Rat Control: Review.

   Something I neglected to say in my Prelude to Rats; I will never sell you the things I'm reviewing; or use the blog as a way to make commissions on sales.

   Because?  Inevitably, such reviews will become warped in the direction of sales.  No matter how pure the original intent.  So; I won't go there.  I will give you a link to the manufacturer, who may very well have an internet sales operation; but you should always be aware that the same item is often available at a discount elsewhere.  Up to you.  I will not be getting anything out of it from makers or sellers.

   Not to make you dangle any longer, this Review is mostly of an "electronic" rodent trap; the Rat Zapper; with a fair amount of extra rat biology and rat trapping information.

   Link in a minute.  Pay attention first.

  An "electronic" rodent trap??  Isn't an electric rat trap like snake oil; a silly con?  (Like those "ultrasonic rodent repellers" - which are a con.)  And what the heck for; what's wrong with the classic cheap rat traps that have worked for centuries?  (Search "rat trap", click "images" if you want an education on varieties.)

   They weren't working.  I investigated the electronic frontiers out of desperation.  I read 30 reviews of the Rat Zapper, on 5 sites; finally finding a couple which indicated genuine knowledge- of rats.  They said it worked; so- in hopelessness, despair, distress; anguish, agony, torment, misery, wretchedness; discouragement, disheartenment (the entire thesaurus entry for desperation); I tried it.

   It works.  Day 1; 3 dead rats.  Day 2; 2 dead rats.  Etc.  With every other trap system I had tried (many, including crazy ones) my best success rates were 1 rat per 4 days, for 3 rats total, perhaps, then tapering to 0.  The rats learned; new trap system needed; repeat.  The Rat Zapper seems to prevent rats from learning- a genuinely spectacular achievement.

   Ok; here's the link; and this is the right time to point out - companies/markets/technologies change -always.  This one has changed its name, in the 10 months since I bought one, and has shifted its business practices considerably; they're now "Raticator".  I still tend to call it the Zapper.  I have hopes their quality has not gone downhill.  At the time I first searched for this kind of trap, the Rat Zapper was my top search result.  There are multiple competitors in the electronic rodent trap business; I have not tried any of the others.  Primarily because this one has been working. 

   Oh, and, Sharon, I'm terrifically sorry I suggested you had rats.  It wasn't you.  It's The Crunchy Chicken; of course!  Mea culpa, mea culpa.  Crunchy - let me know if this helps!

   My expertise: I can claim to be an unusually expert mammal trapper.  I've trapped literally dozens of species, for science, both live and kill traps.  Much of my science trapping was tightly targeted; I knew what I was trying to trap, and eventually caught little else.  I'm good at it.  I also, in the early days here on the farm, trapped for fur, meat, and money.  I successfully trapped raccoons (not too hard), grey fox (harder) and red fox (extremely demanding).  We ate a lot of raccoon back then.  Tastes like lamb, done right; I recommend it.

  I know both traps and mammals; there are still people at the U who think I was/am a Mammalogist.  I wasn't- I worked with mammals as tools to study evolution.  I did research on birds, too.

My Rating :

   Ok, I can probably use your suggestions on the rating system.  I went with the 4 out of 5 stars on the theory that this is pretty common, and easily understood.  Yes; I recommend the thing I'm reviewing.  But there are some details you need to know; it's not perfect.  The stars work ok?  And yes; I'm fussy- you won't see 5 stars from me very often; so 4 is really pretty darn good.

   Basics:  I use the larger trap model; which is powered by 4 alkaline D cells.  It does get mice as effectively as it gets rats.  I currently have no rats; but mice keep breeding, and reappear often.  I currently think I have no mice in the house- for the first time in decades.  Heard one last week; got it. The rats can/will reinvade someday, too.  The batteries are good for a very long time; and there is an LED indicator if they're low.  

   It kills by electric shock.  Ergo- it's dangerous to small children, and kittens.  But- it kills so quickly, that (I think!) the rodent has no time to emit alarm pheromones; so the next rodent to approach the trap is not afraid of it.  (Blood, per se, scares very few mammals- it's the alarm chemicals that do it.)  That is a factor particularly with rats- rats are smart; and co-evolved with humans.  Even a powerful snap trap frequently does not kill instantly- then not only the trap, but the immediate area around the trap may warn the next rodent.  With the Rat Zapper (ok, Raticator), a killed rat shuts the trap off (so it doesn't just waste batteries on a zapping a corpse.)  The other rats will just walk over the killed one, to steal the bait.  Dead rat, bait gone = you still have rats.  Useful.

   My Story: I started keeping poultry here on this farm only in 2008.  A 4 year track record with the birds is not that long.  But- we've been growing various tree crops, including a bunch of nuts, for over 2 decades.  Harvesting, storing.  The nuts mean rodents; and that means I've been tracking rodents very carefully for a long time.  

   Our first line of defense against rodents is cats.  We now have 3 separate populations of cats on the farm; widely separated.  They do a pretty good job, and police around the buildings where we provide some food, and water.  But- cats inside the poultry house- not going to work, and that's where the rats were hiding from them.

  In spite of the availability of spilled crops for 20 years, and cats catching what was available, I never saw a single rat on the farm- until we built a poultry house to over-winter the guineas and chickens.  And yes, I had traps out that would have caught one or two if we had; not just mouse traps that they would walk away from.  In some years, we've had 13-lined ground squirrels become problems, and sometimes chipmunks.  Trap setting was done only in response to damage/losses; never a rat appeared; more than 20 years.  I did know my neighbors (nearest 1/2 mile) have always had rats.  They're corn/bean/cow farmers.  Spilled grain.  Farmers around the world have had rats living with them for at  least 10,000 years; always.

    For the first 2 years we had poultry, they were housed outside in chicken tractor type situations; yes, even in the Minnesota winter.  This wasn't by intention.  We started building a sod poultry house... not really knowing what we were doing, but trying to save money...  With the walls about 3 feet high on the highest side, the guineas and chickens started walking on the walls; foraging among the lamb's quarters growing around the disturbed site- and digging.  It became clear - if closed in for the winter, the chickens, in particular, would peck the walls to dust; unless we prevented them with some kind of hard surface.  Not economic.  Back to drawing board, except it was really too late for construction that year.  So; we tried to keep the birds warm all winter with blankets.  Froze the combs off a couple roosters, I'm afraid.

  When we got a real building up; I noticed rodents starting to dig a bit- inside it, coming up through the dirt floor, I thought - within 5 months.  I thought they were pocket gophers; which I'm very familiar with, since we have to control them in the trees, and I could see them working right outside the building.  (Note: if you're building a poultry house; give it a rat-proof floor; somehow.)

  So I set a trap in the tunnels- inside the building- for a pocket gopher.  This required a fair amount of care, because if a chicken stuck a foot in, and tripped it; it would break the leg, or worse.

   I caught a rat.  A big, mature, male rat.  I was astounded, and had my eyes opened.  And I immediately re-set the gopher trap in the same tunnel - which works great for gophers.  Two days later; I caught a wad of rat hair.  Never another rat with that kind of trap or set.  Educated the rats; a bad idea.  Never, never, educate your rats; you will pay for it.

  I'm not sure which rat I have here; likely the brown rat; but be aware there are multiple species, and it may help to know which one you have.  I've seen rats in Hawaii, running along the telephone lines between houses, that would be too big to fit in a Raticator... even though the Raticator can kill a rat only halfway inside quite effectively.   

