HEN PEN MASSACRE

..Fox leaves carnage in its wake

 TWO years of work raising an endangered breed of hen - Scots Dumpys - has been brought to an abrupt end overnight thanks to the ubiquitous fox who has stalked our small farm since the day we arrived.

POINT OF ENTRY & ESCAPE: The fox could've spent hours

may be even days or weeks picking away at the hicken wire

 As regulars know there has been a constant battle between Nature and nurture as I've tried to raise sheep, geese, hens and turkeys in as natural an environment as you can hope for. Now all that hard work has virtually been destroyed in a blood thirsty killing spree.
The fox managed to pick away at some chicken wire, I'm not sure if it took hours, days or even weeks, to gain entry into the hen pen where he set about killing off half the occupants including Napoleon, the black cockerel, and hubby's favourite hen Little Dorrit ... we've yet to find their bodies. The video below shows what I found but if you are squeamish don't watch it. The remains of those left behind included a Guineau Fowl, the forlorn Mr Bumbles who lost his mate Mrs Bumbles earlier this month.
 The agonising decision to keep them locked up inside the hen pen 24/7 was made after half a dozen hens disappeared last week when they failed to return from a day's foraging. A couple on horseback, who use our grounds for access, reported seeing the fox while out riding and expressed concern for the peafowl.
 It was then I decided to lock both the hens and the turkeys in the pen during daylight hours but now, until the hen pen is made secure, the surviving five Scots Dumpys will have to sleep with the turkeys in the stable. I'm heartbroken.

 Those of you who have shared the highs and lows of Soho2Silo know that I travelled extensively to build a solid breeding stock of Scots Dumpys drawn from the Isle of Wight, Manchester, Northampton, Cheshire. Many shared in my joy as the first chicks hatched and some sorrows as well as the ever present fox cast a shadow over the future of my birds.

MR BUMBLES: Already
heartbroken & now dead

 The survivors include Horatio and my little white Dumpy Thumberlina, one of the young black poults ... last week I was hoping it would turn out to be a hen but now I'm hoping it will be a cockerel just like Napoleon. The two surviving cuckoo coloured hens are my Isle of Wight birds Madge and Mildred.
 Familiar figures like Lady Gaga, Beryl, Ruby, Flopsy and Charlotte are no more.
 At the moment I'm still trying to process what has happened and can't even begin to think about anything just now other than how to get rid of that fox once and for all.
 The gloves are off and I know he will come back to try and take the remaining five. In the meantime I've decided to leave the dead birds lying where he slayed them because I know he will return tonight ... and I shall be waiting.

WHERE IS THE QUEEN?

..Behold, Sir*

QUEEN: Essential

to keeping order

 A FRIEND of ours is interested in beekeeping so we took him to the apiary the other day all suited and booted for a close inspection of the hives. As with all new comers the queen was the focus of interest and there's always fierce competition between me and hubby in spotting  Her Highess.
 All seven of our queens are clearly marked with coloured dots on their back usually reflecting the year of their birth ie. Green is for 2014 and Red is for those queens born in 2013, although two of our queens have yellow dots as their previous owner was colour blind and yellow made it easier for him to locate the queen in the hive.
 Despite the dot it can still be difficult to find the queen and our experience is that she usually hangs around the edge of the frame. He-who-should-be-obeyed-but-rarely-is was full of himself as he took the lead and inspected each frame and while we had a degree of success in locating each queen, when we came to one of the hives we simply could not find her.
 As we went through each hive I noticed the bees from one of the first hives we checked seemed to be in turmoil and after about 15 minutes were swirling around in a real bad mood. Suddenly hubby dropped his superior attitude and asked meekly: "Is that a queen, on me?" Our friend and I both looked and sure enough, scurrying across his face veil was a queen bee sporting a red dot.

YOU'VE BEEN FRAMED: Queens can be difficult to spot 

hence the reason most beekeepers mark Her Maj with a dot

 Quite clearly she had jumped on him during a frame inspection ... while he was coveting each frame he inspected before showing us what he had found, one must have brushed too closely too his chest forcing the queen to jump off and hitched a ride.

 Why she didn't fly off him and return to the hive is a mystery to me although I'm sure a more experienced keeper will give an explanation. Queens usually fly at least twice - once to mate and another to swarm and find a new hive to move the colony.
I'm just thankful he didn't squash her - some beekeepers have been known to drop the queen from a frame by accident, which is why frame inspection should always be done over the main body of the hive.

 For this very reason I don't clip the wings of queens although some beekeepers do to ensure she never flies off from the hive.
 The queen is essential for evoking a sense of well being and calm within the hive and she gives of a scent called pheremones to ensure order within the colony is kept. If she disappears her absence is quickly noticed and soon the usually hum of a hive can turn rapidly into a frenzied buzz.
 As we looked down the apiary it wasn't difficult to spot the queen-less colony as a mini revolution looked set to explode from Hive Number 2 and so we returned her and calm was soon restored.

* Act 5, Scene 2 Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare.

ANOTHER MID-SUMMER MYSTERY

BUMBLES MYSTERY: Mrs is in the foreground and the two

were inseperable

..Or, where is Mrs Bumbles?

