Well, after much anticipation young Dennis is here... he arrived with a big purple D on his back to ensure that he didn't receive the Improvac vaccine which is a great alternative to surgical castration. We use it to ensure that our males don't have 'boar taint' - decreases testosterone production to the point that the testicles shrink to nearly nothing (actually I have no idea what it does to testosterone, you would have to ask James, however I do observe that our pigs have no testicles and I thought that sounded quite knowledgeable)... this fate wasn't something that was wanted for this fellow though...he needs to be firing on all cylinders so to speak. At the moment he is only a baby, and enjoys tummy rubs and pears. He is quite different looking to our other pigs, I think he has quite a cute face? I accept that I may just be spending too much time around pigs however so we will settle on the fact that he is a fine specimen. He is in the yards at the moment and will move into his own paddock with some young girls to keep him company this weekend.
Day 5 of goat taming is going slowly. Amanda didn't eat for the first 3 days, however I noticed by yesterday she was cleaning out her feed bucket. My next step is to get her to eat with me standing on the other side of the fence...if this is successful then I will stand in the yard and so on and so forth. Little Chloe is very cute and skips and hops around Mum not really understanding what all the fuss is about. Chicken watch is also going well...fingers crossed. The silky forgave me and is diligently sitting on her eggs. Buoyed up on the success of this I cleaned out the chickens yesterday and put 12 eggs under one of the Australorp hens...possibly too many but she is such a big fat hen that I thought she could manage.. will see how many rotten eggs we have at the end. Rodney rooster would benefit from a bit of testosterone reduction himself as yesterday I turned my back on him and felt him wallop into the back of my legs. Later on poor Emily turned to go back to the house and he chased her like a greyhound. If he had hurt her I am not sure whether he would still be strutting around outside the house as he is this afternoon. As it is Emi said to James yesterday "I'm afraid you need to get rid of that rooster Dad" - so she is fast becoming a farm kid...I'm not sure she really understands what getting rid of the rooster will entail. We will of course be sure to tell her that he went off to live on that distant 'farm' that our goat and the other ducks are merrily going about their business on.