Swallow Chicks!

image: swallow chicks a couple of days old on the HenSafe smallholding


Four swallow chicks just a couple of days old, being fed by very busy parents!

Swallows in the Barn


 
Image: Mrs Swallow sitting on eggs on the HenSafe Smallholding
Mrs Swallow sitting on her eggs

Meet Mrs Swallow. Sitting on eggs in her perfect nest on a ledge in the barn. We watched them building their nest, very precisely, with bits of grass and feathers, held together with mud from the pig pen. She's been sitting for about a week.
image: Swallow cam on the HenSafe Smallholding
Nest Building at the end of May


It's Official. Lambs like Grapes!



image: lambs on the HenSafe smallholding
Found some shrivelled up grapes in the car that we’d got to nibble on a long journey. Decided to see if the lambs were peckish - and got mobbed! By Brownie, of course :) Never would've imagined it. Tomorrow... strawberries?
image: lambs on the HenSafe smallholding www.hensafe.net

image: lambs on the HenSafe smallholding www.hensafe.net
Learnings:

Never say never!
But always remember that food from your kitchen must never be given to your livestock.

Mud and Muck



The black piglets are 12 weeks old today. Tan piglets a week behind and growing fast. Took this pic of them this evening munching their way through supper of 4.5 scoops of pig nuts. The reflection of our aged JCB in the wallow rather nice I thought. Pigs now not piglets methinks - the difference in size in just a couple of weeks is amazing.

The contrast in our weather and the mud is huge compared to this pic from 18 May. Does he know his tail is perilously close to the electric fence? Wait for the squeal...