Day: April 18, 2023

Dia is mhuire diobh go leir a cairde and welcome to my weekly Report.

Heavy  rain and high winds, normal enough for the sort of weather that we are accustomed to in these modern times. But of late we’ve been getting a mixture of hail, which leaves lots of people very surprised, worried even, Well what next. But in my young days ,hailstones were a common occurrence in April. It sticks in my memory because April being the time of year when fowl of all kinds were put down hatching. Hens mostly because they were capable of bringing out many other species as well as their own. Hatching hen eggs of course was natural for a hen, and took three weeks to mature, while duck eggs took a month, meaning that the unfortunate bird would be stuck in the nest for a week longer. Geese and turkey eggs the same. Usually the hatching was done in an empty and peaceful loft ,away from the other distractions of the farmyard. They were roofed with galvanised sheeting and when the hailstones came hard and fast as they often did in April. it was a cause of great worry. The danger was that the pounding noise would kill the young life as it formed in the eggs under the hens. As the weeks progressed the worried bean-a-tighe would take out an egg here and there and hold it up to her ear longing for the faintest sound of life. To check if they were fertile she’d hold the egg up to the light ,and look through the shell,  if there was a little sack of light showing at the top then it was good. But if not it was sure to be a glugger and a glugger was bad news, the contents rotting away in the shell with the passage of time. The woman would take it away as soon as she was sure that there was no chick growing away inside. As children we’d be given the glugger to discard it. How we loved to take it away and throw it at some distant stone or ditch, thus filling the air with the most foul smell in all the world. People ask us today, what we did for fun in our young days, now there’s one example. There was nothing as cranky as a hatching hen or indeed any brooding bird, they fought to the death to protect their clutch. A few times a week each would have to be forceably taken out of the nest to have some exercise, toilet, food and drink and to dust themselves. Dusting to a hatching hen or any bird would be comparable to any of us having a bath. The heap of ashes after the fire, or a heap of dry earth or sand was heaven to them.  Crouched down, they wallowed in it using their sharp claws to throw up the dust and mix it into their feathers and flap their  wings in a wild frenzy. Then just as fast they were on their feet a quick shake of the body and wasted no time in returning to the nest as soon as possible, plumage askew and clucking, clucking loudly as she went and anything that stood in her way got the vent of the loud screech or a dig of her claws. Back in the nest she gently nudged her clutch of eggs into the right position and carefully sat down on them. Not everything went to plan of course there were losses and disappointments but never sure if was human error or the dreaded hailstones in April.

[read more …] “Eily’s Report – 18th April”