Elizabeth has a smallholding on the land next to her house. She keeps cows, alpacas, ponies, sheep, chickens, ducks and is thinking about getting some pigs...
Two of the highland cattle have given birth. The brown one is female, and should be given a female, or female sounding Scottish or Gaelic name. The other is male, and has inherited white fur from his grandfathers genes, and will be called Atora.
Last week Dancer, one of the minature Shetland Ponies, gave birth to a little colt foal. The colour is described as Palomino, which is similar to a milky coffee colour. He’s quite friendly, and he’s being handled every day to make sure he is used to human contact. Sadly Honey, who was ... Read More
All of us at Omicron Engineering would like to wish our friends, customers and suppliers a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We will be closing from this afternoon (24th December) and will re-open on the 4th January. Emails will be checked during this period. At some point over the holiday, Elizabeths pig ... Read More
A new calf has been born last weekend, called Oxo II. We thought that there would be a 3 week delay between that and the next, but actually the other three have all given birth within 10 days. So, as well as Oxo II, we also have Bisto II, both bull calfs, a heifer called ... Read More
The piglets are growing rapidly and are old enough to have been moved away from their mother. They’ve also had their ear tags fitted and the job of catching them and separating them from their mum took best part of a day. The two adult pigs have been put back together, with the hopeful ... Read More
This is Reggie (the rejected lamb). He was born a month ago and his mother had twins, but rejected this little chap. He’s been bottle fed ever since, 3 times a day and thus is very tame and thinks he’s more human than sheep. He lives out in the field with the other mothers ... Read More
Last Friday the team of Alpaca shearers came to shear the four Alpacas, so Elizabeth has several bags of alpaca fleece which can be spun into wool. They look even sillier than normal when they have been freshly sheared.
This morning, Elizabeth’s pig Bonnie, an Oxford Sandy and Black, gave birth to six little piglets. Elizabeth filmed this short video on her iPad. 82Mb download. http://www.omicron.uk.com/wp-content/uploads/IMG_2969.MOV
Every year the sheep shearer comes and shears all the sheep. Elizabeth had tried hand carding some fleece and spinning it on a traditional spinning wheel, but it was far too labour intensive, so she sent some away to be professionally processed and today a box containing 7kg of spun wool arrived. This is all ... Read More
Elizabeth has had loan of Fingal the bull for a couple of months now, and last week the vet came to visit and pronounced that four of the female herd are pregnant. This means that Fingal has done his job and arrangements can be made to move him to his next set of wives.
This morning we were pleased to find two new-born lambs. They had been born in the field from one ewe, and have now been brought indoors.
Elizabeth’s long standing threat of getting some pigs has happened. Two Oxford Sandy and Black pigs will be arriving in the next few days. OSB’s are sandy in colour with black spots and are another ancient and rare breed. As with many of the ancient breeds, they were almost considered extinct ... Read More
Ten days after the birth of Bovril, the other pregnant cow has given birth or a little heifer. This may well be called Eriska and joins half sisters Oona and Morag.
Last night we had a bit of a surprise. There were only four cows mooching around waiting for dinner when there should be five. We found the fifth cow in the far field, nursing a new born calf. This is only a couple of hours old. We knew that both adult ... Read More
Treacle and Toffee, the two minature Shetland pony foals have gone to their new home. They will be living at Edfords Care Farm near the north Norfolk coast. Edfords Care Farm is a small farm where people with mental health issues can visit and work with the animals which they have found to be ... Read More
