The Last Silkie, RIP

I'm feeling really awful today. We had to cull our last silkie hen as it became clear today that she had Marek's disease.

I noticed a couple of weeks ago that she appeared to have an eye infection. We brought her in and bathed her eyes in saline solution, and it became clear that the second eyelids were very inflamed/enlarged, and clearly painful. My immediate assumption was straightforward bacterial infection. However, nothing a "straighforward" bacterial infection in a silkie, as they cannot tolerate the antibiotics that are licensed for poultry. I've given Baytril to silkies twice before for foot injuries, both time the toxic effects of the drug killed the birds.

This time the vet was happy to prescribe a penicillin-based one that was safer. Unfortunately the only drug she could find in stock had to be administered by injection. Luckily, she was happy for us to do this at home, as bringing the bird in to the vets everyday would have been very stressful, not to mention prohibitively expensive.

The antibiotics did improve the eye irritation, and allow one to open, but the other second eyelid was still very enlarged. My gut feeling was that it was due to a tumour, having had the same thing happen in the past. In that case the tumour form of the disease developed very rapidly after an initial eye irritation, and the bird had painful sore-like tumours all the way down her throat when the vet investigated, as well as obvious lameness.

She had seemed quite happy until yesterday, when paralysis of the left leg and wing became obvious. We decided to cull her quickly, as the tumours can be very painful.

So passed what will probably be my last Silkie. Previously I had built up quite a sizeable flock of about a dozen, all healthy to that point, and blissfully unaware of their susceptibility to Marek's disease. Then I made the mistake of buying in three hens from a top exhibition breeder. Within days, one of the new birds had started twisting her head backwards. We brought her in, but the paralysis developed quickly. Then, one by one, all of my own birds started to show the same symptoms. I managed to hatch three eggs before the cockerel started his slow decline (cockerels exhibit slightly greater tolerance to the condition than hens), and vaccinated them at day old for Marek's, and kept them in isolation until they were six months old. All in vain.

So, I can't really face getting any more. They are lovely birds, they are so loving and affectionate to each other as a family group, they melt even the most unsentimental heart. Which makes having to cull them because of one of the worst diseases imaginable all the more difficult. 

There's a lot of debate about vaccination, as theoretically it makes it harder to determine the few birds in the population that may have some natural genetic resistance to the disease. My view is that NO birds in the population have any resistance. If you think of the level of inbreeding that must have been necessary for so many recessive characteristic to emerge (un-zipped fluffy feathers, black pigmentation, extra toes etc), it's equally likely that any genes for Marek's resistance were bred out at the same time. And this selective inbreeding has been going on for over a hundred years in this country, and probably a millennium before that in China. The problem with extreme selective breeding, you can never be sure what problems you may be selecting for along side desired physical characteristics.

It's possible that some of the newer colours do possess greater immunity from the crosses to other breeds necessary to bring genes for cuckoo barring or red colouring into the breed, but any protective effect of hybridisation would be lost if Marek's tolerance was specifically selected for, at the expense of colour, type and other exhibition values.

Catalogue time - potatos

It's that time of year when all the catalogues have dropped through the letterbox, and stay piled up on the floor until someone either reads them or piles them up as they always look too glossy to throw away, until the nights draw in and there's little to do of an evening than sit down and fantasize about all the new F1 hybrids one might grow if one wasn't so parsimonious. This year I'm sorely tempted by T&Ms special potato catalogue, with it's attractively weird blue heritage varieties and new, blight-busting, bag-bursting super spuds.

The terrible blight of this year has prompted me to consider changing from my auto-pilot choice of spuds.I'd also like to increase the range that I grow to have more suitable exhibition varieties. However, one of the reasons I like to buy seed loose is that I don't have room for more than a couple of rows of any one variety, so only have need from between 4-8 of any single cultivar, which works out quite reasonable when bought loose from local garden centres or from bargain packs. However, I've found it more difficult to find varieties I like in recent years available from these sources.

What I need is a mixture of waxy second-early/early maincrop which can be used in late summer as 'new' boiling potatoes, but also bulk up for use as early maincrops,  and floury late maincrop for mashing and roasting. All need to be are blight, slug and scab resistant. 

Sadly, none of the waxy types are particularly blight resistant, and though Charlotte and Anya are also fine-flavoured varieties, they fall down on other qualities (scab, bruising, size, greening, shorter dormancy etc). 

Very few maincrops/late maincrops describe themselves as 'floury'. Many are only described as 'don't disintegrate on boiling' which isn't of great interest to me as I don't really like plain boiled potatoes.

On general purpose/exhibition use, there are a few that stand out:

Setanta bred from Rooster, so floury 'high dry matter' spud but with better all round qualities and higher disease resistance (including good resistance to common scab, so potentially more attractive tubers than the parent), I think I will give it a go next year.

Druid looks promising on this front. Vigourous, disease resistant, nice colour, large, even tubers that might make do for exhibition as well. However, not much detail on texture or flavour, and I've wasted space far too many un-memorable spuds in my time. Will trial if I can find a small number to try.

Orla also sounds quite appealing "Very grower friendly, it produces high yields with good baker content. It shows good foliage blight resistance and excellent tuber blight resistance." 

