Some good news!

Good evening everyone, I hope you are all keeping well.

The animals are all doing pretty well. I have recently made a YouTube video, which has covered the coop change, which I discussed in the last blog. I hope if you watch it, that you enjoy it. If you do like it, I’d very much appreciate it if you could like and subscribe, as that would help the channel. I am hopeful that it will help others to find the channel and find information, which might help them.

Some great news was that the goats blood tests came back and thankfully they were negative. The tests that had been carried out were for Johne’s disease and Caprine Arthritis Encephalitis (CAE). Johen’s disease is a contagious, chronic and often fatal infection, which mainly affects the small intestine of ruminants. CAE is a progressive, debilitating and contagious disease, which is a slow growing virus, which is hard to control. Obviously, you would not want to breed from any animals with these virus’ as you would not want your animals to contract these viruses. Also, you breed to improve the quality of the genes of the offspring so healthy animals is imperative. Having negative tests, gives us the green light to go ahead and breed from them, whilst ensuring that the sire has also been tested and is as healthy as possible. You also have to confirm that the family history of the animals do not have any links. Thankfully, I have a sire in mind. I just need to ring next week to finalise when, where and how we are going to be going ahead with this. Well, other than the obvious of course!

The goats have also had a manicure and their feet are looking super tidy. They were pretty well behaved. Thankfully putting them on the milking stand and them having some food to eat, makes it easier for all concerned.

The alpacas are doing well. The two hembra (female alpaca), who were mated are keeping well. Although, we were unable to take them for a spit off, due to vehicle issues. However, they will be scanned in the future, possibly towards the end of this month or next. I will keep you updated, as to when this will take place and the outcome. I haven’t done this before so not sure about pictures but if I can get any, I will do, and share them with you. Polly is also doing well and will be in the best place to be mated next year.

The alpacas feet have also been trimmed. This is definitely a 2-person job but we managed it. Isn’t it always the case though, the one you expect to be challenging is fine and the one you don’t is a complete pain! We have only managed to do 2 of them. Maddy is still to be done but we are going to do her when we have plucked up courage! She has gone back to being a complete diva, since being mated. She had properly turned into my baby, but not now. I can honestly say that I am not looking forward to doing her feet. All I can say is that I will be expecting a lot of spitting going on! Possibly and umbrella might be a good idea!

The chickens are all doing well and continue living their best lives, in the confines of the paddock. I am hoping that they are not put into flockdown! Meaning that they are kept inside their coop and run, 24 hours a day! They absolutely hate it. I love my birds, but I would prefer to take my chances with them. To be honest, with a medical head on, I would think that it is the survivors, if any, that would be the ones to bring the birds through this virus, a bit like COVID. I know that there is a very high mortality rate but even if one bird survived, that would mean that it would have the antibodies to keep or pass on to offspring. It probably isn’t anything like that, but it makes sense to me. Don’t shout at me if I am completely wrong!

As for the garden, we have some lovely sprouts growing and have some gorgeous kale and spinach, along with lots of leafy greens. I am going to give a new recipe a go. It is cheesy mushroom, spinach puff pastry. I found it online, it is a Whitney Bond recipe. It sounds and looks yummy, so I am looking forward to trying that. I will let you know how it turns out. I also need to get some more beetroot out of the ground. I found a great pickled beetroot recipe; it does need to be water bathed as it is not 100% vinegar, but I feel that it tastes better for it. We enjoy it so much, we don’t have much left, so I need to make another batch. I have also been watching the YouTube channel ‘Our Smallholding Adventure’ with Tracy. It is a great channel and the way that Tracy is working with cutting back on spending has been a great help to me and I am sure, many others. She also shares lots of other ideas and one of the ones that I will be trying, is making a tonic made from elderberries. I need as much help as possible to keep the germs at bay over the winter months, especially as they have said that flu will be a real problem this year, along with general coughs and colds. Also, another positive is that they are free. You just need to go and pick them!

Anyhow, that is enough talking about food, it is making me hungry. It just leaves me to hope you have had a great weekend and hope you coming week treats you kindly. I look forward to updating you on our goings on in a couple of weeks. Don’t forget to pop on over to Facebook to see what is going on and also watch for updates on both Instagram and Facebook. I try to keep them as up to date as possible.

Bye for now and take care.

Here are some recent pictures for you to have a look at.