   How did the rats find the poultry house, which is a 1/2 mile from the nearest farm population?  I think the answer is "all the ways there are".  Remember they're co-evolved with us; and humans have kept chickens literally for thousands of years.  And wherever there are chickens- there's rat food.  I'm pretty sure rats have evolved to be sensitive to sounds (rooster crowing?) and smells (chicken manure is stinky) - and they learn to explore in any direction where chickens might be.  Getting back-yard chickens?  You WILL have rats, someday.  100% guaranteed.  It's been known even to scientists since 2006 that rats "smell in stereo"; and it only takes them 50 milliseconds to know which direction to move in.  

  I set up heavy boxes inside the building, about 18 inches by 2 feet, with a concrete block on top to keep the birds from knocking it over, and either getting hurt or just messing up the rat trap inside.   Regular big mean snap trap.  Caught 3 rats, juveniles, over 3 weeks.  Changed the type of trap; caught 2 more, over 2 weeks.  Not catching any big adults; and obviously there were adults breeding here.

  At this point someone is saying "Why not rat poison?"  The answer is "poultry", and "dogs" and "cats."  All of them can wind up dead if they eat rat poison- and if a poisoned rat dies on the surface, where cats and dogs can get at it- they can die from secondary poisoning.  It's not terribly likely.  But- do you realize how much money is invested in 2 years of feed, vets, and training for a good farm dog?  Thousands, easily.  Not a risk you want to take if you can avoid it.  But- stay tuned on the poison topic.

   Using poison inside a poultry house; where I hoped we'd eventually be rearing chicks; would be a high risk procedure.  One spill of pellets; one dead juvenile rat in a corner, escaping notice until the birds peck and get access to stomach contents; etc; and you wind up losing the thing you're trying to protect.

  In fact I had not exhausted the basic trap repertoire.  I changed baits; from basic peanut butter to bacon; to bacon/peanut butter mixed; to more exotic nuts and nut mixtures; anise.  I shifted from basic mouse/gopher practice where human scent is of no concern whatever, to fancier fox-trapping practices; using de-scented gloves to handle traps.  That's really time consuming.  I tried several of the "modern" rat traps, which I already owned for attempts at red squirrels in nut crops.  I'm not going to present them all here; there are many, and they increase daily.  The type pictured is  

more effective than most, and has some advantages over the age-old snap trap (its action is very fast, for one thing).  But; after catching 3 more juveniles, it too stopped working.

   

   Though they are terribly inhumane, I tried a "glue trap".  (The animals struggle horribly, but usually do not die- you have to kill them.  Desperate measures, and yes, this is literally war.)  I'd had reservations about it working in the first place, and they were quickly proved correct; the glue is rapidly inactivated by dirt and dust in the poultry house environment.  It's also very easy for a rat to put one foot on a glue trap; then escape, becoming educated.  

  This was the point where I started looking for an electronic trap; a good 3 months into the rat war.  The rats were costing me a huge amount of time and money- food consumed, newly hatched chicks murdered, eggs eaten, setting hens rousted.  At least, the rats didn't touch the guinea eggs; apparently they're too hard for them to crack.  But something had to give.

  I was actually considering my trick of last-resort for pocket gophers; a 20 gauge shotgun.  Sounds crazy; trying to shoot a burrowing rodent, right?  But for the occasional un-trappable gopher; it's faster than anything else; likely only takes 30-40 minutes.  You find the active burrow; open it; set up a chair down-wind and out of the sun at least 15 feet away, aim the gun- and wait.  Without moving; at all.  Keep the gun on the hole, safety off, finger on trigger.  When you see the head; pull the trigger.  Not that easy, in fact; but far faster than 3 weeks of tending traps which never catch anything, while the gopher kills another tree every 3 days.

  Using a shotgun inside a poultry house however- was not an attractive idea to me; for so many reasons.

   Specifics: The "Raticator" is not cheap.  First, it cost me 2 hours of online research, looking at models, reading all the reviews, filtering, then looking for somewhere to buy it I could be reasonably sure would actually send me one in a sane amount of time.  Then it cost ~ $50.00, including shipping.  Did I mention how expensive the rats are?

   The maker's and sellers' "product descriptions" are all the same- designed to sell, and to me, uniformly uncommunicative.  I learned a lot of things about the trap - only after I had used it.  Call me silly; but I would love to know what I'm really getting into ahead of time.  Yes, I could re-write their product descriptions so they would do much better at preparing the users, not harm sales, and improve user success and satisfaction.

   Missing Info #1: this thing is not waterproof.  If you're going to use it "outside"; it needs to be in a strict protection device of some kind; getting it wet will destroy the electronic sensors/controls.  Guess what?  Inside a poultry house is pretty much an "outside" kind of world.  The birds will sit on top of anything you put in the house; and poop on it.  They'll knock it over, peck at it, and try to eat it.  I had that figured out; but in trying to use the same protective boxes I'd been using for the other traps, it quickly turned out they were inadequate; the rats would burrow under it; throw dirt in it- tip it over; and getting it placed was too difficult.

  Fact: a major portion of the design criteria for any animal trap consists of getting/allowing/enticing the animal to position itself so the trap will trap it.  Out of the box, the Raticator would work very well for mice (too big for them to knock it over); or for rats in a clean house or warehouse environment.  In the dirty poultry house; no way.  (I don't care how clean your poultry house is; it's too dirty.)

   Yes, I'd seen this when ordering my trap in the first place; hadn't quite comprehended, now I had to go back and buy one; the "Rat's Nest" (now re-named "Gimme Shelter", and I don't want to know why).  It's a plastic box specifically designed to provide water (and dirt) protection.

  Missing Part #1 - that cost an additional $15 (just a tad exorbitant) plus another 4 day wait.  After receiving my $15 + 4 days plastic box, I realized I could have made my own- just as effective, just as waterproof, with a $2 plastic shoe/bread box, and a sharp knife.  The one provided is not very strong; in fact mine is already cracked on the top-bottom junction.  

  It does, however, work.  Inside the box, the trap is safe from most wetness, and the size is such that it can be pretty easily positioned for the convenience of the rodents.

   Missing Info #2 - it doesn't weigh enough to stay put, though, in any environment containing chickens, dogs, cats, or strong winds.  In order to make it function; I had to put a substantial chunk of firewood on top of it, stabilized by blocking it against the building wall, so birds could hop on, off, and investigate, without displacing it.  Without that- they'd have tossed it all across the room in minutes.

   Operating- I believe in at least following the maker's instructions, to start with.  They recommend baiting it with 3 pieces of dry dog food (no more); and leaving it in place, not turned on, for 3 days, before setting it to kill.  Basically; you're establishing a new rat-feeding station, and the rats learn- free dog food.  Check it daily; replace the dog food when they take it.  The rats are used to your scent being connected with free chicken food already; that shouldn't be a factor- yet.  I followed their instructions.

   Missing Info #3 - the gizmo comes with two LED indicators on top.  A green one, which tells you "it's working, batteries ok"; and a red one, which if it's flashing tells you "dead rodent inside."

   The first time I turned it on, I was waiting/looking for that green LED to turn on.  I had my eye right above it- looking - and that turned out to be a mistake.  There's a pause while electronics boot and circuits charge before the light turns on, then - ow.  It's overpowered; and I had a hard green dot burned into my retina for about 20 minutes.  Now I kind of hold it at arm's length, and observe from a distance. The green LED turns itself off after about 10 seconds; why waste the energy?

   I like the LEDs; apart from that.  There's a flashing mode that indicates weak batteries, or some other fault; and in all the 40 some dead rodents so far, the flashing red has only been mistaken twice; in both cases not for a rat, but a deer mouse which somehow tripped it without getting electrocuted.  For the rats; 100%; flashing red LED= dead rat; regardless of size.  The red light is bright enough it's easily visible through the plastic box.

