Stripped bare!

We went to the Whickham Community Fayre on Saturday to sell our preserves and eggs. Froma nearly full table at the start, we were almost stripped bare by the end! The goats and ducklings we took along with us also proved to be popular.

Georgie fully recovered

Georgie, our youngest billy goat, had been hobbling around on 3 legs recently. We took him to the vet and he was found to have an infection in one of his toes. I'm pleased to report he is now fully recovered and is back to his old ways.

Ducklings now moved

We have now moved the 4 ducklings from the chick run in the back garden to the much bigger chick run on our livestock allotment. They are sharing the run with 22 chicks but they have their own duck house which we built from rescued wooden planking which was due to be burnt by the builders due to move onto a building site down the road from us. We had permission of course!

The ducklings have settled in well though they are a bit nervous of the chicks, some of which are bullies!

Clearing the weeds

Yesterday we lent out Danny and Sandy, our two goat kids, to one of the neighbouring allotments where a patch of ground was overgrown with weeds. They chomped their way through them for a couple of hours before we took them back home (a journey of about 10 seconds!) Today they will return to finish the job.

Moving the ducklings

A couple of weeks ago, we hatched 4 ducklings. They have now been moved temporarily to the run in the back garden to acclimatize themselves to being outdoors. They will soon be moved to the chick run on the livestock allotment.

Lame goat

Georgie, our youngest billy, has been hobbling about for a few days. He cannot put any weight on his front left foot. On Thursday we took him to the vet. The conclusion is that he has an infection in one toe. He has been given medication and we will need to take him back in 10 days if he has not recovered.

His appetite remains good, as ever. When he came out of the surgery, he helped trimmed the privet hedge.

Green energy boost

We have been getting an energy boost recently on our solar panels with rechargeable battery back up. The long summer days (at last they are here, somewhat delayed due to the weather) means our panels are generating far more energy than we use, The surplus is stored in the battery and used overnight. Our smart meter is showing just how little energy we are buying in. The other evening, it showed we paid only 66p for the day's energy - but that includes the standing charge of 48p. So we bought in only 18p worth of electricity and gas. We could do with a few more days like that!