Animal Farm

As a result of Christmas, the Marr menagerie continues to grow.

Making full use of the recently constructed chicken run; we have added two ducks, two bantams and an extra guinea-pig.

The duck additions are two Indian Runners. Quite unusual and very funny to watch. Of course, with ducks, we had to add a pond as ducks really need a good water feature so they can swim and dive and do all the normal "duck things". Conned Adrian and a work colleague (hi, Matt - how's the head?) into digging a hole for the pond, but as you will see, they ran out of puff about half-way down (is half-a-hole still a hole?). Adrian claims they ran into too many tree roots to continue, but I suspect thay just ran out of beer, red-wine, vodka, whiskey, white wine, etc. and were unable to continue.

The new guinea-pig is a female about the same size as the existing one, which we think (and hope) is also a female. It is very shy and is only now beginning to venture forth from its hide-away. Still, it's good company (we presume) for our old, lone g-pig. As can be seen on one of the photos, it is just poking its nose out of the entrance to their home.

The new bantams are not yet in the chicken run. They are young Ancona chickens - don't know much about them but they look somewhat "sporty". When we eventually transfer them to the run, they may prove to be a bit flighty - still, we'll cross that hurdle when we come to it. They are currently in the main aviary because when we put them into the chicken run, crazy chook immediately attacked them - obviously very territorial. The safest option was to get them out of there until they are bigger and more mature (then they should be able to give as good as they get). Crazy chook is laying again and it will be a while before the Ancona's start adding to our egg count.