Orchard Farm

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 12 May 2008, 19:46

Vortex wrote:Orchard farm Update...

I know carrot fly can be a worry but isn't all that a tad OTT?

Vortex · Post by **Vortex** » 22 May 2008, 21:19

Mini update:

- We have 3 lambs in our garden waiting to go onto the land. It's great fun bottle feeding them! The one I feed is called 'Poppy'.

- The inner stock fence is being put up on the bank holiday .. with a bit of luck!

- I have been testing my new radio tag system - it works surprisingly well. It has a hand-held control unit and several tiny radio transponder tags which you attach to sheep, valuables etc. If the tags go missing you can track them down with the hand-held. (It's a bit more complicated than that, but you get the general idea)

- My two new 'trail cameras' have arrived from the USA. They will lurk in the undergrowth, and take pictures day or night of anything warm (animals or people) that comes near. The units are about the size of a paperback book. You strap them to a tree and use a bit of camouflage netting to conceal them.

I'll post some pix soonish - and also any images of deer or trespassers the trail cameras get.

Keela · Post by **Keela** » 22 May 2008, 21:34

Vortex wrote:- We have 3 lambs in our garden waiting to go onto the land. It's great fun bottle feeding them! The one I feed is called 'Poppy'.

Vortex.... what's going on? You're showing your "touchie-feelie-feminine" side!

Mind you I do agree about bottle feeding lambs. The farm beside us used to always have a lamb or two needing bottle fed and my brother and I would often cycle round to ask to feed "Lammie" - every orphan lamb had the same name....so we fed Lammie every spring for years!

Vortex · Post by **Vortex** » 22 May 2008, 21:58

Vortex.... what's going on? You're showing your "touchie-feelie-feminine" side!

Just showing how I got that 0/0 personality score.

An iron fist in a velvet glove. Fair but firm. Rational but caring. Highly skilled but modest. Logical with a touch of randomness.

Catweazle · Post by **Catweazle** » 23 May 2008, 12:03

Alert, rabbit detected in vegetable patch, launch the drones.....

Vortex · Post by **Vortex** » 23 May 2008, 16:48

Catweazle wrote:Alert, rabbit detected in vegetable patch, launch the drones.....

Nah, I use lower tech than a drone .... click on the link for a demo ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlrUjmT0AIo

Vortex · Post by **Vortex** » 23 May 2008, 19:28

Oh, I found a picture of my latest high tech gadget - the GSM autodialler which will dial us with a voice message if an alarm is tripped. It will be going into a waterproof ammo box which I got from the local 'survival shop'.

Vortex · Post by **Vortex** » 23 May 2008, 20:23

'Poppy' having her evening hot milk in our garden ...

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 24 May 2008, 00:57

We always called our lambs things like "Chops", "Rack" or "Mint Sauce" and we had a cow called Marmite and one called Bovril. We like to keep focused.

We tried letting people adopt orphan lambs for a while but gave up when one adoptor came up with curtains to put around their lamb's pen to keep it warm at night. ':shock:'

They didn't believe us when we told them that the curtains would probably give the lamb pneumonia by upping the humidity in the pen.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 24 May 2008, 08:46

What's with the security fencing in the background of the Poppy picture? Planning your own Guantanamo in the guise of of a chicken run?

Vortex · Post by **Vortex** » 24 May 2008, 09:45

biffvernon wrote:What's with the security fencing in the background of the Poppy picture? Planning your own Guantanamo in the guise of of a chicken run?

Yes, its a big chicken run. Keeps the buggers in and Mr Foxy out.

Those metal panels are really useful!

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 25 May 2008, 01:51

Vortex wrote:
biffvernon wrote:What's with the security fencing in the background of the Poppy picture? Planning your own Guantanamo in the guise of of a chicken run?
Yes, its a big chicken run. Keeps the buggers in and Mr Foxy out.

Those metal panels are really useful!

I hope it's well dug in, Vortex.

Vortex · Post by **Vortex** » 07 Jun 2008, 22:04

It's been a lovely sunny day!

We moved our three lambs (now quite big) from our garden to their fenced compound on our 5 acres of less-than-perfect land.

The neighbours will be glad that the noise level has dropped!

As we don't have a sheep trailer yet, we had to move them one-by-one in an animal carrier in our 4x4 ... a bit tedious ... but at least the sheep weren't too stressed as they had people they knew with them at all times.

We also built a basic shelter for the lambs once they were all moved. They of course wanted to help!

I'll post some pix tomorrow, Sunday.

The trail cameras are also in place secretly filming what's going on 24/7.

I can tell you that it's great actually DOING SOMETHING rather than simply waiting for Armageddon to arrive.

Our little patch of land may not help in any way if/when problems really set in ... but at least we are trying!

And you can't beat sitting in a field in the sun, drinking coffee & eating a sticky bun, whilst lambs prance around you!

Post by **clv101** » 07 Jun 2008, 22:12

Vortex wrote:I can tell you that it's great actually DOING SOMETHING rather than simply waiting for Armageddon to arrive.

Our little patch of land may not help in any way if/when problems really set in ... but at least we are trying!

And you can't beat sitting in a field in the sun, drinking coffee & eating a sticky bun, whilst lambs prance around you!

Well said.

Adam1 · Post by **Adam1** » 07 Jun 2008, 23:00

Well done Vortex. Nice pic. I was wondering the same thing Ken mentioned, as I'd guess you'd want to make sure your chickens will never deliver a positive EROEI meal for your local foxes. Are the fences dug in a bit so that the foxes can't dig under them, or is that not a problem.