Murder most fowl

This is the last hen on the farm.   I think she is hoping Jake will become her new companion.  

It was really hot on Thursday morning and I was about to clean up the henhouse but when I opened the door it was like a sauna so I propped the door back intending to go back later.  It was one of those days when we just ran out of time.  Nothing in particular but lots of little things kept cropping up.   We were due to take Jake and Romie training and decided to do leave home a bit earlier and do the weekly shop in Chard.


On Friday morning I went to feed the chickens and collect eggs to find a shed with lots and lots of feathers, mostly from our beautiful cockrell and, of course no hens, just  piles of black feathers and a carcase with its throat torn out.  I had forgotten to go back and close the door and the fox must have slaughtered them all - most of them in their house, but we did find another pile of the cockrells feathers further up the drive so he must have made a brave attempt to get away with hardly any feathers on him.  As you can imagine, I was absolutely gutted, the more so, because it could so easily have been avoided.

The alpacas were feeling the heat and kept trying to paddle in an old galvansied trough in one of the fields.   We know they love to get to water to cool down and they often try to climb into their drinking troughs or just dip their dirty feet in so that we have to keep replenishing it.    Mike moved the big trough over to the barn and put it under a drain pipe from the roof.   He filled it with tapwater but hope that there with be plenty of water coming off the roof to keep it clean and full.