Round and Round the Mulberry bush

Funnily enough we discovered that the paddock that goes by the name of Orchard actually contained an orchard. On recent closer inspection it seemed we had a bunch of pear trees of which the fruit doesnt seem to be ripening and a massive, somewhat 20ft high tree, which contained what we originally thought were blackberries but after some google investigation by Amanda we uncovered these so called blackberries were actually mulberries.

We went about gathering all the ripe fruit at ground level but only seemed to be a pinch to that which sat further up in the tree to be left there for another day.

I figure a third of the fruit went in the buckets, a third in Bens belly and the remainder on Bens shirt.

Rounding up Geese and cattle

This morning started with Benjamin and I venturing out to feed our Muscovy duck which wanders by the house twice a day in search of hand outs.

Our chicken shed is pretty much empty at the moment, only holding 3 bantam silkies, after, we believe the foxes culled a bunch of poultry including a number of ducks (Peking and Muscovy, guinea foul, some geese and a turkey. Over the past number of months however the remainder of the Chinese geese have been let out and free to roam. They have taken up residence at the house dam, the result has been a mass of geese dung around the dam and growth of algae related to the nitrogen from said dung. Anyway today Ben and I decided to round up the geese and put them back into their pen. I believe it was the Geek Farm Life folk who said that the way to coax birds back to their shelters was to, over time, feed them closer and closer to their destination. I had planned to do this as I set of with Ben on the quad bike. As we got close we realised that we could possibly round them up like we do sheep or cattle, which we did using the quad bike. We managed to get all but one back to the enclosure and that one darted under an opening in the fence and fled back to the dam before I could head it off. Later, feeling lonely that one goose decided to find out where his friends were and ventured to the chicken shed where we rounded him (or her) up also.

There is some debate amongst the family whether they will stay in the chicken shed due to their boisterous nature and ability to keep folks up at night. They may become cooked goose if that's the case.

Later that day we got the cattle in the yards, first the cows then the bulls in readiness for the Stock and Land Beef week sales. This involves showing the stock on the property for prospective buyers who wander from property to property viewing stock. The hair on the ears were trimmed so the tags could be viewed and a few cattle had lost their tags and had to be replaced. One of the largest of the bulls was named Benjamin after our lad of just under 3 years old who is around the same age as Benjamin bull.

Manx Loaghtan

Today I visited the secretary of the Manx Loaghtan Breeders group who kindly offered to show me her stock and discuss the breed. Carol and her husband Mark had a lovely thatched cottage in Gloucestershire just west of Gloucester itself.

Carol breeds Manx sheep for hobbie only. The sheep in my mind were beautiful animals especially the ones with the 4 perfectly formed horns and the one with the most perfect horns which Carol intends to show was a year old ram.

The breed is substantially healthier than commercial varieties with one farm, Langley Chase in the UK winning several awards.

Ive enquired to the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service and there response is as follows:

AQIS Reference number 2008-0266

Dear Mr Kumnick

The Australian live animal import conditions do not permit the importation of ruminant animals from any country other than New Zealand. These conditions have been in place for a number of years and they are based on the risk assessments on the importation of live ruminants from overseas countries, carried out by Biosecurity Australia.

Regards

Dr Don Leelawardana. BVSC, MACVSc

Anyway to date, searching on the web Ive found no breeders from Australia or New Zealand. My search will continue.....