Who's eating my eggs?

It’s snowing here today, with about an inch of mushy stuff on the ground.  It’s damp and gray and cold, the kind of day to spend inside.  Looking through the window is pretty enough with the trees draped in white fluff.  I thought about going out to take pictures but I have a hard time motivating myself this time of year.  My body says stay in, eat and hibernate.  Last night I made a banana sour cream cake- delicious- but not what Steve and I need.

I went to the little store in town this morning to buy my newspapers, the roads were slick and I thought about skipping the whole thing but we need the newspapers for slopping up after Bugsy, our incontinent dog.  I also wanted to buy a lottery ticket for the powerball game which is up to some fantastic amount.  But it was a struggle to get my mind and body in gear to make the trip.

The hose at the barn was froze this morning and all day yesterday.  Friday I filled two buckets and left them in the barn and that was used up this morning so tonight I will be carrying water unless some really bright sun comes out and warms us up, which I doubt.  I thought the chickens would all stay inside but they and the cats came running to meet me when I came out.  I saw chicken tracks all around the front yard in the snow so I guess their little bare feet were tolerating the snow. 

Usually I shut up all the birds before the first sticking snow but last year I regretted not letting them out more when it was nice.  I kept thinking if I let them out someone would get left out over night and freeze.  This year I haven’t closed up everyone yet- I have yet to find all the turkeys and ducks roosting inside.  All the chickens come in each night but the others are more stubborn.  Tonight though, I may go back out after it gets good and dark and see if I can shut them in.  That will guarantee we get a warm spell.

Something is eating eggs.  I don’t think its chickens, doesn’t look like their work and it started in the frizzle pen.  The eggs look like they are being bitten open.  I hate to think it’s the cats because I can’t keep them out of the pens.  I found the shell from an eaten one in the big hens nest box this am and that bothers me because I don’t want to paying this much for laying feed and not get eggs.    We do feed the cats cooked eggs several times a week (and they always have dry cat food).  I confess I have on occasion given them raw eggs, usually after I find a cracked one.  It may be my fault if its cats doing it. 

There has been a big black cat hiding in the barn lately.  He sneaks out to eat with the other cats when he thinks I’m not looking.  You can tell he was once a pet, I think someone dropped him off so I don’t think he would be any more likely to eat eggs than mine.   I’m thinking maybe an opossum is eating them.  I do wish I had a night vision trail camera out there- maybe one day.

Speaking of eggs, my crazy canary laid one this morning on the cage floor.  I took her nest out last week because she has been sitting on it for weeks.  There were eggs once but they never hatched.  She got busy and tried to make a nest in a seed cup, pushing all the seeds out and scavenging little pieces of paper and feathers.  Today when I found the egg, which I broke trying to pick up, I took out the seed cup and replaced her nest and gave her some moss and yarn to re-build which she has been happily doing.  The male is still with her but I haven’t noticed them mating. 

I was getting ready to put the cage separators back in both cages and let them be separated for a while.  I know male and female canaries should be separated but mine don’t fight and seem happy and it does give them a lot more room with the cage dividers out.  I think I will put the one divider back in the cage with the older male and switch the hen that he is next to, since I got nothing out of that pair this year.  I have one poor little hen that has been in the bottom cage all year and in the winter it doesn’t get a lot of light.  Its time for her to have a chance to attract the male, although he took a big fancy to the hen he is with last spring.  Maybe he will get to like her because she will be “new”.

That’s news at the bird house.  Here's a picture of the hen  trying to nest in the seed cup.

Dogs who read calenders

It’s been a quiet week.  It started rainy and mild, ended up cooler and sunny. This morning there was heavy fog.  The hose has been running at least every afternoon, although there have been some mornings when the water on the animals dishes was frozen pretty deep.  Still the ducks have been out on the pond and the turkeys and chickens are ranging far and wide.  Its nice they don’t have to be shut up yet.

I wish I could keep the hens and young roosters from being out roaming in the front yard and garden.  It always gets bad in the late fall when they have to go farther to find yummies.  They think if they meet me at the back door they might get something extra.  That doesn’t work well when I am coming out of the door with a dog or two on a leash like this morning.  Lucky it was the cockers and not the Jacks I was taking to town with me.

I don’t know how they know the date but Honey, Barack and Ginger at least always know its Sunday.  On Sunday I go up to the little town nearby to buy newspapers and I usually take dogs with me.  The named dogs above, who love to ride in the car, like to go anyway.

Honey begins watching me the moment breakfast is done on Sunday.  I don’t know what I do different from any other morning.  Maybe it’s what’s on TV as Steve can’t be without TV in the background.  I think Barack and Ginger pick up on it from her - or maybe Ginger also knows as she’s pretty smart.  Anyway they won’t leave me alone until I pick one or two to go and leave.  I can handle Honey and Barack together but Ginger, although she’s smaller I take alone. 

