Goats and Donkeys

Hello All
This is Spot doing what all goats do, showing off. She is balancing on top of a mineral block on top of a bucket in a food trough just because she can. As you can see the shed is nearly empty as we have been busy putting all the animals outside on the lovely, fresh, green, free, pre-loaded, grass and are down to 20 buckets of silage to load per day. Gavin thinks he is on holiday ;-) .....well kinda. He arrived at one of our fields today and discovered 1 set of twins and 4 singles fortunately all with their correct mothers and perfectly content. We have been supremely lucky with the weather for this second lambing, which happens outside, long sunny days and warm nights.
However, the tranquility was shattered the other night with the arrival of Mr Fox next to the field where the lambs are being born so Gavin spent a fun midnight fencing the flock behind an electric fence to dissuade him from being a naughty Mr Fox. 

This year we have also enlisted the assistance of Nougat to help with fox control. Donkeys are actually recommended as a fox deterrent if you don't want to have a Pyrenean Mountain Dog. I have to say I was very dubious about their effectiveness but any excuse for Old McDonanld (Gavin) to have another animal. Having seen him in action the other night, that is Nougat not Old McDonald, when he woke me at 2 in the morning because he was herding the sheep around the field, we now realise that he was probably moving them around to stop the fox being able to snatch one of the babies. So yes, he has proved his value and even though when he brays it feels like all the air has been sucked out of the atmosphere, I guess he will be staying. 
Below are our twin/triplet section who get to hide away in the pens at night time this is them this morning just as they were waking for their first feed.

I am looking forward to next week, the girls are on holiday and that means no getting up every day at 6am, just getting up one morning at 5 am, spending one night sleeping on a chair next to a bed and 2 mornings at 6am. Yes I sure am a girl who knows how to have fun fun fun. Emily goes in to have a tonsillectomy next week and apparently parents of minors are expected to stay in the hospital with their children after an operation so if I seem less than awake next weekend at the markets bear with me, and if there is no blog think of me curled up on that hospital chair....zzzzzzz.
See you all soon
Helen