Well we’ve had a few unfortunate occurrences in the past few weeks, three to be specific so that should be it and we can move on.
First off it happened. We never thought it would. The fox visited the hen house. It was a very cold wet night, husband Adrian had gone to bed with a cold and I’d gone out with the girls. Untypically we’d not done our usual “have you shut the hens up” routine, so no one did and we paid the price.
The dogs woke us up about 3am, we opened the bedroom windows and made an impressive hullabaloo but not before he or she had run off with our new cockerel! Poor Collins (seemed an appropriate name for Phil’s replacement), he’d only just started to crow, more of an adolescent squawk, and had developed some of those wonderful petrol blue/green tail feathers that only cockerels have. But his was a short lived tenure. Bother.
And you might remember. He was rather special. We have a small flock of exceedingly rare Brown Sussex chickens. We were given them by Malcolm the sheep scan man and chicken fancier and every year when he visits (he’s just been, more of which later) he reminds us that he only knows of two flocks in the country. Ours and those belonging to Jonathan Crump, a dairy farmer in Worcestershire.

So last summer a visit to the Three Counties Show in Malvern involved picking up some of Jonathan’s fertilised eggs and bringing them back to Coopers Farm to place under a broody hen. Seven hatched, two cockerels, but one was taken by a crow, leaving Collins with the super important responsibility of keeping the breed going. And now he’s gone.

Malcolm explained that he had seen a lot of empty ewes which had been tupped (put to the ram) early who had not held to service and this might be due to the very long hot summer

Other cockerels have been offered but luckily, we’re off to a birthday party in Brecon later this month and Jonathan happens to have a spare cockerel. So we shall arrive for the weekend with a feathered passenger (Adrian not thrilled as says car will smell like a farmyard, which it probably will), but, all being well, Collins 2 can pick up where Phil left off and the show will go on.

Next visitors also arrived at 3am. The dogs also barked. We thought it was probably the fox again but as the hens were safely shut up, we through it would be OK so rather smugly rolled over and went back to sleep. Hmm sadly they were two legged visitors this time. They sawed through two padlocks and got away with chainsaws, strimmers, drills etc. Deeply annoying, such an afront and then there’s all the bother of finding receipts, filing a claim and wondering who the scummy freeloaders might be. But hey ho, no one hurt and life goes on.
And then there was Malcolm’s annual visit to scan the ewes to ascertain whether they’re carrying singles, twins, triplets or nothing. There will always be a few empty ones but this year there were far more than expected. Malcolm explained that he had seen a lot of empty ewes which had been tupped (put to the ram) early who had not held to service and this might be due to the very long hot summer. Can’t be sure, but it didn’t start raining till late October, and with the rain came the grass which would have improved ovulation and conception. Another blow, but being rather sentimental farmers and feeling responsible for taking the rams out too soon we decided to put the rams back in and can look forward to some summer lambs. And hopefully to a less eventful time ahead.