Honey and Barack are the cockers.  They walk fairly well on a leash and jump in the car when told to.  Inside they sit on the console and passenger seat and behave pretty well.  Ginger is a Jack Russell mix and she is just itching to get away and chase something when she goes out the door.  I have to carry her to the car and I don’t let go until the door is closed.  Once inside she insists on sitting crammed between me and the driver’s door with her nose pressed against the window.  It makes it hard to get out but she does love it so.

It’s only about 2 miles there and 2 back but that little drive each week means a lot to some dogs.  Sometimes when the weathers nice I take Ginger for a drive after I get back with the cockers.  The things we do for dogs.  I am glad most of the dogs don’t care about going in the car.

Bugsy, our old farm terrier has started following me in the office to sit at my feet while I work.  I put a rug there for him.  It’s between the heating vent and the little heater I sometimes use in there.  Cricket, our little yorkie-jack mix lives in the office.  She is old and getting very blind as well as deaf.  She doesn’t mind old Bugsy in there but she barks when the other dogs come in.  She used to fight with them and that was why she was separated all the time as she was very aggressive with the other girls.  Now she is very docile, in fact I sometimes chase the others out if they threaten her.

Honey loves to come in the office and sit and eat Crickets food, which is the same exact food she has out in the kitchen.  Unless I pick it up she eats every crumb.  And she sure doesn’t need the extra food.  They all like to drink out of Crickets water bowl and they take turns checking out her kennel run, the ones who can fit through her doggie door anyway. 

When they sense I am going to my office all the dogs follow now. Honey beats me to the door.  It’s great to go to work with Mom I guess.

Bird talk

I brought in some of the inner leaves of ornamental kale, curly purple and white leaves, for the canaries in place of the usual chickweed.  As a bonus there was a tiny cabbage worm on one piece.  It went in the cage with the younger male, whose hen is still sitting on a nest, although she hasn’t hatched anything all year.  He appeared interested but a little frightened of the worm.  The hen finally came off the nest and picked at the kale but I guess canaries as seed eating birds don’t appreciate worms. 

It took the hen canaries only a minute to realize the odd colored plants were edible but the males didn’t seem interested.  Females are smarter after all.  Kale is a little tougher than chickweed and they had to hold it down with a foot to tear at it but they knew what to do.

 Last night I sold off all of the young ducks that were left, 19 of them.  Over the last week we sold all 30 young ones.  The feed bill was getting huge-80 pounds of pellets a week between the turkeys and ducks.  We are now down to a more manageable number 6 adult ducks and 5 breeder turkeys and 1 meat turkey.  Last year we butchered the leftover babies and I got a good price for the meat but this year they were not going to mature enough before the processors quit for the season. 

I have learned a lesson, cut off the hatching of ducks by mid-summer.  We had a late start because something was eating eggs in the spring but the late summer and fall duck bounty was not a money maker, that’s for sure.  Turkeys could hatch anytime and be sold for a good price, at least the heritage ones but not ducks.

 Speaking of turkeys I may not get my white tom butchered before Thanksgiving.  I called my usual meat processor at the end of September and she was already booked for Thanksgiving week.  So far no luck with a processor.  Steve said we could do it ourselves but I said no.  I can’t eat the ones we butcher until they have been frozen for a while and I have forgotten the whole smelly process.  I guess I am not as good a live off the land person as I would like to be.  We can get him butchered after Thanksgiving and have him for Christmas.   I do hate the thought that I raised these heritage turkeys all summer and I am not having one for Thanksgiving.  I hope we are able to raise more of them next season so we can sell breeding stock and have some left to eat.

We are hoping for some dry, warmer weather this weekend so that we can get some more winterizing projects done.  We need to repair part of the tarp roof over the chicken run after the high winds last week and cover the small coop run with plastic.   The mower needs to be run over to the old horse shelter for the winter and I need to put away some cages and other things so they are out of the way for the winter.  And I still have daffodil bulbs to plant.

 Winter is almost here and I dread it.  I hope we have a mild one like last year but not quite as warm, as that didn’t work well with the fruit crops.  Just above freezing in the day so the hose will run is fine and sunny would be really great.  We have had a long stretch of cloudy or overcast days and it gets very depressing. 

This morning it is foggy but I am hoping the SW wind will clear it off.   The pond is up a little, less evaporation, trees have quit drawing up water and we have had a little rain.   But I know that snow would be beneficial for the pond and the environment so I will try not to be too unhappy when it falls next week as they are predicting.  I am going to try and leave the birds free ranging longer this year, instead of closing up the barn with them inside.  Unless the snow is deep and it’s really cold they might benefit from being outside more.

 

I could see the neighbor’s house through the woods this morning.  That really tells me winter is here.