  On Day 1 of operation; having invested so much time and money, I was of course eager to see if/how/when it worked.  I turned it on during my morning feed/water visit, added 3 bits of dog food since they were gone, and checked it on my way in for lunch at noon- dead rat; 1/2 grown juvenile male.  Re-set; checked mid afternoon- dead rat; nestling female.  Re-set; checked at sundown closing up- dead rat; fully mature male.  Big.

  Folks- that's just impressive as all-get-out.  

   Re-set; next morning; dead rat, juvenile female - and the 3 pieces of dog food were gone; meaning her siblings had climbed over, not indulged in any cannibalism this time, and taken the food.  The trap is not capable of multiple catches; you have to reset it.

   In the next week; averaged 1 rat/day.  2nd week; 1 rat/ two days.  3rd week; 1 rat / 3 days.  The rat population was dropping fast, therefore the longer times between kills.

  Though I'm not a rodent rookie, that was roughly 4 times as many rats as I ever imagined I had- all living under and among my poultry, and consuming my poultry feed constantly.  The feed losses had accelerated so slowly I hadn't quite noticed; but now, suddenly - I was needing less than half the feed.  Saving lots of money.  (The feed bags, of course; had always always been stored inside a metal trash can; mouse tight.  Obviously.)

   Missing Info #4: the trap gets dirty after a while.  Ok; that was actually in some of the reviews, and if you look very carefully in the manufacturer's information, you can find this out- but - you really do need to know this, particularly because the need can be unpredictable.

   The thing works by providing a shock, via metal plates on the floor of the trap.  Frequently, during any kind of death, mammals strongly tend to empty their bladder.  If you're unlucky; and hit a big rat with a full bladder; this can mean a lot of urine on your trap plates, which can dry to provide a hard to see film- which is an electrical conductor.  If the plates are shorting - it can't work.  If it's been a while since you cleaned it (process below) and you get a "false positive" indicator; flashing red, no dead rodent; chances are high you need to clean it.

   Remember that it's not water proof?  Oh, and, sticking your hand in it while there are batteries installed - is a big no-no.  This is a tool for adults.  It's not that hard to clean; but you have to pay real attention to the instructions; and it takes about 12 hours before you have a functioning trap again.  Prepare a bath for water not more than 1 inch deep; use luke warm water with a very slight amount of dish soap- and a bit of vinegar.  Soak for an hour, at least; swish a little, then- rinse - not more than 1" deep remember; get the top wet and you'll likely kill it; then carefully air dry overnight.  The construction of the thing is hard plastic; you can't use heat to dry it.  I've done this twice; it works.

  Yes, it's a bit of a pain in the neck; but compared to all other methods of getting rats; it's still the best.

   Disposal - is easy, just dump the dead rat out; make sure there's bait replaced, re-set.  Since there's no poison involved- we fed the dead rodents to the cats.  And quickly discovered who our best rodent-killer mama cats were; one in particular leaped on any newly available rat carcass, and hurried it off into a corner where her kittens attacked it instantly.  The cats who were casual about it- got little; and guess which kittens get a bit of extra care now and then.

  Missing Info #5 - The zapper did not get the last rats in the colony.

   Rats are not only smart; they are authentically co-evolved with Homo sapiens; which means if we could just outsmart them using our big brains, they'd all be dead long ago.  They've evolved ways around our brain; one of them being - extreme suspicion.

  The zapper quickly caught and killed nearly 30 rats.  Being a trained mammalogist, of course I was recording the age, gender, size of all the dead rats; and what was consistently missing was - Big Mamma.  I never captured a big mature female; and there had to be at least 1, because I sure caught a ton of little ones.  I have a strong suspicion that bit of fur I captured in the gopher trap- may have been off Big Mamma's backside- and the experience triggered "maximum suspicion" in her.  For everything in her world.  I hope it gave her nightmares; but it also made her extremely difficult to catch.

  When the trap stopped catching rats, and no big female was on the dead lists, I started paying strict attention again to the signs of activity in the poultry house; yes indeed, the rat burrows were active; dirt moved, new tunnels being dug.  So; I tried all the tricks; moved the zapper to new locations - changed baits - was careful about human scent - and the rats started burying the trap in chicken litter, expressing their contempt.

  So.  Yes; in the end; I used poison.  Very, very, very, very, carefully; and in full accordance with the law, which is a good idea from many perspectives.

   By law, rodent poison used around livestock and children has to be enclosed in a "tamper resistant" "station".  What my farm supply store stocks is the Tom Cat brand; manufacturer here, with many suppliers.  I already had a couple on hand, used in the crop processing area.  Carefully; moved one into the poultry house, and weighted it down so the chickens would not/could not move it.  An advantage here is that you don't have to touch it again for a week- allowing suspicions to go down - particularly if foolish young rats go freely in, and out (and die somewhere else).  

  Results; I did have 2 rats die on the surface; where chickens might eventually have pecked them.  I was watching closely, and removed them before that could happen.  One big rat died with just its head out of the burrow - another male.  Then a week later - the rat holes I closed and burrows I collapsed - remained closed and collapsed.  And the bait in the poison station was no longer disappearing.  (The poisoned rats are disposed of quadruple wrapped in plastic and buried by bulldozer in the public landfill.  Burying them on the farm is not reasonable; the farm dogs dig.)

  Since I had to resort to poison eventually anyway - why bother with the electronic trap?  Because it's still safer, and any way to avoid poison is good.  If I'd had to kill those nearly 30 rats with poison; the probability that a few of them would have wandered outside the poultry house; and wound up poisoning a dog or cat - gets to be seriously high.  Bad risk; to be avoided if at all possible.  I think it's possible the zapper might have gotten all the rats; if I hadn't already educated some of them to be in "exceptionally suspicious" mode.  And- next time I'm in this situation; I think after 5 rat kills; I'll turn the trap off, and make it a rat feeder again, for 4 days.  Then turn it back on.  Several days of free food should alleviate some suspicion.

  Options not resorted to: gas, and "water traps" that drown the catch.  Sulfur dioxide bombs are available for use on pocket gophers - but in fact they don't work very well, and I would have had to evacuate the poultry for a week; an extreme option.  Drowning traps for rats are large- require a lot of maintenance really, are disgusting to empty, and also give no guarantee of getting the suspicious ones.

  Business opportunities/improvements - Getting into the rat trap business is not recommended; the competition is fierce, and driven more by "cheap" than by "value".  The improvements/options I would love to see, and would pay for, in an electronic mouse trap are primarily water related.  It would help enormously if the electronics could be waterproof.  Encased in epoxy, maybe?  And; if the bottom, which will always need to be cleaned - could just come off for cleaning.  I know; electrical connections need to be maintained.  Still; not impossible.  And third; if a serious weight could be added to the bottom, to make the whole thing a bit less movable.  Those could be options; the trap as it exists is extremely well suited for use indoors, in attics and warehouses; where rain is not a concern, nor puppies etc.

  One last reminder- not at all compatible with small children.  The shock kills big rats; instantly; what it would do to a curious toddler we do not want to find out.  Likewise, any small curious kitten (or kitten-sized pet) is at risk.

  So - there ya go.  Review #1.  What did I forget?  I know you'll tell me.  : -)

  And; policy - I'll insert your fixes into this review, rather than post updates.  Better if we keep all the rats in one trap, I think.  Like the refrigerator posts - there are about 8 so far.  Messy!

  Ok, next post, likely to be a good short rant, on something not reviewable.  This is hard work- but - I hope - worth your time.

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Addendum: 6/23/13.  Our poultry house is still rat-free.  For now.  But the rats remain my mind, and likely yours, if you've had the problem ever.  Today's Washington Post has an article about the rat problems in Baltimore.  I have to admit- it ends primarily noting the broad adaptability of - humans.  We may be more adaptable than the rats.

