The Poop Coop

So the egg production of the Buff Orpingtons dried up.  One of the hens is going through a moult and the decreasing daylight is also affecting the flock.  Another obstacle is that one of the hens, Rose, turned out to be a rooster.  She (or he) is now known as Edward.  While we are building up the Orpington flock we had the idea of bringing in some additional hens just for their eggs.  So we picked up five ISA Browns from a local place that have their egg laying down to a science.  These birds were just past their laying prime and thus surplus to their needs but just what we were looking for.  These hens are a cross between a Rhode Island Red and a Rhode Island White.  For the last 30 years they have been further selected for their egg production and can lay up to 300 brown eggs a year at their peak.  These hens had been raised Amish style, free-ranging on organic feed without any artificial lighting.

We needed a temporary coop to hold these birds for the two-week quarantine period before mixing them with the Orpingtons.  It turned out that the composting toilet built by the previous owners to accommodate a media event took very little converting.  It was already well-ventilated with the main openings facing East-West which is great for maximum lighting.  All I had to do was cover the vents with 1 inch cage wire and some hardware cloth around the roof openings.  Inside I weighed down the two "seats" to block access by predators from underneath.  I added a simple roost and lots of straw.  Since the hens will only be in this coop for a couple of weeks the original functioning of the composting toilet was maintained (not that it gets any use!).  A short run was also constructed.

 

No eggs yet but plenty of manure... I mean, plenty of manure.  BTW, the golf ball was used to help promote egg laying but it looks like it may have promoted a different bodily function! 

Needless to say, this is now known as the "poop-coop".

Rooster Name Change

Received a complaint that “Orpy” is somewhat of a wimpy name for a rooster (thanks Becky!).  I can’t say I disagree.  In seeking a more appropriate name that conjures the right image, a number of alternatives were considered:

Olav the Stout (Inappropriate - Still looks a bit scrawny)

Ivar the Boneless (Too insensitive given what will happen one day)

Eric the Red (Would suite the former Rhode Island Red rooster that was unfortunately dispatched by Winston, the Jack Russell Terrier, but not a Buff Orpington)

Ivan the Terrible (Did not want to give him any ideas)

After much debate, Orpy is hereby known as Alfred the First, named after Alfred (Aelfred) the Great, the first King of England.  Alfred defended Anglo-Saxon England from Viking raids, formulated a code of laws, and fostered a rebirth of religious and scholarly activity.  He is the only English or British monarch to have been given the epithet “the Great”. 

The pictures show a remarkable resemblance!  Just in case, King Alfred the Great is the first pic.

First Frost

Last night was the first frost of the season.  To be on the safe side the various herbs and fruit trees remaining in their pots were covered.  

The Good News
This presented an opportunity to test out the wood burning stove.  This stove is smallish and looks similar to the traditional potbellied stove only this one must have had a gastric bypass.  Despite being a bit on the thin side, the set up and chimney look perfect with the draft nearly sucking my slippers off.  Another good sign, the roaring fire did not trip any smoke alarms or carbon monoxide detectors.

The Bad News
Somebody has to chop some firewood...

Beavers

So the other day I was minding my own business in my office downstairs when a truck pulls up outside.  Now Hereward Farm is not exactly a place you just happen to be passing.  You have to take not one dirt road but two.  Actually, the second dirt road may not meet the official criteria to be called a dirt road.  In fact, this is almost one of those “you can’t get there from here” places.  The guy in the truck must clearly be here for a reason.  After exchanging the usual pleasantries he came right out and asked me if I would mind if he destroyed my beaver dam.  Well, in my line of work that is not a question I am used to hearing.  The first thought that crossed my mind was that he was from the Environmental Protection Agency and he was trying to entrap me into destroying a beaver family (similar to what the ATF did to Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge only this time destroying a beaver was involved rather than cutting the barrel off a shotgun).  After nervously scanning the perimeter for snipers, I asked him for some additional background. 

