The ducks just crack me up. When they are hungry, they’ll let you know. Normally, they’re pretty quiet animals, but when their stomachs start growling, their beaks start flapping … without fail, like clock work.
If they are REALLY hungry (like this morning), they’ll start barking at me as soon as they hear the front door open (about 150 yards away), or as soon as they see me walking across another pasture (250 yards away).
So, I thought I’d share the experience of silencing a horde of 5 seemingly starving ducks. Peas, corn, rolled oats, cooked brown rice and a handful of baby spinach. THAT should shut them up!
I’ve been VERY impressed with this tool. Very well designed (adapts to pretty much any impact driver/hammer) and constructed (like a tank!).
I haven’t fully utilized its feature set yet (e.g. heavy gauge sheet metal, rotating the cutting head 360 degrees, …), but I fully expect it will do a great job within the limits of its intended use.
Every morning, when I open the various chicken coops to let the flock out for the day, I make a point of poking my head in to check on the two broody hens and their clutch of eggs.
I had calculated, based on my first observation of the hen sitting on the nest in the compost pile over night, that this weekend was likely going to be the hatch day.
Yup, sure enough, the compost pile brood is in the process of hatching now. So cute. I love watching Mother Nature, well, at least when she enables things like babies hatching or being birthed. Not so much when she enables the other side of the lifecyce (e.g. losing so many young rabbits recently to an outbreak of ME disease in both geodesic dome colonies …).
If you spend enough time around chickens, you learn they actually have a language you can sort of understand. Roosters have about 3 to 5 different vocalizations you can recognize. Hens about the same, maybe a few more, and totally different.
Listen carefully, and you can hear this hen making a sound that I assume is intended to calm the baby chicks. Then, you can hear her start to growl at me as if to say … beat it, I got this, shut the damn door!
And here, I thought I was going to have a nice, quiet, relaxing Saturday. Nope, got a chicken brooder coop to setup now.
These baby chicks may have been born in a compost pile, but they surely will not live in one!
The other broody hen’s nest is in an elevated (about 5 feet off the ground) 5 gallon bucket in the garden coop. Not sure I want those eggs to hatch there, because the chicks will likely jump or fall out. So, I need to relocate that nest too, as they are about to hatch as well.
Decided not to move the newborn chicks from the compost pile nest to a formal brooder (which I would normally do if incubator hatched), but to instead just ‘harden’ the compost pile nest and allow them to “brood in place.”
Why? Because I want to monitor and study the hen’s maternal instincts and behaviors to see how Mother Nature actually intends for baby chicks to be reared. A brooder simulates a mother hen (e.g. heat, humidity, security), but I want to see how an ‘actual’ mother hen operates.
Basically, we’re raising this brood of chicks au naturel.
Just need to install the roof and move the cages out to a pasture stall tomorrow.
I’m thinking I need about 15 cages in total, so 3 down … 12 to go!
Some people might suggest that I’ve over-engineered the cages, but I would beg to differ. Sure, I could have just stuffed the rabbits into tiny, metal-only breeder cages, but that’s not how we roll around here. I’m really bummed that I have to migrate the rabbits out of their geodesic dome colonies … because I would much rather they live in conditions that more closely approximate their natural living habitat … but that just didn’t work out.
Perhaps the cages will just be temporary until I can figure out how to build out the domes with better environmental controls (specifically moisture).
But, if they have to live in cages, might as well be nice cages. 😉
I actually designed the cages to fit standard greenhouse flats, so I can provide each cage with a flat of fresh wheat grass about once a week. Gives them fresh veg and fiber, and a grass mat to hang out on so they don’t have to stand or lay on the wire fabric floor all the time.
This was a relatively expensive project (e.g. premium grade wood, new tools, heavy-duty hardware, …), but I don’t care.
I was unfamiliar with the “pocket hole” technique of joinery until this morning. Sounded like a good alternative to biscuits, dowels or complicated dovetail cuts.
Did some research and found the Kreg K4 and K5 systems to be highly rated. My local Lowes had a K4 in stock, so Hooey and I fired up the ol’ F-250 and headed into town …
I used the Kreg K4 to very quickly, and VERY effectively, construct the doors for my three rabbit cages using 3/4″ x 2.5″ pine stiles and rails.