Coming attractions...

I was serious about becoming more active here again.  In the past two days, though; looking around the world and the web, I haven't been hit by anything I thought made sense to place here.

There's no shortage of news, idiocies, absurdities, and horrors, of course.  It's just that I'm not at all fond of "small talk", and I don't watch horror movies for entertainment.

We all have enough blather to wade through daily; and enough unavoidable awfulness.  I'd rather you came here for something useful.

And, I do want to maintain this assemblage of interesting folks; I appreciate your faithfulness; and we all need all the friends we can find.

So- I have two slight changes to this blog to announce today.  Both designed to make me write more; and hopefully provide you (and others) with something useful.

I'm going to start writing "reviews" - of specific products.  And I've launched the process to "monetize" the blog; i.e. Google will start placing ads in the sidebar.

Hey, I can use the pennies- and it will increase my motivation to write, just a tad.

And- one of the things I've discovered, in my long forays into off-grid, sustainable, self reliance, and resilience is; it's incredibly difficult to get good advice about this technology or that.

It's incredibly easy to find "advice" - and enthusiastic reviews, of almost anything.  And often conflicting negatives.  Sorting those out, however; is a bear.

What is lacking; I think; is what I can offer; long experience.  I'll only be writing about stuff I've done- for a long time, under may circumstances.  Ergo- I think I may actually have a clue as to how it will work out for other folks.

I even know where I'm going to start- with a rat trap.  Sharon, over on Casaubon's Book, recently mentioned that she (of all people!) has rats in her poultry building; and is struggling with the problem.  (At least, I have a definite memory of her saying that - last fall.  I can't find the post... but...  I have a clear picture of the surrounding text...  of course, I do occasionally remember as fact things I only dreamed...  um, Sharon?)

If I only dreamed that Sharon has rats, I have an excuse.  I had rats.  In the poultry house we overwinter guineas and chickens in.  We had them for a year... and I struggled to get rid of them.  But notice; I now use the past tense.  We had rats.   I actually managed to eradicate them.  It wasn't easy; and a specific trap was a part of the solution.

Sounds trivial- but it was a major disaster; and it's quite a common one.  If you intend to keep poultry- you WILL have to deal with rats some day.  If you don't- they'll not only eat your feed; and gnaw the cages to bits; they'll eat the eggs, and eat any chicks.  Making it all a waste of time; and very expensive.

So.  I intend to write reviews in very serious detail; with experiences on the subject over weeks, months, and when possible years.  As you've likely noticed, a huge number of enthusiastic "back to the land" advice articles start out with; "We got our new (expensive whatever) a whole week ago- and we LOVE it!  You must get one/them too!  You'll get rich; just like us!"  And you never hear from them again.  I hope to avoid that.

I've taken the first steps; applied to Google.  When that's all in place- you'll find out everything I know about rats.

Just one teaser/hint; I figure we saved at least $80 on cat food, feeding dead (non-toxic) rats to our cat mommas last summer...

Parenting is hazardous to your health.

I was mortified to see that my "previous post" on poultry was - over a month ago.  I'd been intending some updates on our guineas, etc, right?  Hey, it was hot.

But, also; about 2 days after that post - chickens started to disappear from the two "tractors" we have going.  So I got preoccupied with tracking down causes, before updating; then... hey, it got hot.  : - )

It was particularly painful/frustrating/infuriating to lose birds because I hadn't lost any; not one, for months.  And zero chicken losses from the tractors, since moving birds out of winter quarters.  We did lose a few guineas immediately after the winter to tractor transition.  That happens.  The guineas are just a little too likely to take off on their own, and simply not come back.  We're hoping to select guineas that are better about that, eventually.  But the numbers had been stable for a long time.  Then, suddenly- 1 or 2 hens a day; failing to come in at night.  Long searches of their range usually failed to show either birds sitting on eggs or piles of feathers.

There were a couple piles of feathers, however; unequivocal proof of predation.  Both guineas and chickens have a "shed feathers" reflex, in response to fear of predation; suddenly their feathers become very loosely attached, and fly everywhere.  In normal predation circumstances, that might be expected to save their lives, once in a while- leaving the predator distracted, or with only a mouthful of feathers.

It can also help the forensics on the farm.  Got a big central poof, with a few feathers in all directions out to 10 feet- then nothing?  Probably a hawk or owl.  Big poof, then another poof 5 feet away, then a trail going in one direction for 30 feet?  Probably a mammalian predator.  Note the "probably"; lots of variations will happen.

But when the thief took my big Cochin rooster, Thor- with the 40' trail; that let out not only avian thieves but most wild mammals, and focused suspicion on - the farm dogs.  Sigh.

Daisy, alas, was looking guilty when I asked her "Have you been after the chickens?"  You think they don't understand?  I think they do.  We're down to two dogs, these days; Daisy's sister Schatze fell victim quite some time ago to her unbreakable desire to chase cars.  And Theodore, now far from this puppy.  Both have been trained, intensively, to behave themselves around poultry.  And both had been allowed totally free access for many months; with no indications of problems; on the contrary, both dogs accompanied me as I tended the tractors and birds- both dogs and birds behaving as if there were no tensions here at all.  But.  Daisy was now looking... shifty.  And we were down 7 hens at this point.

So; both dogs went on chains.  During the day.  Thankfully, and sadly, the birds stopped disappearing immediately.  Dogs were set free as soon as the birds were shut in for the night (our standard practice to prevent them from quickly become owl-chow), then put back on before letting birds out in the morning.  They weren't happy during the day; but are well trained enough that putting them on chain in the morning was easy- just call, they come right to the chain, not looking cheerful, but unquestioning.

After 10 days with no poultry disappearing- I let Theodore stay off-chain all day, trepidatiously .  Of the two dogs, he's the stay-at-home, oddly; usually males roam more than females, but our current two work the other way round.  And - no birds disappeared.  Sigh.

That would seem to be pretty convincing evidence. And I'm pretty convinced.  But.

Alas, there is more than one threat to free-range poultry.  This was a guinea.  And the cause in this case was- newly hatched babies.  Spice was out early, and found 5 newly hatched baby guineas (keets) running about.  She captured them, of course.  We have about 10 farm cats at this point, and while the adult poultry are cat proof; baby birds are irresistible cat morsels.  They have to be protected, at least until they can fly.

Only 5 keets were in evidence.  After catching them (no small feat) and bringing them in, she went back to see if there were more keets, previously hiding (or perhaps not hatched yet) - 5 is a very small number for a guinea clutch ... and found instead, this poof.

Almost certainly, a Cooper's Hawk.  We see them pretty often; and generally like to; they catch mice and bluejays.  Usually the poultry are too big for them to attempt; but if they're really hungry; they may try.  If they try, they'll pretty certainly succeed in killing the chicken, even if they can't carry it off.  The guineas rarely are caught, they're too wary.

Unless- they're new parents, or protecting a nest, and distracted.

A few days ago- we had 2 more poofs show up, in the woods.  Poof 1 was- an Araucana hen who'd been missing for weeks- presumed eaten by Daisy.  But, nope.  She'd evidently gone broody, and started sitting on a clutch of eggs, in the woods.  The timing of the poof- just right for the eggs to have hatched.  And the hen to have become hawk food, while watching the new chicks.  Poof 2 was- the Araucana hen who had been proven our best foster mom.  Probably- when the original mom disappeared, the chicks started calling; and the 2nd hen's maternal instincts called her into the woods, to also encounter the hawk.

