the
massages and he still seems to appreciate this - he doesn't run
off anyway. Poor guy!

This morning was different I lifted the cover on the chicks - silence. Not one little cheep from all 15. I looked again, it was awful. Their bloody little bodies were strewn across the cage. I lifted the heater and there were more bodies under there, not one had survived. I went to the door of the barn and shouted for Ian. Something in the tone of my voice made him run. Not often does my voice carry across the fields. All I could say was, "They're gone, they're all gone!" I'm a hardened sort as we are used to dealing with the odd dead chicken and even dispatching them when necessary, but there was something about the sight this morning that made me well up and Ian gave me a big hug. Sofie has dispatched two weasels recently and so our first thought was it was a weasel, since we know they are about. We've heard they get bloodlust and kill just for the sake of it. It certainly looked like that, as they were only bitten.

A rather strange looking caterpillar - a dot moth apparently. By
the way, there is a picture of the dead chicks at the bottom of
the page. So you can avoid it if you want to. It's there not for
entertainment, obviously, but to show the devastation that can
be caused and how even the hamster cage was not enough. We
did think that a cage designed to keep hamsters in, would not keep
other things out. Sigh!

On a happier note, a gift from a friend.

A bit later on, I was getting the box down from where we had it on the hay bales, as it's cooler there than in the greenhouse, when there was a rustling sound. Something scurried away and then leapt down between the bales. It was not a weasel but a rat. Ian had messaged a friend about some eggs so we can set some more away to hatch and her mum suggested it could be a rat that had killed the chicks like that. How on earth it got through the bars of a hamster cage is a miracle in itself. A weasel we could imagine, but a rat? Whatever it was, our hamster cage needs to be reinforced. Normally we don't set eggs away so late in the year, but we were experimenting. We had found that eggs set away in April/May meant that hens were still not laying before winter, so we thought we may as well save on food and set them to hatch now. They would be big enough by winter in the arks we have to keep themselves warm. We are going to try again and hope the weather stays reasonable until well into October. We will also look at getting at least one more cat to live in the barn, maybe two. We had decided that two was enough on the farm as we didn't want to decimate the bird population but the arrival of rats, which we hadn't seen up until this year means we need more control and rat poison on the land is not an option - we don't want to poison other animals too.

The clouds made everything look very small today.

Buff-tip moth caterpillars, busy eating through an oak tree.
There seems to be less of them, but only orioles and cuckoos
eat them apparently. Well we have both, so maybe that's
why we are seeing fewer of them. I was a bit concerned they
might have been the rather dangerous oak processionary
caterpillars, fortunately not.

Our friend suggested we set some eggs away in late December to hatch in January but then we have the problems of keeping young chicks warm. A week in the apartment is okay, after that, they are too dusty to keep there and not feathered enough to put out into the greenhouse even with a heater. If this second batch does not work out well and we don't get enough hens then we will have a think and about trying again early next year. I'm sure we can figure something out if we have to. So apart from dead chicks, Sofie limping badly over the weekend and alpaca skin issues, everything is fine. At least Sofie was much better today and nearly back to normal and so far the alpaca skin issues are under control again. Not much we can do about the chicks though. What is really galling is that we actually had a really good batch. Only three out of the 20 eggs we set away were infertile, two chicks failed to hatch and the rest were all healthy. No leg issues such as we've had in previous batches.

Soaking up some sun!

It is lovely outside, so why don't you go out? Who me?

Fortunately the rest of the week was not that traumatic. In fact up until this morning it has been quite pleasant, with nice temperatures and just a good dousing of rain overnight one night, which the garden needed - unfortunately Ian didn't as he is in the middle of building a replacement shed for the greenhouse that fell down about 18 months ago. The pleasant weather has meant that I have got quite a bit done in the garden: hemp harvested, shallots found, carrots and turnips sown for a quick crop, beans harvested and frozen, the rest of the currants picked and bottled and some cucumbers bottled for winter salads. It's a wonder we get anything from our garden with the weeds that came up this year, the caterpillars eating my brassicas and the general lack of time to do anything about it. Slowly though some sort of order is being restored, well was, until this morning of course.

A rather large tomato

The new shed has finally been started.

We had our first group visit of the year this weekend. A lovely group of ladies doing a tour of unusual places - or at least that was the translation on the tour operator's website. A lot of the ladies bought the felt balls I make and one even bought a calendar, of course since it was over half way through the year, she got it at 50% off. She liked the pictures though. We maybe should have had the goods set up, but we haven't done that this year due to the issues with Covid19. We didn't want the goods handled, then having to wonder what to do with them. However, the incidence in Latvia is still low due to the vigilance of the authorities and we have times when there are no new cases at all.

Within the country there are some minimal Covid19 restrictions but for us it doesn't matter as we do our tours outside. Setting up a stall outside though is not a good option, especially during the visit this weekend as it looked really ominous. For a while we thought everyone would get drenched, but then the clouds passed over. It waited until I was trying to put the chickens away for the night and then let loose. I got another drenching. Ian laughed as he managed to avoid the two downpours. Heh ho! Such is life on a farm.

Below are two alpaca pictures followed by the ones of the chicks. If you are of a sensitive nature then stop here.