Our oldest maremma, Manola died today

Anne, with a frail Manola

Manola, the oldest Maremma on the farm, died today in the paddock with her sheep. I buried her close to the spot where she died, in the middle of the paddock and we will plant an oak tree alongside her.

She was a great dog who took her guardian work with the sheep very seriously. (She didn't care much about the chickens, but as long as her sheep were OK, she was happy).

Thunder disturbed her and she would often hide in a stable until the storm had passed. We thought she was going to die last year, when at 14, she had a urinary tract infection. Anne managed to fix that up with large doses of cranberry tablets, and we added cranberries to her diet most day since then.

She managed to last another year while she helped to train her understudy, Tora - who now has full responsibility for the sheep and the hens in her paddock.

New flock of pullets

Our new flock of 300 Isa Brown pullets arrived today.We settled them in to two of our mobile sheds in Monte's (one of the Maremmas) paddock.
While we were unloading the young hens into the sheds it starting raining (of course) - so once we had finished, the delivery ute and trailer had to be towed out of the paddock by our trusty Chinese tractor. The grass was just too wet for the ute to get enough traction.
The youngsters will help to build up our business now that Anne has time to work on the farm full time. It will be more productive than beating her head against a wall, which is what she has been doing  in the last year or so working for Trust for Nature.
The Trust was great in the early years, but it has lost its way in recent times and it's now anyone's guess if it will survive.

New Maremma helps with fox control

We now have a brand new six month old Maremma, Abbey (in the middle of the picture with a short lead).

She has joined our pack to protect the hens on the farm from fox attacks.

They are simply the greatest dogs for this sort of work and there's no doubt that we would be out of business as a genuine 'free range' farm if we didn't have our flock protectors.

Abbey was a bit unsure of herself the first day and was snappy with us and the other dogs - but she quickly settled in. The picture was taken just two days after she arrived.

It shows how well they all accept each other. Let me introduce (from the left) Lexie, Berkley, Abbey, Ducati, Umberta and Daisy. Not in the picture (because they are off with their chooks, are Bella, Monte, Flora, Angus and Chicca.

It's a great pack of single-minded dogs whose mission is to protect the farm from intruders! (Apart from Angus who likes to spend a lot of his time bouncing) He's a Heeler/Border Collie X.