Red Cara also sounds good "Very resistant to a vast range of diseases and viruses. Tubers are uniform and suitable for a range of culinary uses including home chipping. It is high yielding and keeps well in storage"

Blue Danube appeals just because of the beauty of the deep purple tubers. Good resistance to blight but not so good on common scab, and susceptible to dry rot and some nematodes. No information on flavour or dormancy. 

Harmony has good exhibition qualities and dormancy but not so good on blight resistance.

Nadine also looks a promising oval white for exhibition, and has good overall disease resistance and very good yields. No description of culinary qualities though.

Leek: Monstruosa de Caretan

First picking of leeks, or only one as that was sufficient for today's leek and potato soup. Very good size. Despite having bolted, the core wasn't woody.

Busy Day - autumn sowings

A busy but dull day. Cleaned out the small greenhouse a while back, and sower lettuce Merveille de Quatre Saisons and cilantro as an experiment (given that I can't grow the latter in open ground, as carrot fly gets it just after it germinates). 

The adjacent potato bed was dug, and composted last week, so planted garlic (Thermidor cloves saved from this year's crop). Half grown in pots, with good root system already, the rest planted as bulbs. Will be interesting to see if there is any difference later on.

Lastly, dug the harvested beetroot bed and planted spinach, matador and ?. I know it's too late, but the seed needed using and the soil is still quite warm. Covered opposite bed with 2-3" well-rotted poultry manure to keep it friable over winter. Have enough left to cover one of the other large beds, must crack on with it tomorrow.

Was very tempted by the various onion sets on offer, but made the decision long ago that it's not worth it. When we had the smallholding, we grew fantastic onions on raised beds mulched with well-rotted cow manure. They never attain the same size and quality in the garden, and despite heat treatment, a significant number seem to bolt. I'm not sure onions are one of those things that taste remarkably different when home grown, and I will stock up on Brittany ones next time I go to Wales. 

The compost heap was very active, already hot and steaming about an inch under the surface. It was a bit smelly for a day, but seems to have calmed down now, probably due to adding a bit too much grass to the mixture.

Sweetcorn: Sundance F1

I'm slightly disappointed with this variety. The cobs are about 7" long, but the top inch or more have no kernels. I don't think it's a pollination issue as the kernels are evenly set on all of them. Flavour is good as you'd expect from a super-sweet but I've had larger cobs. Very few double cob plants too.

It hasn't been a good year for sweet corn at all, the crop is very late and the plants were beaten down badly by midsummer rain. Still, most plants did produce an edible cob. The squirrels have been attacking them too, which is very annoying. 

How to make a compost heap

As I've been both using and building heaps this weekend, I thought I'd write something on compost making.

I have a fairly strict 'recipe' but one which does produce very fast-maturing heaps of good friable compost. It does require lots of straw saturated with manure which I don't suppose all gardeners have. I keep my poultry on what is known as the 'Balfour Method', which is a semi-intensive system using a yard covered which straw, plus access to free range. 

The straw absorbs manure, but also gets saturated with moisture (from rain and duck bath), which greatly helps the composting process. Dry straw will not rot. If you don't have poultry, then using saturated straw with added manure or anything else which has a high nitrogen content might be a good alternative.

In between the damp poultry straw are thin layers of lawn clippings. On their own, they would be too slimy and acidic to make good compost, but they are a wonderful activator. Having been pulverised by the mowing process, they have many surfaces that the microbes that break down cellulose can get to work on, and they speed up the rate of activity phenomenally.

Other layers of kitchen refuse, cardboard etc are added on top, and anything that might attract vermin (e.g. pepper tops, mouldy tomatoes etc) covered over with a couple of handfuls of straw.

As for using it, most of it goes as a mulch on empty beds over winter. By spring, the soil underneath will be very friable and ready to sow. This idea comes from 'no dig' gardening, which appeals greatly when digging can harm so many toads. I find I can't give up digging entirely (possibly because I simply can't make enough compost for all my beds) but it has helped a lot, and made life easier on my back too.

More Runner Duck FAQs

Some new queries showing up in my website stats, so I thought I'd update my duck FAQs

What are the ideal ducks to keep in a garden?

By ideal, do you mean ones that cause least damage to the garden? Runner ducks are not good in this respect, they are very active foragers, and will trample plants quite badly. The various kinds of bantam ducks would be a better choice.

Can ducks eat wheat?

Yes, actually wheat is a complete diet for them, though I feed mine on good quality layers pellets, and specialist waterfowl breeders' pellets if breeding. Whatever sort of food you choose, make sure you always provide poultry grit, as birds need this for helping to grind down food in their gizzard.

Is my duck a Runner Duck?

I thought this was a bit daft when I read it, but actually it's a fair question. What makes a duck an "Indian Runner"? Largely it's down to the carriage. This is what the breed standard says:

"Upright, active, nearly perpendicular when at attention, excited or trained for the show pen. When not alarmed, or when on the move, the body may be inclined between 50-80 degrees above the horizontal. The proper carriage creates a straight line from the back of the head to the tip of the tail. Total length (fully extended in a straight line, measured from bill tip to middle toe tips): drake 65-80 cm and duck 60-70 cm."

There are probably quite a lot of cross-bred ducks that have runner parents or other ancestors. Usually these will be heavier in build, but have a much less upright carriage than a true Indian runner.

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