Life On Our Farm

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Our two new rescued pups, Tom and Max, aren’t just for Christmas!
We hope that they will have blissful lives with us on the farm always!
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Our Jack passed away last week. He will be sorely missed. The friend who gave him to us so many years ago says that he was over decade old then so let's say he was 16. A fair age for a Mynah Bird which can actually live until they are 20 years old or more. It must have been all the smooth talk and pampering he had over the years that gave him such a colourful life and an impressive vocabulary. We do not condone the caging of wild birds but Jack would have never have survived without his daily meal of ‘Thunder Wings’ and ripe papaya! He left his cage a couple of times but came back when called; the wide open sky was a bit too much for him then. What are we going to do without you boy and your infamous language and your cheeky laugh?
Now the skies are all yours Jack and you can fly free!..you will not be forgotten in a hurry.

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Maggie (and Alf and Ethel) come to us from high in the mountainous Hmong country out of Phrae, about a 6 hour drive from Chiang Mai, when they were just tiny piglets! They were given to us by folks in a Hmong village for some help that we gave them. Now the mother of nearly 100 ‘babes’ Maggie enjoys a relaxing life of corn and mud-baths! She is the sweetest pig you could ever wish to meet and even though we do not know the exact date of her birth we think that she must be 8 years old sometime very soon. So here’s to you Maggie, Happy Birthday and many mud-baths in the years to come!
 
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It’s a year ago since we posted the blog about Merry’s birthday! Doesn’t time fly! So here we are again wishing our very special girl a very special birthday! Merry has just celebrated her 11th birthday….so in dog years that’s 20 years for the first year and 7 years each year thereafter which means that she is a grand old dame of the equivalent of 90 human years! Merry has the most wonderful character... but in typical Labrador fashion is a glutton for her food...so she ‘woofed’ down three small cakes and a couple of packets of her favourite snacks to celebrate! After that she went for a long swim in the lake obviously aware that she should keep her waist-line in shape even for a girl of her age!

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All of our Guinea Fowl eggs are hatching! So far 36 baby ‘keets’ are spreading their wings and enjoying the spacious surrounds of their safe enclosure in the bird house! We still have 43 eggs in incubators and 17 week old ‘keets’ who are finding their feet in the heated brooder box!...amongst these is our first ‘white’ of the season aptly named ‘Snowflake’ by one of our younger guests! She doesn’t keep still so this snap is the best we could take…she is just like a ball of cotton wool and we will take especial care of her and report her progress to adulthood! This is one Snowflake who could so easily melt your heart!

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We all love our ‘Moo Doi’, Mountain Pigs but no one more than Emily, from Singapore, a familiar face on the farm and who is totally besotted and has a certain way with them that none of us have! They are so attracted to Emily and enjoy her company so much. We wish Emily could come and stay on the farm permanently just to take care of them and let them snort sweet nothings into her ear! A true pig whisperer if ever there was one!
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Our first Guinea Fowl nest of the season hatched on the 9th July, 2 days ahead of schedule! In fact of 24 eggs in the incubators 11 arrived two days early, maybe because we have warm weather, 6 one day ahead and 3 right on time! Only four eggs proved to be infertile (although I wish they had all hatched!) which gives us a hatch rate of about 83% which is quite gratifying after all the work during the past 28 days ensuring that the eggs were turned every 45 minutes and that the temperature and humidity were exactly as recommended.
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Most are ‘Pearl -  White Breasted' and 3 have very bright white chests. Unfortunately no pure Whites but 1 little Lavender fellow who was quite weak when he hatched but who is now bouncing around their heated brooding box together with his siblings. 1 hatched and the Inner Shell Membrane covered his eyes and dried, in all sense making him blind. So as in such cases under a bight light with magnifying glass, a cotton bud dipped in warm water is used to very carefully wipe back and remove the offending tissue on both eyes. Even I was so surprised that just a few minutes after this procedure he was pecking away at the high protein feed and drinking the vitamin enriched water that we give these ‘Keets’ and now I cannot even tell which bird he is!


So 20 hatched. 50 more eggs in the large incubator and 7 in the Brinsea plus roughly 60 more eggs under chickens all due to hatch before mid-August. Now the fun begins!..... and if we pick-up, hold and gently cuddle a day old ‘Keet’ several times each day they will become very tame; come when called and sit on my shoulder whilst I work on the farm. The only problem is they will roost outside my bedroom and wake me up just before the sun rises with their high pitched screeching! Therefore it is very wise to just tame a few of these very cute and special little birds!

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After 3 weeks in the initial brooding box they will transfer to a much larger box with a higher Brinsea Brooder making it slightly cooler. Another 4 weeks they will migrate to a large, but very safe, ‘run’ in the bird house and finally when reaching about 3 months they will be allowed out on their own to join all the other Guineas roaming our farm!
…and to think we have around another 100 Guineas yet to hatch! It's actually very hard work when the Guineas arrive…but  who can resist these little bundles of mischief?