Pretty sad.  No way around that.  These were birds I'd known for years, as individuals.  I miss them.  And I feel guilty that I somehow let them down- I wasn't able to provide them with a safe place, or a safe way, to be parents.  They'd survived just fine- for 3 years of free range - until there were unprotected chicks in the picture.

Still working on figuring out how to protect them in the future.  It'll be work.  But the benefits the birds provide are pretty clear.  (I'll make a list, one of these posts).

Meanwhile.  At least, the 5 keets are protected, and being tended by an adult guinea.  I'm pretty sure this bird was NOT one of the birds that hatched the eggs, but she responded strongly to the keets calling, went into the cage I set up, and now broods them when they get a little cool.

They're thriving.  With no heat lamp.  Life goes on.  For some.

Daisy is now resigned about being on chain all day.  But the reality is, we need her free, 24 hours, guarding the farm.  Particularly since we've now got reports of bears, nearby.  More work ahead, one way or another.

Chickens And Guineas And Eggs, Oh, My.

I  do have a life outside of fretting about Fukushima, really I do.  Older readers here will remember I started a series of posts way back there when I launched a guinea fowl keeping project in 2008, the Guinea Saga; with a Part 2, and a Part Trois a year later.  I think that was about the last update.  Sorry about that!

I've been intending to take up the topic again for months now; the primary reason I haven't being - it's turned into a big topic.  I've learned a lot.  And as always happens, much of what I've learned is how much there is to learn, and how much of it not only I don't know; but nobody knows.  Tackling all that has kind of intimidated me.

Today has provided the key bit to kick me over edge though; I mentioned my chickens over on the NYT, and thought you might enjoy seeing that.  It's in a Green Blogs post on water.  Do take a look; it'll bring you up to date on what we're doing here just a bit; besides being highly educational on the water thing.

The article states that "It takes 52 gallons of water to produce one egg" - and that stimulated my response. Sure, I'll easily believe industrial eggs use that much; but - any version of home/local/free range certainly won't be even close to that.  I'm guessing I pump and carry about a tablespoon of water per egg.  Putting those calculations on an honest comparison basis is beyond me, of course; but the basic facts have to be pretty obvious; industrial production is going to use way more.

To re-launch the topic, I think it will make sense for me to just list and outline where we are now.  We started with 30+ guinea keets, in 2008.  Six of those birds are still alive.  They're our wise old survivors.  All together, we now have about 55 birds; about 34 of them guineas.  Three roosters, and about 16 hens of 3 breeds.  I have a database.  Most of the birds have numbered aluminum leg bands; and about twice a year they get weighed, as a measure of basic health.  The uncertainty in the numbers comes because a few are "missing in action" at the moment; I suspect they are sitting on stolen eggs somewhere.

The majority of the birds are "out", divided between two chicken tractors which are about 1/4 mile apart.  Every morning, they are let out of the tractor, and are absolutely free to roam.  Boy, do they roam.  We see them 200 yards away, and more, daily.  Just before sunset; I go out and call them to me- using a half cup of white millet and about a quart of layer crumble per tractor as training bait, to get them back into the tractors for the night.  The main reason for that is - foxes etc. for the chickens, some of whom don't fly much; and owls for the guineas, which will roost high in the trees if you're 10 minutes too late.  A few birds remain in the big permanent chicken coop, built to winter the birds.  The idea of building a soddy coop definitely did not work out; but at least it's semi-earth sheltered; making it cooler in the warming summers, and warmer in the winter.

We do collect the eggs.  We have way more than we can eat, but not really enough to make sense to try to sell.  And of course, both chickens and guineas frequently hide their eggs, and I definitely don't find them all.  Working on that; I'd rather harvest that resource, and the hidden eggs are also an encouragement to predators to hang around.

The bottom line- it's worth while; we intend to continue, and even expand.  The details on why and how though, are complex.  I'll be writing more, very soon.

I have issues.

Smidgen, who is in kindergarten now,  came home a day ago and announced that "Troy still has talking issues."

Which cracked me up.  I love the way our language changes.  "To have issues" is not that old a phrase; goes back only to the 80's, I think, and was unknown before then.  Now it's become this powerful and universal explanatory.  I love imagining exactly how it bounces around in the kindergarten room.

I have issues, at the moment.  We've had this momentary karma crash, apparently.

While my health is currently not an issue, everything else is.  Our poultry, both guineas and chickens, are disappearing, at a really alarming rate.  Something is eating them (the piles of feathers attest) but we can't figure what.  Have to figure it out.

Our tree crops are dropping like crazy; and we can't pick them up fast enough.  And- we got clobbered by the flooding rains a couple days ago; with more on the way.  We only got 4 inches out of it, not the 10 some neighbors did.  But when you're picking stuff up off the ground, and the ground is mud- it's not good.

The storm was what our grandparents would all have called "the equinoctial storm".  Smack on the equinox, this time.  They all new/believed that you can expect a major rainstorm event every year, close to the equinox.  Lots of mysticism about why; but for our location, my 30+ years of watching tends to affirm their opinion.  The balance of sunlight has shifted from light to dark; the weather shifts too.

Besides pounding crops into mud, we got hit by a karmic lightning bolt.  Well, the surge, anyway.

For decades, it's been my rigid practice to unplug everything during lightning storms.  After frying 8 (no exaggeration) answering machines, it seemed the best practice.  But.  This time, the DSL connection was left on; and my computer was connected.

We heard a very loud POP from the direction of the DSL, and every circuit breaker in the house tripped. The thunder roll came a couple seconds later; this wasn't a hit on the house.

Took a while to figure out what and where.  After resetting all the breakers; the DSL modem; and my computer, were stone dead.  The surge evidently got into the DSL line, evaded all their protections, then via ethernet wire into my computer, then into the power lines, and "poof".  Lighting does anything it wants to, is the actual physical law.

I was really pretty dismayed to discover how dependent I've become on the computer and the web.  It's a chunk of my life; and when it's not available, things get out of kilter.  How the hell am I supposed to plan what to do when I can't look at the radar loop?  Or when that urgent email conversation is disrupted?

I used to, of course.  Changing back is strangely difficult, though.

Meanwhile.  More rain on way.  Gotta get crops in.

I paid too much.

  I'm kinda afraid to say "I'm back!" - but; I may be back.  We'll see.  I am back from my trip, and it was a tremendously productive and useful one, the kind that leaves your head spinning with new possibilities, and solutions to old problems, and lots of energy...

  After which, you arrive home to reality, and while it's wonderful; that damned pot hole in the driveway still needs to be fixed...

  And so it goes.  As St. Vonnegut put it repeatedly.  Anyway; an actual post:

  Two days ago, I paid too much for an antique.  On purpose.

  The "antique" is a hand-cranked feed grinder; for turning whole corn etc. into chicken feed.  It's small scale agriculture; but from the day when people bought such things expecting them to work without breaking, for a lifetime; to serve their own needs fully, and well.

  I've needed one for a year, and have been suffering mentally from the fact that before I had any poultry I saw one, languishing in an antique mall, asking to be taken home for a very measly $35; a great 40 lb chunk of cast iron from another era.  Nobody was buying, obviously; it's a heavy working machine, and doesn't transform well into a tchotchke.  I'd admired the beautiful design and utility of it, and passed on; and kicked myself constantly for not buying it, all the days after.

  Once I needed one, they vanished from the antique malls of course.  I looked, asked, drove to see the other dealer across town, etc, for several years, with no luck.  Most dealers knew what it was I was talking about, and had seen them; but were also aware that the market for them was nearly non-existent.

