Ta Tus Maith Leath Na hOibre

A GOOD START IS HALF THE WORK

i think i got that saying correct but i'm sure you get the gist of it.

My goodness last entry October 22 08 !

Isn't that a long time ?

Well since then christmas has come & gone and a new year begun, and begun very well for us here at bailielands.

Here's a quick catch up on the news.

Goliath our very large belgian import has turned out a very good foxing dog in cover.



He's the one in the back behind the parson's russell a fantastic bitch called Molly.





Bailielands Annie was mated to him around Christmas, we'll see how things develop.

Been busy doing a lot of training lately. Have a couple of sheep maulers in for rehab at he moment, amazing how well the ecollar works on that sort of a problem and to think the english KC is trying to actually ban them in the UK. It saves dog's lives. Have retrained over 15 dogs for stock worrying using the ecollar as part of the training and it works, otherwise said dogs be destroyed.

Also training up some young terriers in cover at the moment in preparation for next season's ground work.

Here's a smasher of a pup, grandson of Bailielands Bruce, named Ballyclare Fionn, bred by Enda Buckley, look at the head and shoulders and paws, he is only 5 wks in this picture.







Recession is biting hard here in Ireland and we've gone all self sufficienty.

Cranberry & Sauce the turkeys were delicious, we had Sauce she was fabulous and gave Cranberry to friends for Christmas. it was simply the most delicious turkey we had ever eaten, so tender, juicy and full of flavour. We weren't sure we could go through with actually getting them done in & eating them until the very end, we surprised ourselves.

We're growing our own again next year, but this time i'm buying in some bronze or wild turkey eggs for hatching and rear em from scratch.

Following hat success, one of the French Copper Black Marans has started to lay, here's one of her eggs with a creamy tinted and a normal brown egg.



That was the first maran egg and a little pale compared to the ones that followed.

These three are 2 maran eggs on the left and a normal ISA Brown egg on the lower right, note the difference in yolk colour and they were Yum!



Now in preparation for hatching the maran eggs when both hens get into their stride, i have practised using some ISA Brown X eggs, we plan to fatten and eat the cockerels and see how the hens turn out for eggs.



Also we have bought a pair of meat rabbits, New Zealand x Californians, a doe and a buck and they are distressingly cute, so i wonder how this experiment in self sufficiency will turn out :-)

Here's a pic of 2 of my own little darlings, Sparky & Spaghetti, Cailin's sons by Setanta, now 8 weeks old.





Little horrors that's my son they're eating!

That's a start on the goss for the new year anyway. Plenty more to come with much to do this new year bringing on Sandybanks Siobhan, now 8 months and Bailebroc Ziggy now 4 months old.

Remember keep it Irish, keep it Original, keep it Working ;-)