Our Animals
Our 'animals' are a real favourite with guests of all
ages. To see our free range Aylesbury ducks wandering
past your cottage door is one of the delights of staying
here. We keep poultry, waterfowl, and pigs (the latter
during summer months only). Also rabbits and a guinea
pig. Guests are welcome to help feed them, pet them, and
maybe collect eggs - we hope to build up a laying flock
of Light Sussex hens.
Rocky our Light Sussex cockerel is a gentle giant. He's
very friendly and interested in everything that is going
on. We bought him a couple of wives - Ruth and Ria in
September. They are supposed to be 'point of lay'. They
haven't seen the point of laying so far, but hopefully
they will in the spring, so we can collect the eggs as
well as have baby 'Rockys'.
Our game cross bantams are about as tall as Rocky's legs
and guests often ask when they will 'grow up', but they
are just bred to be that small. Frankie (named by a guest
after Frankie Detorri, on the basis that he is small but
with lots of attitude), our bantam cockerel, has
beautiful colouring, he's friendly, but not quite as nosy
as Rocky - and quite capable of chasing big boy Rocky
away if he goes too close to his own wives (Fran and
Flo).
Our white 'Jemina Puddleduck' Aylesburys are very popular
with everybody. See if you can take a photo of them all
in a row. They waddle along in a comical fashion, tending
to follow the leader, usually Harry, our drake with the
curly tail who keeps his five wives well 'in line'. They
lay well during spring and summer when you can buy our
duck eggs. We also incubate eggs during the summer
months. The ducklings are so cute - they start off as
yellow balls of fluff and you can see how they have grown
day by day.
We also keep a number of Muscovy ducks. Arnold, our old
boy, is a big fellow and far too big to fly - or maybe
he's just lazy. His son, Marcus, who is mostly black is
lighter and can manage to fly a few meters. Arnold's
wife, Jan, and our other females, 'Blacker' our new pure
black female, named by my youngest son (favourite colour
black), the 'black and white' duck and 'black duck with
white head' (appropriate names are always appreciated!!)
are smaller and lighter and can fly a bit more -
especially if it is feeding time. However, they are not
very good fliers and sometimes only just make the top of
the fence or miss, crash landing into me! Their ducklings
are black and yellow and even cuter than the
Aylesburys.
Our geese are (Mrs) Gandhi (our first 'animal!'
acquisition) and named Gandhi until we found out she was
a 'Mrs' and Nehru, her husband. Not quite right
historically, but we like the names! Geese pair for life
and can live up to 30 years. In 2008 Gandhi surpassed
herself and successfully hatched 7 young. We keep our
geese behind fences in the fields, as they can be pecky,
but where they make effective lawn mowers.
Our latest acquisitions are our trio of bronze turkeys
(actually a beautiful shiney black) Timothy, and his
wives Tina and Tilly. We hope to breed from them in 2009.
Timothy can display his tail feathers in a beautiful
peacock-like way and they already seem tame, getting very
excited when we come along with a scoop full of
food.
In the summer we keep a couple of pigs, their antics are
always very popular and they usually run over to the
fence when they see you. They love a treat of banana
skins or vegetable peelings. We usually get the pigs in
April or May.
Our rabbits are Thumper and Pickle. Thumper is our old
boy - probably about seven now, and has lovely lop ears.
He's very friendly although in his younger days if he got
out he used to give us the run around, but now he can be
caught and picked up easily. Pickle is our other male
rabbit - he's just over a year old and if he gets out he
certainly moves fast! He's a lionhead rabbit and has an
attractive 'mane' around the top of his head. My youngest
son called him Pickle as when we got him and he was very
young he used to escape frequently and I spent hours late
at night on many occasions playing 'chase' around the
fields. Despite several overnight outside 'sleepovers' in
the early days he survived so he must be quite bright.
Their friend is Josie the guinea pig. She's quite timid
and likes her shelter, but enjoys being petted when we
get her out of her cage in the morning.