  On my way driving home, I stopped for a break in the small town where I went to high school; a place to which I retain very few ties.  Walked past our old house, noticed that the tuck pointing I'd done on the front stairs was holding up fine, but that whatever I hadn't repaired then was now in desperate need.  And finding a couple of antique stores, looked in mostly out of community curiosity, not real hope.  They always ask; "Looking for anything special?"  And I always answer, as a way to open communication, and ease the situation dynamics.  "Yeah, I'm looking for a... "  and the hands start flailing about to express dimensions and actions.

  "Nope.  But the other store back up town might- they've got a basement."  Ok.  Trudge.  "Oh, I really don't know.  I have two dealers who might; let's see - "  and hailing one who happened to be in, relayed my request.  "Well.  Maybe."

  Let's look.  And there, behold, is my feed grinder.  Cleaned up to an insane degree, and painted fire engine red in hopes of achieving tchotchke-hood, but there it is; massive cast iron, with enough wear on the iron teeth to prove a long and useful career already achieved; with another hundred years left in it.

  There's the tag.  Flip it over.  $145.00.

  Now- the lady, who inadvertently had blurted "you know, we thought that's what it was!" and thus revealed her position of inferior knowledge, was looking at me very hopefully, as I looked up from the tag.  There wasn't any doubt in my mind that if I'd played the game, she'd have cheerfully taken $100; or maybe a lot less- ("man, the last one I saw was a lot better, and they were only asking $35!") but instead, I gave her a full-smile, put out my hand, and said "Done!"

  And I was actually aware of what I was doing.  I was willing to pay the exorbitant price for two reasons.  One; pure celebratory joy that I'd succeeded in this long search, and I can now grind my own stuff to feed the guineas and chickens; and Two -

  Two is more complicated.  This was a piece of pretty important machinery to me; and similar bits of old technology exist in many corners of antique stores, attics, basements and barns.  Most of these old tools wind up thrown away.  "Nobody wants that junk anymore; it's just scrap."

  A bunch of the tools I used to build this house came out of antique stores; and the need for these simpler machines is increasing, not decreasing.

  I paid the price cheerfully - to encourage, forcefully, this lady and her antique dealer friends to preserve the old tools when they find them; and make them available to those of us who recognize and want them.  I didn't tell her that.

  I doubt that extra $45 will ever find its way back to me, in karmic payoff.  But.  It was my contribution, for the day, to the direction of human enterprise.  Hopefully, it will help a few others find what they need, down the road.

  A little shove on the iceberg.

Whistling girls...

My mother taught me this rhyme-

Whistling girls, and crowing hens

Always come to some bad ends.

She was explaining why she couldn't whistle, when I was around 6, and fiercely trying to learn how.  When she was a kid- any girl that whistled would be faced with that chant from the other school kids.  So girls pretty much didn't.

This is not a post about post feminist posting, however.

It's about crowing hens.  I think we've got one.

You'll remember, if you're following closely, that a while back I was puzzling over the sex of our Dominique bird. 

We'd pretty much decided that it was a she- based on the appearance of two types of chicken eggs in the coop.  The shape is different from the guineas; rounder on both ends; and the texture of the shell is quite different, the guinea eggs having what look like rather large pores scattered about while the chicken eggs look more like smooth porcelain to the naked eye.  We were getting one "big" and one "banty" sized chicken egg, nearly daily; and since we have only 3 chickens, and Kanga is definitely all rooster- the math seemed simple.

Then, two weeks ago- I heard two roosters crowing at the same time.  The math was still the same.  3 chickens.  Two crowing.   And then I saw the Dominique actually crow; several times.  What the hay.

So yesterday we found two new chicken eggs- one definitely banty sized- and with the light brown color we've gotten used to there.  And one much larger- and a darker brown.  

Well; heck.  So DO hens sometimes crow?  Is Silly Sally, the Dominique, actually a cross dressing hen?  Spice wants to rename her/him Saleddie.  We hope Eddie Izzard will approve.

(R-rated language there)

Meanwhile- anybody have experience with crowing hens??  Do they exist?

Thicken Plot Pie

So here is the cleaned corpse of the rooster- many thanks to Spice, who in spite of having presided at quite a few mammal cleanings, was a little squeamish about cleaning a bird.  As you can see; it's a pristine carcass.  Spice opted to just chop the wings, since a major part of the trickiness here was preventing a rather dirty exterior from coming in contact with the clean meat; it was just too fussy for too little reward, in this case.

It was all a great success.  We simmered the bird for a half day or so, on the back of the wood stove, to the point where it was fork-tender and falling off the bones.  It smelled wonderful.  We moved the bird off the heat, covered, to wait for evening, when we'd add the veggies.

And then we got interrupted again.

Spice and Smidgen went out to the greenhouse to do daily chores- and found Smidgen's pet bunny, which she named Horton, when she was 2annahaf, after the Suessian elephant, dead in his hutch.  Old age, in this case- he was given to us when he was 6ish, several years ago.

Farm kids learn about death, and life, immediately.  So it wasn't the earthshaking trauma it can be for kids who've been insulated; but still, no fun, and right on the heels of the death of the rooster, whom she also knew personally.

No, we didn't eat the pet rabbit!  sheesh.

But things had to stop for a while, and a funeral and burial arranged.  Secure burial, so dogs and coyotes wouldn't dig it up, we hope.  Though the ground is still frozen, a foot down- so it was tricky.

Then as part of the consoling process, another, longer, interruption was launched.

Smidgen announced at the noon meal that she was going to get another rabbit.  A very positive little girl.  Mummy and Daddy were not enthusiastic about this, however, since the bunny was pretty much a dead drag on resources and space, and we really didn't have a sensible place for it to fit in.  So by way of distraction, I reminded Smidge of our intention to get another puppy; fairly soon.  And I tried to convince her that having a little fuzzy puppy to hold would be at least as good as a rabbit; and maybe better.  She was a little wary of the idea, but the campaign for a new bunny went quiet.

Now that the topic of the puppy was open, however, Spice asked if she should go ahead and call the shelter lady- right now, while we were thinking about it.  Since it's spring(ish) and we were going to be pretty specific this time about what kind of puppy we were willing to accept, I figured we'd be looking at a 1-2 month wait, for the right pup to be located and transferred, etc.  So, I said; sure, go ahead.

I'm not sure if this was a good bit of karma, or bad- but the shelter lady called back immediately, with the news that in fact, she had exactly the puppy we were looking for, right now today- and - she was leaving for two weeks (shelter convention and break time) - in two hours.  So- NOW is when we needed to take the pup.

This is Theodore; a half Anatolian Shepherd, half - Collie? Aussie? cross; #10 out of 11 pups in the litter; just weaned, the only black one, and the biggest.  (No plott hound involved, in spite of the post title...)  The shelter lady leans toward the Aussie for a father, because of the black color.  But we don't really know.

The time spent in getting the puppy from the shelter, and cuddling him through his introduction to our family, including Delilah, who still sleeps in the house, and is not a puppy (sizewise) anymore- kind of made it impossible to finish off the chicken pot pie and actually pay attention to it, or appreciate it.  Our plot had thickened; just a bit too far.

How this pup came to be; and came to be available, is a story of the deepening depression.  His mother is a purebred, registered Anatolian- with a chip in her ear.

The chip identifies her unequivocally, of course- so how is it such a valuable dog was found abandoned, injured (missing several toes), skinny, and pregnant?

She had been owned by a couple in Iowa who were running a poultry business, in fact.  Which went bankrupt.  And the owners- just disappeared; leaving everything behind.  The shelter lady says most shelters are full these days- the number of dogs being abandoned is way up.  Part of the reason for the conference she's attending- they're trying to figure out how to cope.

