May time jobs

May is one of the most beautiful times of the year to visit Orkney, with the summer weather at its best!

May is also lambing time, so why not join us and give us a hand with the new born lambs (you can help lamb, feed the orphan lambs or just be a shepherd for the day.) .

Daffy, Garath and Indi are 3 very tame ducks that live near the cottage, all the other ducks, and chickens live on the croft, they laze around their pond most of the day, they will wander down to the cottage to see if you have any scraps of food for them.Eggs are always in the incubator, some hatching some just ready to hatch come and watch us candle the eggs, we do this to check that the babies inside are growing.

Well worth a look, this is something that many people never get the chance to see,Domino is the ferret who lazes around his cage keeping an eye on whats going on. Come and meet our little pet North Ronaldsay lambs and sheep, they like to eat seaweed.May and Ernie are our little pet lambs who love lots of cuddles and last but not least

Puzzle the very small round shetland pony,along with her friends Diamond the black shetland pony and her baby Bertie Basset a lovely little colt foal who likes to greet everyone who comes to stay at the cottage.

We welcome people to come on the morning or evening rounds of feeding and checking all the animals and collecting eggs that have been freshly laid.

Book based on the 'Slap'

A book is out now 'Called When the Tide comes in'.

This book has been written by a couple that holiday in the cottage every year,It starts in Newcastle and ends up in Orkney and The Slap cottage, its on sale now in Waterstones and Amazon.

I've read the proof and if you like thrillers, this is for you.

Ducks and dogs !

All the baby ducklings are growing well.Daffy duck is now sitting on her nest, she has 17 eggs to keep warm,the ducklings should be due off in about 20 days. 2 baby ducklings hatched late last night, one is black and white and the other all white, they are very cute.

The older ducklings in the shed are growing really fast and doing very well, once the weather improves they will go out side into their pens.The 3 baby lambs are doing very well, they now have baby lamb cereal as well as their bottles.

Patience (pony) still has not had her foal, i think she is going to explode her tummy is huge.

Vinnie our puppy was caught in our fish pond today, he was chasing my goldfish round and round.He came in all wet and soggy and got on to my bed to dry himself.He is not very popular.

The sheep are all getting big tummies, their lambs are due any time after the 1st of May.

Diamond the black shetland pony is away on her holidays, she has gone to visit the stallion, so fingers crossed in 11 months time we should be having a foal.

Patience the white shetland pony is starting to get uncomfortable, her tummy is quite big, so hopefully not too much longer to wait for her foal to be born.

Daffy and her husband Gareth(ducks) are making their nest ready for Daffy to lay her eggs, last year she hatched off 19 ducklings.

The fields are now starting to dry up a bit and the grass at long last is starting to grow, so i think that spring is on its way.

Will keep you updated with the ducklings progress,(9th april) good news 12 baby ducklings hatched last night along with a baby chick, more ducklings due off next week.

15TH APRIL Today 3 baby orphan lambs came to live with us, they are called April, Cally and Sammy, they are hand fed 3 times a day.

Hatched !

Good news, 7 baby ducklings hatched over night, they are all doing fine, more due next week.

More new addtions

North Ronaldsay lambs due end of June 2010, 2 new cats called Darwin and Keda have joined us from the cats protection. We now have 14 new budgies in the aviary.Vinnie is a new labardor puppy, he is now 6 months old and a real monkey into everything.

Patience the white shetland pony is starting to get a big tummy, her foal is due in the spring.

All the other animals are fine, its very muddy on the croft at the moment,so hopefully some dry weather will arrive soon and start to dry up the fields.

Duck eggs were put in the incubator yesterday so they are due to hatch in 28 days, i will keep you posted.

New foal due

14th october- 2 new addtions arrived today, we have Eddie who is 26 inch miniture shetland colt foal and Patience a lovely white shetland pony who is due to foal in spring 2010.

My first post

Diamond the pony went away to the stallion on Saturday, but she is not impressed at the moment.

Patience is due to foal any time now, and the old pony, Puzzle is still on the go, Eddie and Bertie, the two Shetland ponies are doing fine.

The North Ronaldsay sheep have a rather impressive ram with them at the moment, with great big round horns and hopefully we will have lambs in due course.

Eggs are in the incubators, so it’s all go here at the moment