 SOMETHING very curious has happened involving the arrival of a stranger and the disappearance of one of the hen pen's most industrious residents and I am beginning to wonder if the two are connected.

 The mystery centres on the most devoted couple Mr and Mrs Bumbles who usually go about their business together and are rarely seen apart.

On the odd occasions they've not returned to the hen pen they share with the Scots Dumpys, The Bumbles, a pair of Guineau Fowl, perch on a tree over-looking their home until the morning. They're extremely cautious and make one hell of a racket when startled so I've never been unduly worried that they'd fall victim to Mr Fox.

 Like officious little regimental sergeant majors, The Bumbles zoom around the place ignoring all other residents, including myself. Anyone who invades their space or gets to close is repelled by a noisy shrill clucking sound and their beautiful grey speckled feathers bristle, fluff up and flap.

 Native to Africa, they are known for traveling in large, gregarious flocks and were first introduced into Europe by 15th century Portuguese explorers. There are seven species of guinea fowl, of which the "helmeted pearl" is by far the most common, and certainly the weirdest looking, with their oddly shaped helmet, white, featherless face, bright red wattles, and gray polka-dotted feathers.

 Last week Mr Bumbles came home alone and I feared the worst until the next morning when he hurtled around the grounds making a muted squawking sound as if searching for his soul mate. If she had been nabbed by an intruder Mr Bumbles would have seen it happen and he would have made a racket loud enough to wake the dead; and I guess he would have moped around the next day but he really seemed to be looking for her.

 The next morning another Guineau Fowl appeared perched on a tree favoured by The Bumbles. I thought it was Mrs Bumbles until I noticed this one had white flashes across the wings and was indeed a male. The male species have flaps of scarlet red skin framing their faces whereas the hens don't. Where he came from or how he arrived at our small-holding is still a mystery but his arrival was treated with outrage and fury by Mr Bumbles as you can see from the 40-second video clip I made of the angry encounter a day or so ago.

HAPPIER DAYS: The Bumbles were 

once inseperable

 The stranger is still here, undeterred by a hostile Mr Bumbles but there is still no sign of Mrs B. I wonder if she has a nest somewhere as when I think about it, her little brown eggs have been absent of late. I'm hoping she has gone broody and made a secret nest although I would've thought she would have shared the location with her partner.  And he does seem lost at the moment as he wanders aimlessly around. I am beginning to miss their frenzied whistles, chirps and odd clicking noises.

 In the meantime I suspect this mystery will run for sometime - if anyone has any answers please drop a line and share your thoughts. And if you live in the Borders and are missing a male Guineau Fowl let me know.

SILO SNIPPET

 THE wasps nest is no more but sadly hubby sneaked out and destroyed it while I was busy elsewhere. I think he was nervous about being filmed and did not want to star in his own disaster movie - anyhow he says he squirted lighter fuel onto the nest & set it alight before the occupants inside could get out and get him. All sounds rather grizzly but who's going to shed a few tears over wasps? Certainly not me!

FEATHERS FLY

..As posh cats revert to type

SURVIVOR: Robin escapes jaws of the miffed 

Sheba in the background

 A YEAR ago I adopted two Rag Doll cats called Zenobia and Sheba and we have lived happily together indoors ever since.
When I received the cats, after being exhaustively interviewed to make sure I was a suitable foster mum by the Rag Doll rescue team in Scotland, I was warned both girls were indoor cats and had none of the usual instincts of outdoor cats.
 I was told in no uncertain terms never to let the cats step outside and until recently they've lead quite sedentary lives following the same diet and the same routine ... that is until he-who-should-be-obeyed-but-rarely-is started knocking down walls, doors and windows as part of a renovation.
 Far from causing distress and upsetting their quiet disposition, it appears he has unleashed in them a darker side previously unknown and certainly uncharacteristic in the breed.

BAD SPORT: Zenobia looks on with 

mild irritation at my intervention

 Any creature happening to attempt to set up home in the house has been pounced upon by Zenobia and Sheba who have revealed all the characteristics of streetwise, alley cats. They have hunted down their prey without mercy and indulged in all the cat-and-mouse antics of Tom & Jerry, but unlike the cartoon its the cats who get the upperhand here.
 For a period of nearly two weeks terrifying squeaks would interrupt our sleep and then we'd find tiny little mouse and shrew bodies lying by the bed. We did manage to release a few from the jaws of Sheba.
 The cats obviously treat the arrival of live animals as a blood sport and have not shown any desire to eat their prey, preferring instead a bowl of dried turkey food.
 The good news is the house is now a mouse-free zone but the bad news is the girls are now targetting birds which fly in through open windows and doors.
 Just this morning I managed to wrestle a small Robin out of Sheba's clutches much to her annoyance while Zenobia looked on with an expression of irritation at this unwelcome intervention.
 The Robin was lucky enough to survive the feline mauling and seemed none the worse for the experience when I released it outside.
 It is quite clear from their manner and expressions that they now want to go beyond the confines of the house to explore the great outdoors, but frankly they're under lock and key. It's bad enough having to keep a fox at bay without unleashing these two on the unsuspecting wildlife in the Borders.