So, meanwhile, we're back to puppy pee and puppy poop all over the place.  Theodore is not yet paper trained, alas.  Plus, Delilah is frequently explosively ecstatic to have a buddy to chase and chew on- you do remember that The Little House is 15' x 20' downstairs?  With a sink, woodstove, dining table, bookshelves, desk, and two window seat thingies?

We have our own full scale demonstration of entropic doom now.

Sigh.  At any rate, Theodore looks like a winner, so far.  Very cuddly; already comes when called, has no trouble holding his own in the rough and tumble with the much bigger dog- in fact when they get to the play-growling point- his growl is the most impressive.  He's definitely serving his purpose of wearing out and calming down Delilah.  And seems to have good common sense.

We've been paying our shelter fees with barter, incidentally; the shelter lady has been happy to do it that way.  Otherwise, it's $100 minimum, and likely more, depending.

--------------------------------------------------

Back to the chicken pot pie!  We put it off until the next evening, then took off from a mixture of Joy of Cooking and Farmer's Daughter's (thanks!) recipes; added onion, carrots, and potatoes, a little thyme, salt and pepper, made gravy with some of the cooking liquid, which was then stirred into the whole; and finished it off with baked biscuit on top.  Alas, no photo- we were too hungry at that point to remember.  But it was wonderful.

The chicken, by now, was just a bit overcooked.  It was falling into fibers, rather than hanging together in tender chunks.  And it was just a tad on the bland side, as it came out of the oven; I think we'll spice it a little more next time; and the rooster was not quite as flavorful as I'd hoped- actually a bit young for this treatment perhaps.

In any case, a great success.  We got 3 suppers out of it; two with biscuits, and the third time out it was starting to look really cooked by now from all the re-heatings; so we took it out of the pot and fried it in a little butter, hash style.  Oh, yeah.

Chicken Teotwawki!

Many thanks for all the chicken info and advice, folks.  It helped!

We're eating it.  While I would certainly not eat a chicken I found dead somewhere if I was uncertain about the cause of its demise- my 99.99% was not lightly arrived at.   The other rooster killed this bird- to go through the entire diagnostic procedure would be boring- but it was plenty long.

And borne out by the autopsy- the carcass was flawless- except for peck wounds to the head- not a bruise on it.  There was even some fat (not much) which I was glad to see.  No trace of any gut taint smell once cleaned and rinsed.  One thing worried me at first, until I realized what I was looking at- the legs and thighs almost looked like they were bruised to me.  But- it's just that the dark meat on this bird is really dark.  Looking closer it really didn't look like bruising; the dark color was totally uniform.  Half the time these days, when you eat chicken thighs, the color is barely darker than breast meat.

It's a substantial bird; and is being made into a pot-pie sort of thing; which does involve boiling it until the meat falls off the bones.  And while simmering- it smells VERY chickeny.

We're going to add potatoes; make gravy; add carrots, peas; and simmer until done; then on the recommendation of my old Joy of Cooking, put biscuit dough on top and bake it.  They caution strongly about the hazards of soggy crusts in pot pies- and I'm thinking we'll put trying that off to another day.

And, I'm delighted for the advice on rooster numbers; I am a first time chicken herder, in spite of all the school; and I hadn't seen that info elsewhere.  We'll wait until we've got a bigger flock to try adding another.

We'll let you know how it tastes.  Smells wonderful, simmering on the back of the woodstove.

Do you remember the extra verses to "She'll be comin' round the mountain"?  Do they still sing them, or is it not pc, any more?  "We will kill the old red rooster, when she comes."  And, "Oh, we'll all have chicken an' dumplins, when she comes."   Tradition.

Seeking Chicken Salvage Recipes- Crunchy, or Not.

I have a dead chicken.  Not- as a consequence of the dog.

When I went out to turn the birds loose for the day (they're closed in the coop at night, totally free all day) - the coop looked fine; all the birds were inside, including the little banty hen who is a slippery as a weasel- and one of the Buff Orpington roosters was - dead.

99.99% probability - he was murdered by the other, single remaining, Orp rooster.  Now I'm wondering if the disappearance of the 3rd Orp rooster, last week, was not due to the eagles hanging around- but to rooster harassment. 

Sigh.  Well, vast relief it's not the dog; who is still behaving beautifully.  And I can feel the relief from the hens, who were definitely over-exercised.

The carcass is not ripped up, or anything, but the corpse was cold when I got there.

So.  Now what?

The bird is 9 months old.  But was harassed- and left to lie undrawn for quite some time.  And, surprise, the other birds in the coop wound up walking over it, and pooping a little on it.

Can I pluck it, or should I skin it?  (Of course I intend to eat him!)  Is he going to taste a little rank?  From being kicked around and undrawn so long?

Any experience in chicken salvaging out there?  

I'm leaning toward a pot-pie, at the moment.  This will be the first bird we've eaten out of our experiment.  Most of the muscle mass will be from commercial feed; but they've been truly free range since they were 7 weeks old.  They ate, to my astonishment, a lot of apples; mostly Roxbury Russet (the coop is under one) and Golden Russet, which is the next line in the orchard.  For a month and a half setting the birds loose for the day included stepping on and crushing about a dozen groundfall apples for them- which they would attack immediately. Could be interesting.

Any suggestions?

------------------------------------

oh, yeah, and the computer is restored.  And, of course, Beelar, who has been Sys Admin for his grad school engineering department, tells me "huh, I've never known one to do that before..." - which is standard operating around here.  Whatever we break- no one has never broken it that way, before.  I could give you a list.

Interruptus Totalis. Computerus Deadus.

I'm using Harry Potter style puppy Latin there.

I'm typing this on our 2nd backup computer; waiting for Beelar to herd me through the hoops on restoring and reformatting my nice new MacBook, which refused to boot for me today.  Diagnostics say "bad node. - reformat disc."  

Hate when that happens.  Won't lose any data; just time; and am trying to figure out WHY the disc got corrupted.  I'm fearing a virus.  The backups are clean, anyway.

-------------------------------------------------------------

On the Chickenus front- the Dominique is back with the flock; and we've decided it really is a hen.  Two factors; we had it IN the Little House for 48 hours, doing rest and recuperation; and once in that time, it went through the "cut-cut-ka-DAWWWcut" routine- which is supposed to accompany egg laying (no egg, alas) - and is really not a vocalization you expect from a rooster.

And- once restored to the flock- the two Buff Orp roosters really started showing their opinion that this is a hen.  Lots of chasing and treading.

Which might, in fact, be what the chicken was doing so far away- the Orps are really agressive and persistent- and I can see the Dominique possibly running so far off that she got lost.

Maybe.  The good side- even though she was undoubtedly in the dogs mouth- she's really totally undamaged at this point.  Though not enthusiastic about the dog being nearby.

Thanks- all you guys who chimed in with real world experience.  I learned a bunch of useful stuff!  Like that Dominique hens can show spur stubs.

:-)

Chickenus Interruptus

Alas- this is not a post about our friend Madame Crunchus Chickenus, and her various frisk-risky activities, but about a real chicken.

It's still very much winter here, and it's cold out in the makeshift chicken tent we resorted to to get the chickens and guineas (we still have 15, RC!  pictures coming!  someday!) through the winter.

After our ex-dog got through murdering most of the chickens, we were left with 5.  Now down to 4- one of the Buff Orpington roosters vanished last week- at the same time we had a pair of bald eagles hanging around.  The point to the chickens was supposed to be mostly to provide good foster parenting for the guineas, which we have hopes of turning into a well integrated part of the farm- bug control, watchdog duty, with eggs and some meat.  If all goes well.  

