Barn Yard Happenings

When I was a boy I had a hamster or two, the odd gerbil, a couple of ferrets, a canary and a tortoise that ran off.  My Grandma used to complain that the house was like a ménage à trois.  I think she meant a menagerie (a collection of wild or unusual animals)!  This leads me to the post today - more animals at the farm.  

New members to Hereward Farm this week include Charles and Camilla, a pair of Aylesbury ducks.  This breed originated from Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire just north of London.  By the 18^th century raising white ducks in Aylesbury had become popular due to the demand for white feathers as a filler for quilts.  Over the 19^th century selective breeding led to the Aylesbury duck.  The ducks were bred on farms in the surrounding countryside and local residents would obtain fertilized eggs and raise the ducks in their home as a source of extra income.  In 1873 the Pekin duck (the “Aflac duck”) was introduced to England and this marked the decline of the Aylesbury.  Even though the Pekin was thought to have a poorer flavor than the Aylesbury, the Pekin was hardier and cheaper to raise.

The Aylesbury was one of the first domestic ducks introduced into America from Europe.  It is considered a superior meat breed.  It has a white skin where most other ducks have yellow skin.  Hens lay 35-125 white or tinted green eggs annually.  The Aylesbury is considered “slow moving and exceptionally tame”.   The Pekin duck did the same for the Aylesbury in the United States as it did in England.  Like our American Guinea Hogs, the Aylesbury is listed as “Critical” by the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy (ALBC).  In 2000 the ALBC census of domestic waterfowl found only two primary breeding flocks with 50 or more breeding birds existed. 

Cats - Lazy or Smart?                                  

Believing that the cats are being over-fed their feed ration has been reduced.  The hope was they would take the initiative and kill more rodents.  Unfortunately, the cats are either smarter or lazier than they were given credit for (or both).  The cats now simply walk into the pig pen and help themselves to the pigs’ feed.

This pig can't be that hungry - only two feet in the trough!

If there is one place I would not want to find myself it's standing between a hog and it's feed.  This cat has perhaps found an even less desirable position.  Brave or stupid?  The pigs don't seem to mind them being in their paddock but they will chase them away from their food.
 

Baby Rabbits

The amazingly fast growth of the baby rabbits is captured in the following photos.  After only two weeks the babies are almost as big as those being sold at the feed store. These are New Zealand / Californian crosses.

Approx. 1 day old

1 week old

2 weeks old

The Spring Equinox and Easter are Fast Approaching

Today is the first day of March and the winter is quickly coming to an end.  Soon it will be spring and then Easter.  The Christian festival of Easter has its roots in pagan traditions.  For the tribes of Scandinavia Eostre was the goddess of dawn.  Her name derived from the word “East” which is the direction of the rising sun.  Eostre’s special festival was the spring equinox – the dawn of the sun’s reign in the northern hemisphere.  A human victim was selected as the “Year King” and was sacrificed as winter turned into spring.  His body was buried in the fields which would come to life again with the rising grain.  By eating the bread made from the grain, everyone would share in the miracle of the rebirth.

According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, this year spring begins in the northern hemisphere on March 20th at 1:14 A.M. (EDT).  This is a time of longer days, warmer temperatures, and rebirth.  As spring and Easter approach, here are some photos of Hereward farm emerging from the long but mild winter.

Baby rabbits in the nest box.  The doe  pulled out her own fur to add to the shredded newspaper to make a warm nest for her kits.  Unlike other animals, rabbits do not sit on the nest in the wild.  Compared to a conspicuous doe sitting atop a nest, leaving the kits to burrow down and hide in relative comfort avoids drawing unwanted attention.  An earlier litter was kindled on a cold night. With no heat from the mother they sadly all died.  With this litter the nest box has been brought inside on the few cold nights since they were kindled.  The doe does not seem to mind and feeds her kits in the morning.  The kits in this photo are just a day or two old and already growing fur (and reading the Financial Times).

Modern icons of Easter - eggs and chicks.  Just hatched Buff Orpington chicks in the incubator and then a few hours later.

Even though it is only the first day of March, the plum trees are already flowering.

The beavers emerge from winter and begin to eat the cambium of living trees.

When regular just won't do - Super-Size!  When this tree falls it will definitely make a sound in the forest.

Even the cats appear to be casting off their winter depression.  This is the first actual evidence that one of the cats has actually caught a live mouse.  Of course, there is the story about a blind squirrel finding nuts occasionally.

Odds and Sods

Last weekend was the first time more than one of the feral cats were seen at the same time for a few weeks.  There is usually one cat in the barn at feeding time.  Since all three looked the same when they arrived you never know if you are seeing the same one every time.  One of them is a little less feral and comes up to the house all the time (if the dogs are not out).   The picture shows two cats well camouflaged.  Now we know there at least two cats still here.  Since the one dead mouse found in the barn soon after they arrived the only kill that can definitely be chalked up to the cats was a squirrel found near the barn.

Pumpkins and other gourds were found growing behind the old chicken coop when we moved in.   Judging by the ground this area may have been a chicken run at one time.  Since chickens are often given pumpkin seeds to eat in order to get rid of intestinal worms, we don’t know if these pumpkins were planted here deliberately or are seeds that the chickens did not eat.  This area is very woody so the pumpkins were still green last weekend even though it was well after Halloween.  Here are a few we picked and left in the top field to ripen in the Sun.  By this weekend the larger ones had changed to the familiar orange color.  

Having the mobile chicken coop in the top field and the permanent one in the orchard always meant a long walk in the morning.  With the introduction of the pigs last weekend it has added another step to the morning feeding run.  Applying a process analysis approach to the whole thing we realized that the feeds were in the shed and the animals were spread out in different directions with the shed being out of the way.  The optimal location for the feed was at the house.  So, last week we moved the feed bins onto the front porch.  From a process improvement perspective this move worked really well.  The bad news, the front porch looks more like a barn.  First thing on a cold winter morning dragging feed all around the place tends to favor sacrificing some aesthetics in favor of practicality!

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!