The temperatures have dropped dramatically but fortunately it was lovely and sunny. I took Poppy for a walk mid morning in between cooking Sunday lunch. Everywhere had a crisp autumnal feel. Many of the leaves are now on the ground and were good and crunchy underfoot.
Some trees are still looking colourful.
We took one of my favourite short routes.
Some of the old ewes are in the field with the lambs. The latter are of course pretty big now and have been separate from their mums since August. The old ewes are very friendly because they are used to following a bag of food. They come right up when you walk through the field. This is not ideal when you have a dog because they have a tendency to butt when there is a dog around. Luckily Poppy is pretty good off the lead amongst them and tends to wander nonchalantly through them.
The hens are another matter. She is still strictly on a lead when walking through them.
The horses were all out grazing in the sunshine enjoying their last few days of being outside all the time if their owners so wish.
Around the second week of November we will start restricting the horses to being out only during the day. When the weather turns very wet they will have to spend days entirely in their stables apart from when their owners are exercising them.
There is no doubt that winter is on it's way.
I loved this post so much! (In my perfect world, I would have a little hobby farm with a variety of animals). I didn't realize you had that many chickens! Egg layers? When they are free range like that, where do they lay? Or maybe I'm way off the mark and they are meat birds.
ReplyDeleteOur daylight savings time begins next week. It is very very dark right now at 6:39 a.m. -Jenn
Jenn we have 32 thousand hens. I know! It doesn't seem possible! They are layers. They lay their eggs in the shed before they come out. It is all automated . I can see I should do a post on them.
DeleteAlways enjoy seeing your hens out & about (as it should be). Most horses in our area have such wardrobes of blankets; fly sheets; rain sheets, winter sheets, under sheets, barn sheets Etc. Some of the barns leave the horses out all year 24 hrs but they have run in sheds to get out of the winter winds.
ReplyDeleteI think if we left it to the horse owners they would have their horses out all the time! We control when they go out to preserve the paddocks. We have tried in the past letting people control it themselves but it didn't work and caused a lot of arguments. We have of course got to consider the other animals needing to graze the fields as well.
Delete32 thousand hens is hard to imagine! You have such a beautiful farm, and I always enjoy seeing photos of it.
ReplyDelete