4 surviving foster parents is just really thin, of course; particularly when what we have left is 2 big Buff Orp roosters; 1 bantam Brahman (they weren't supposed to be bantys.) - and one - Dominique, of still indeterminate sex.  We think it may be a transvestite chicken- at 9 months of age, all sex indicators are smack in-between male and female.  The bird doesn't crow- but neither, so far, do the roosters attempt to mate with it- and they nail the little banty constantly (and sometimes the guineas, too...)

And the Dominique is in the hospital (the house).  Exactly how it happened is not clear, but yesterday, responding to weird alarm cries from the woods, I found the chicken being tumbled about by - the dog.  Far away from the chicken coop.

Oh, not a happy camper here.  We've been working pretty hard on training this dog to not hassle the birds- and it really seemed to be working.  Putting the muzzle on, any time any agressive move appeared.  Delilah really seemed to be getting it.

The problem is- it's not clear what happened.  Even though 100 yards away from normal range- the bird appears essentially unharmed, though it was pretty shocky when I picked it up.

But- no dog tooth punctures, anywhere; not even any visible bruising.  And after spending the night inside the house, in a covered box, the bird is calm, looks well groomed, and seems- fine.

Ok.  Now what?

It's not that I'm really at a loss for what to do.  We have lots of options- the problem is, they all take lots of time and attention, and it bloody ain't convenient.

It's really irritating, sometimes, how inconvenient life can be.  I mean, really.

Now we have to work.  With the dog.  With the chicken.  With the family.

Sigh.

:-)

ah, well.  beats spending time reading headlines, I suppose.

The Parable of The Shed: Why 30 years is not forever.

One useful aspect to all of us forcibly attending Camp TEOTWAWKI now, is that many people truly are starting to be more mindful of their choices.   Think before you invest.  Look before you leap off your burning bridges.  That sort of thing.

Guidance in making long term decisions though, is hard to come by, and harder to judge.  Does this expert advisor actually have a clue, or ...  have I wound up with Alfred E. Neuman,  yet again?

Not long after Spouse and I built the Little House, and actually started living here, it became quite clear that we needed more space.  15' x 20'; including a wood stove, piano, and kitchen sink, and dining room table, just does not leave a lot of room for projects, like building a set of shelves.  No place left to walk, while that is under way.

Virtually all farm type operations include outbuildings; a barn, a shed- a workshop.  So it wasn't too difficult to decide that we did, indeed, need a multipurpose shed, not too far from the house.  We figured it should serve as a: work shop, bad-weather wood shed, seasonal storage space (eg. storm windows and skis in summer), materials storage (eg. boards, plywood), tool storage, empty mason jar storage.  You know.  A shed.

So quickly, you get to "where, exactly"; "how big", and "how".  "Where" was pretty limited; by the need to be close; "how big", it turns out, was partly determined by "how".

Standard construction around here would be a "pole barn" - treated wood poles, gravel or concrete floor, pre-fab roof trusses, and sheet metal sides and roof.  You just go the lumber yard, and order the stuff.  And there are loads of experienced construction teams who can zip it up for you in a couple days.

It was very easy to decide not to go that route- we had no money whatsoever.  Which meant- materials out of our 40 acres of oak/maple woods, and/or scrounged materials, and a "barn-raising" party for labor.

Then, you have to work out the details.

Something you pretty quickly find out, when you're living this kind of do-it-yourself life; the details are NOT "important".  The details are EVERYTHING.

Oddly, we teach our children the opposite, these days.  "Sure, teacher, I got the answer to the question wrong, but you can tell I understood it!" - will often get you a pity-pass in schools, even in universities.  But not in real life.  My father pounded this one in when he was an engineering prof, and I was in High School; and I got to listen to him gripe about his students.

  "But Professor, yes, I got the math wrong, but it's just a decimal point!  You can tell I totally understood the problem!"  "I don't give a good goddam if you 'understood' the problem!  Your goddam building FELL DOWN; and 370 people died!!  The only thing that matters is the right answer.  The F stands. "  And he would shake his head in amazement at their incomprehension.

So, I was well trained to do my homework regarding construction, and I'd adsorbed quite a bit of information via osmosis- and from helping my father re-build most of the houses we'd lived in (many).  Looking around at the old homesteads here, I found quite a few old chicken coops and corn cribs that were made with just white oak posts for their basic support; planted in the ground; and easily 50 years old.  Obviously, white oak can last a long time in our soils; the stated lifespan for chemically treated poles in direct soil contact is usually 30-40 years.

Doing more homework- the expected lifespan for white oak fenceposts around here is less; 20-30 years.  The difference is attributed mostly to the roof- poles under a roof should spend more of their life dry.

Most of my available poles are not exactly "white oak" - Quercus alba; but burr oak; Q. macrocarpa.  The textbooks say, though, that in this case, they're pretty much the same in regard to rot resistance.

So, using my own oak poles, we should be able to put up a shed that will last 30 years; no sweat.  We had a good supply of 12"-8" diameter red pine poles for rafters and plates; pine boards and 2/4's for other structure- and we helped a friend tear down a local railroad station for windows and siding.  We did buy metal for the roof.

When you're 30 years old- 30 years into the future looks indistinguishable from "forever", or "until we die."  And, guess what?  It isn't.  Here I am- 30 odd years later-

And sure as heck; the time has run out on some of my burr oak poles.

This is the SW corner pole.  And, as you can see- it's entirely rotted off- the bottom of the pole is now a good 6" above the ground.  Hm.

We just discovered it, absurdly enough.  The shed had gone through a phase where it got increasingly cluttered and useless, to the point where I only referred to it as "The Dread Shed"; and it got to the point where Middle Child and his wife decided to totally overhaul it, bless them.  Unburying the corner- where we already knew a woodchuck had chewed through the outer wall (and wrought havoc inside for months); we discovered the rotted off pole.  Oh, so that's why the windows have been breaking.

The shed is not falling down.  One of the advantages of using big logs for plates and rafters- they're enormously strong, and well secured on the other poles- most of which are not rotted off.  This corner is the wettest one.  But- the building is sagging, putting stress on everything.  

So now what?  Fix it?  Tear the shed down and rebuild?  I don't want to.

Dammit, I'm 60 years old now, busy, and I want the bloody shed to be in usable shape; I don't want to be building, or fixing.

Why didn't I build it to last in the first place?

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That turns out to be a complex, and highly significant question.  Lissen up; and maybe you can avoid my mistakes.

A)  I was young (30) and stupid.  I thought 30 years was forever.  It really really isn't.

B)  Everybody I asked thought 30 years was forever, too.  Or plenty long enough.

C)  The entire construction industry is built around the idea that structures should not last more than 50 years; even homes.  Then you should build a new one.  You want to benefit from the constant improvements in modern materials and design, don't you?  Well then.  They really like that- so if you read their text books, or go to them for advice- that's what they'll tell you.

and

D) Building structures with longer life-spans is quite a lot more expensive.  Like double.

E) Financial advice is always- that investments in durable structures are not sensible.  The reasoning there: if you put that money in the stock market instead, it would give you better returns (no laughing, now); and, they're quite sure you will move to a better, more expensive location later in life, as you become more successful; so you won't get the benefit of the more durable structure anyway; and whoever you sell your old place to will not pay you any premiums for the better buildings; people just don't.

F)  That's the way we build stuff in the States- always have.  Ever since Europeans arrived here- they've been sure they were going to move in the next 10-20 years, to someplace better. Why build for the long term?

See any holes in any of the logic here?

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I'm cogitating, pondering, and kneading all this stuff right now for a couple of specific reasons; I've got to figure out what to do about this shed; and- about future construction here.  We're in the process of building space for animals (guineas! ) - and you can check out a recent rhapsody on barns by Sharon, here.

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More in the next post.   Think about it!  And think about all the stone farmhouses in Europe... and how old they are...