Our Animal Inventory 2018

If 2017 saw a lot of changes on the farm, 2018 certainly matched it. The pet front especially had been changed beyond all recognition.

Rocher the farm cat is a constant. She earns her keep by mousing. Sometimes successfully, sometimes I doubt her and send the dog out. The most hilarious thing happened with her this year when she joined me on a trip to the chemist.

 

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•catastrophe• I was driving to the local village yesterday. My mum had the boys. I was loving life with the window down. Half way there, our farm cat appeared mewing. She nearly gave me a heart attack then proceeded to get on my knee, leap through the open window, run across the road and into someone’s garden. I stopped the car, ran after the cat and managed to retrieve her from the garden by which time, passing traffic must have thought I was stealing the cat. Safely back in the car, I put the window up and continued on my way with my feline stow away. As I waited for the prescription, she set the car alarm off. It could only happen here 🙀

A post shared by Emma lander (@farmerswifeandmummy) on Sep 26, 2018 at 3:47am PDT

She’s definitely a character.

On the dog front, Rosie is still top dog in my eyes and the farmer, never one to think things through has had a total overhaul.

We now have Max the Kelpie, Archie the Norfolk terrier and our newest addition, Freddie Todd the little Jack Russell. Let’s see what adventures we can get up to this year.

Most unlike us, the only new sheep to have been purchased was four Romney ewes. 2018 was our first year with the two Romney rams and the four ewes (now three because one died of twin lamb disease). They made excellent mothers and are just so easy to handle.

The Charolais rams were also a good buy lat year and all of their lambs have been reaching the required weight for market much sooner than the Texel crosses.

I bought two pigs in the summer and they lasted about a week before I sold them on. They were not very friendly and I just cannot endear myself to them. I am definitely sticking to grazing animals.

Elsa the little white horse is still with us and comes for trips to the garden and front field when the weather is fine.

We had six goats at the beginning of the year but I sold two then I needed up selling Stud Muffin and Chocolate the whether and billy goat to a friend because logistics of keeping Muffin away from Cupcake was becoming troublesome and my lovely friend has said I can use Muffin for my two remaining girls when I want. I am therefore hoping for some more baby goats in 2019.

After the fox attacks, our poultry numbers are down to zero. I am beyond gutted about this. I put so much time and effort into my flock last year including two successful hatching and I have absolutely nothing to show for it. I realise this is farming but I can’t help feeling quite dejected by this bit and having to buy eggs is just wrong.

I have definitely started 2019 with very many less animals than I started 2018 with but you know what that means-lots of buying to be done this year.

As soon as Spring hits, I will be at the livestock market quicker than you can say alpaca.