As you can see, I really like the K4 system, and would recommend it to anybody that does a non-trivial volume of joinery, or maybe boarders on being a perfectionist in all things (like me).
Kinda hard to excavate a pond when the damn thing keeps filling up with water! I guess it’s eventually going to be a good thing that a single day of heavy thunderstorms fills the pond. But NOT NOW!!! 😉
I was using a small 12V water pump to drain the pond, but it took too long (e.g. more than one fully charged car battery).
Did some research and designed a PVC siphon system, but it didn’t work because there is insufficient “head space” between the water intake (pond bottom) and water output.
So, I sucked it up and bought a Tsurumi Cast Iron Submersible Trash Water Pump — 3000 GPH, 1/2 HP, 2in., Model# HS2.4S-62.
Took about 1.5 hours to drain the pond. NICE.
Since we have the first hurricane of the season expected to work its way up from FL this weekend, and therefore another week of rain in the wx forecast, I expect to be putting the new pump to good use again, and again, and again …
Long story short … the geodesic dome rabbit colony concept isn’t working out. I’ve lost WAY too many rabbits (mostly recently weened kits) to what I’m pretty sure is mucosal enteritis (ME). Don’t get me started about how fickle of a species they are.
As much as I wanted to raise rabbits in a natural habitat, they just don’t seem to do well in the two geo-domes. So, I’m going to migrate the rabbits into cages … which just SUCKS … but at least that way I’m pretty sure their survival rate will dramatically increase.
So, for the last two and a half days, I’ve been building the first 3 of probably 12 cages. I found a design online that I really like, which you can see in this video.
I hope to have the adult (breeder) rabbits out of the domes and into the cages by this weekend. I may pull the juvenile rabbits out of the domes and into a temporary communal cage of some sort while I build out the remaining individual cages.
My plan is to convert the two geodesic domes into aquaponic gardens (tilapia fish + vegetables). Uugghh … more work!
Had to run some errands this morning and took Hooey along for the ride (which she always appreciates).
Decided to take her into the local Tractor Supply store with me to pick up a bunch of rabbit, chicken and dog food.
I tried to get her to pick her own food … but I think her brain got overloaded with all the options available. Sort of like me walking into a well stocked gun store. DOAH!
By default, we just went with her ‘usual’ (Taste of the Wild: Wetlands with Roasted Fowl).
She doesn’t get off property very much, and I like to get her around other people. A little old lady came up and asked if she could pet Hunter, and I said “ummm, sure, just move real slow and keep eye contact with her.” Hooey did well, but you should have seen the look on her face! I know the look … intensely defensive of yours truly. If someone was to assault me, she would rip them a new ass … no doubt in my mind. Kind of freaks me out sometimes, how alert she can be. Sweet dog, but VERY protective.
Tough day yesterday, for a number of reasons, not the least of which was news that Zoe (Hunter’s GSD ‘sister’) had to be rushed to the emergency vet. Given Zoe’s advanced DM disease, I feared the worse.
Decided the best thing to do was lay down and take a nap.
Hooey isn’t a big fan of jumping up in bed with me, preferring instead to lay on the floor somewhere … where she can keep an eye on the outside world.
However, if she knows I’m upset (and she does, because she’s a empath and acutely attuned to everything I do and feel) she’ll jump up with me and do her empath thing.
Everybody should have a “best friend” like this. 😉
P.S. Zoe seems to be okay. Not great, but not … terminal. Looks to have a nasty UTI that Ann is treating with heavy duty antibiotics. Could have been a LOT worse.
I think we’ve now had 5 consecutive days of thunderstorms. Over the years, Hunter has gotten progressively more sensitive to thunder. As soon as she hears the first BOOOOOM … she’s done, just runs up on the covered 2nd floor deck, if not straight into the house.
We just went out to lock up the flock for the night and feed everyone … and this (pic) is what it looked like out there. Beautiful, if a little dark and ominous. Severe thunderstorm warning up for the county for about 30-45 more minutes.