It turned out he was a contractor working on the adjacent property upstream of the creek trying to install a culvert for a bridge across the creek.  The beaver had built the dam so high that the water had backed up to the point that he could not add the culvert despite pumping out water.  He insisted in walking down to the creek and showing me the dam.  As it turned out, there was another dam downstream of the farm that had caused the creek to back up so that my beaver had to build his dam even bigger.  This must be the beaver equivalent of keeping up with the Jones’.  To cut a long story short, I agreed that he could disrupt only the corner of the dam so that the water level would fall sufficiently enough to complete their job yet be something the beaver could easily fix.  This evening I finally had the time to go down to the creek and have a look at what was going on.

The first picture shows the dam and the lodge.  The white flags are not the beaver surrendering but where the contractor marked the position where the dam was knocked down.  The level of the creek has fallen significantly as can be seen by all the mud.  Walking in the mud I of course saw beaver tracks all over the place.  These are much bigger than I thought.  The footprint with the Toyota key is about 3.25 inches across.  That’s about just under half of my hand size.  If hand-to-body size ratio is fairly consistent across mammals that means the suckers could be nearly half my size.  Upon that thought I decided to leave not wanting an upset family of large beavers with even larger teeth to mistake me for a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) worker.  The final picture shows the creek downstream of the beaver dam.

So all humor aside, if the beavers are doing no real harm and a simple workaround solution appeared to work, then why not leave them alone?  Of course, if they flood my field I may think differently!

Another Chicken Update

Looks like the Orpingtons have settled in fine.  Found this in the nest box this afternoon.  Apparently they did not like the cedar shavings we placed in the nest boxes and added some straw from the floor of the coop.  Come to think about it, I wouldn't appreciate plonking my rear end on wood shavings either.

Chicken Update

The Orpingtons survived their first night in the new coop.  The wildlife cam did, however, pick up some strange animal trying to gain access to the coop at zero dark something this morning...

Natural Rodent Control

Today was the first day all three feral cats/kittens were seen on the same day since the day they arrived in traps over three weeks ago from a local cat rescue.  The picture below shows two of them eating dinner in the barn loft.  The other cat, who is a little bigger, came near the house earlier.  This is a good sign - was beginning to think we were feeding raccoons!

The feral cats were rescued from a litter that was living in an abandoned house by a local cat charity.  We agreed to buy two of them to keep in the barn to control bothersome pests the natural way.  So, on a Sunday morning just over three weeks ago the girls from the rescue show up with three cats and make us an offer we cannot refuse.  Apparently Sundays must be a buy-two-get-one-free day.  We have been feeding them daily ever since to entice them to stay around the barn.  So far we have found one dead mouse in three weeks. That's a mere average of one mouse per cat every nine weeks! Statistically speaking, the mice are at more of risk from suicide than being eaten by one of our cats.  Financially speaking this is not looking any better:

Cost of cats.......................................................................$50
Cost of feed bin.................................................................$25
Cost of feed.......................................................................$55
Walking down to the barn to feed the cats every day...........Priceless!

Total cost to dispatch one mouse.........................................$130

 Even the Federal Government would be embarrassed by these numbers!

Buff Orpingtons Arrive!

Today the move of the new chicken coop and chain link run to the top field was finally completed just in time for the new Buff Orpingtons to arrive.  Blanch, Dorothy, and Rose along with Orpy the rooster can be seen checking out their new digs. We were pleased to observe the new guests got right on with the job of fertilizing the soil.  After polishing off some 16% pellets and other sundry food, the "flock" decided a communal dirt bath was in order. We are so far very pleased that the chickens took to the coop by dusk without any assistance.

The run needs a few more modifications planned to be completed in the next few days.  We plan to add an area of cover over part of the run to provide shade and shelter from the weather with the rest of the roof being covered with bird proof netting.  We are also building a simple shelter to keep their food dry.  Having experienced some predator issues with the old coop we feel this combination of coop and run will protect the birds from typical predators we find around the farm.  During the day when the birds are outdoors the run should protect against hawks and a wayward dog.  When locked up in the coop at night the design of this coop should protect against possums, raccoons, coyotes, foxes, and other nocturnal predators.  Well, that's the plan!