Eggs (week ending 9/30): 20
Eggs, September 2006: 56
Eggs (9/1/06 to date): 56
plus sixty or seventy collected 7/06 - 8/06

My daughter has had a couple of rat sightings over the last few days, so Friday night I decided to try a new tactic - the same one I use to train dogs. Namely, I identify an animal's behavior, and then exploit it.

In the case of a dog, I take something they already do (say, jump up) and put it to work to create an impressive trick (teaching a dog to jump through a hoop). I plan to do this with Ripley, who tends to jump up and put her forepaws up on the gate to the barnyard. So I'm going to use that and teach her to close and hold the gate.

In the case of the rat, I picked up the Jaws Of Death-type rat trap I'd bought at Tractor Supply. I'd baited it with peanut butter to no effect. Since there was evidence the rats were after the scratch grain (before I bought an aluminum can to hold it), I baited it with scratch and put it on top of the container that used to hold the scratch (that I'd just found fresh rat droppings on).

Twelve hours later the trap was gone. I wondered if maybe a raccoon wasn't walking around, wearing it on one paw, but that turned out not to be the case. I found the trap eventually. Apparently, when it snapped shut, it did with such impact that the trap and its prey (a rather large rat) flew up into the air and landed in a container several feet away.

Rigored rat disposed of, trap reseeded with scratch and reset in the same place.

Not much other news. No other predators to speak of since Ripley has been living in the barnyard (or for that matter, since we've had Ripley). She's getting used to her job as goat/chicken watcher and has even been found sleeping in the stable with the goats on occasion. We should be set for winter, then.

Eggs (week ending 9/23): 14
Eggs (9/1/06 to date): 36
plus sixty or seventy collected 7/06 - 8/06

For the last couple of weeks I've been thinking that I'd like to get another couple of layers because the current output of the three hens now producing isn't quite up to what our family uses. I wasn't too worried about it, figuring that I was going to order some New Hampshire Reds, Buff Orpingtons, and meat birds in the spring.

Then a friend of ours asked if we wanted some chickens. She and her husband had been given some as a housewarming gift, sort of a gag but not really. We were at the party when they got them - a nice trio of birds I couldn't quite identify, but the rooster was beautiful.

It turns out that the friend was afraid that their dog, a Husky, kept eyeing the birds with evil intent, and had concerns that the rooster's crowing would annoy the neighbors. Since we were the ones she came to for chicken advice, we were the logical ones to ask about adoption proceedings. Of course, I said yes.

She brought them over last Friday and I put them in a wire dog crate that I'd prepared for them - straw, a perch, and water. I kept them there until dark, when the other birds were asleep, and put them into the coop. They all seem to have assimilated with no problem. The two hens even laid eggs in the crate while waiting to be transferred.

There was one other interesting side effect. I was beginning to suspect that the Rhode Island Red rooster I got was having some potency problems. There were no signs of him chasing the hens, and the hens didn't show any of the ruffled feather signs of having been jumped. But the introduction of the second rooster brought out the man in the RIR. All of a sudden the hens are starting to look put-upon. The poor newcomer is so intimidated that he's been trying to spend his nights in the goat stall. I'm sure it'll all work itself out.

The icing on the cake - I'm pretty sure the hens are New Hampshire Reds. I thought one of the gift-givers at the party said they were New Hamps, and the look of them matches with some of the pictures of the New Hampshire Red section of Feathersite.

In other news, Ripley is now big enough to keep in the barnyard without escaping under the fence or through one of the gaps. I've now got her in a structured situation where she has a half-hour to eat in the morning or evening and, if she's not with a human being on a walk or working, she's in the barnyard with the goats. She's taking to the routine quite well. The breed seems to be quite intelligent. She has learned her name and some basic commands rather quicky. It's just that her size belies her intelligence, and the independent spirit of the Great Pyrenees can be taken as stubbornness or stupidity. I'm very impressed with the breed.

Things have calmed since the fair and we're falling into a routine. Ripley went on a trip to the vet a couple of weeks ago and we were told to keep her food at the current level and not give her any more (this vet had us switch her to adult food right away - something about the growth rate of big dogs, I guess). He thought she was a little heavy, but not too. It turned out that it wasn't the food. My daughter was giving Ripley the goat milk that at the time we weren't saving. We took her off of it, and she's looking like a much sleeker dog now.

The Great Pyrenees coat continues to amaze me. Briars and snags comb right out, as does dirt. She came home from a romp in the woods with my father-in-law and my nephew's chocolate lab, who is about the same age and weighs ten pounds less. She came back looking like a different dog, coated with dirt and burrs from head to toe, and two large dark spots on her left flank that look like she'd rolled in clay. I brushed her out that night and everything came out except the dark clay spots. They were gone the next day. My nephew's mother was going to wash the dog, but apparently thought we'd already done it. I don't know if it dried and worked itself out or if Ripley cleaned it herself. This is an amazing breed of dog.

The big news is that my daughter is getting enough quarts of goat milk from her main doe that we're slowly converting to using goat's milk in our household. Yesterday my wife and daughter made their first batch of goat cheese. It was wonderful stuff - much better than the buck-tasting stuff we got at a fancy market a couple of months ago. It was mild, mellow stuff that looked like ricotta. Wonderful.

And now, here's starting over with the tracking of the egg laying, thanks to the on-sale business calendar I got at Office Max.

Eggs (week ending 9/9): 13
Eggs (week ending 9/16): 9
Eggs (9/1/06 to date): 22
plus sixty or seventy collected 7/06 - 8/06

Well, the fair is over. We didn't sell off any animals, nor did we acquire any, although that whole thing about raising a pig keeps looming up. May make that happen sometime after more research - we'll see.

On the other hand, my daughter cleaned up ribbon-wise. Here's the tally. All awards are from Open Class and my daughter's Main Goat unless noted:

9th Place - Yearling Doe (Main Goat's daughter) (4-H)
5th Place - Best Udder*
3rd Place - Senior Showman (4-H)
2nd Place - Dairy Herd, Alpine (Main Goat, MG's mother, MG's daughter)
2nd Place - Yearling Doe, Alpine (Main Goat's daughter)
1st Place - Mother & Daughter, Alpine (Main Goat, MG's daughter)
1st Place - Doe 5+ Years, Alpine (Main Goat's mother)
1st Place - Doe 3 - 5 Years, Alpine
Champion - Alpine Doe
Champion - 4th Year Goat Harness (Lewis & Clark) (4-H)
Reserve Grand Champion - Goat Harness (Lewis & Clark) (4-H)
Reserve Grand Champion - Goat (4-H)
Reserve Grand Champion - Goat (plus a nifty plaque!)

Yeah, that's a boatload of trophies for her. More than last year, I think, but last year the Main Goat's daughter won Junior Grand Champion (in other words, the best of the goats not in milk). This year, a 9th and a 2nd from two different judges - which shows what a difference a judge can make.

Yeah, I'm proud of my daughter. And I can say "I helped," even if it was just occasionally feeding them and holding them while they were clipped. It was worth having my toes stepped on in the process - although steel toed boots are in the future if we're going to continue to show Open Class.

I should also note here that the goat that did the best was the one they almost wouldn't let my daughter take, as already chronicled here. The other interesting thing is that, while my daughter's Main Goat was isolated from others on the left and right, they said nothing about the goats on the other aisle, whose pen shared fence with ours. So much for biosecurity.

Finally, I went to Office Max the other day and found a 2006 office calendar marked down to $3.50. I'm going to hang it in the coop and keep track of eggs as they're laid. Hopefully this one won't get eaten like the last one was.

* Came in behind four Toggenberg does, a breed known for their, um, generous udders.

This is fair week. Last week was spent getting ready - and like most folks, we're not completely ready, but like the show, the fair must go on.

The highlight, if you could call it that, of the preparations were shaving the goats for presentation. Sheering all the hair off is a long standing tradition, probably to show any scars, disfigurements, or other things that a nice coat of hair can cover up. Just another way of ensuring that you're not buying a pig in a poke, if indeed you do any buying at the fair. I was also informed that technically, this process is not called something as vulgar or plebean as "shaving." There's a politically correct term for it, but I can't remember what it is exactly at this writing. It's something very neutral like, "putting a show coat on the goats."

As small herd-holders, we're not pros at this clipping thing. That's why it took a couple of us most of the day to clip just five goats. Seeing these pictures gives you an idea of why also - we don't have any fancy slings or anything like that to hold the goat. We were most of the way through clipping the last goat when someone mentioned, "Why don't you put them in the milk stand for clipping?" What, and miss all the fun of holding a goat in your lap? All the fun of having your toes mushed my hard goat hooves when you don't have steel toed boots? The actual answer is, "Duh, wish we'd thought of that six hours ago."

The end result is a naked goat (boy, I bet that's going to bring in the disgusting search engine hits) that looks markedly different from the one you started with. Fortunately, we didn't clip the enormous wethers nearly as completely - we spared their face and head. They're for performance, not show, so we could dodge that bullet. This one was the smallest of the goats we did, and to get its belly, I was literally dancing with it, holding it up by it's front legs so my daughter get underneath it.

Some of the goats were spared this indignity. The two runty kids, and one of the does that miscarried will not be going this year. This is the runt of the two runts, and it had no worries about the events of the day. Also unconcerned was our audience. While we had up to four people working goats (myself, daughter, wife, father-in-law), we had just as many at one point who pulled up chairs to watch the proceedings (although one was the intrepid photographer who took these shots, and did some valuable footwork when it was needed). Needless to say, some had more fun that day than others did. This little runt was one of them. "No worries."

I've given up counting eggs until after the first of the New Year. I tried to find an academic calendar so I could start counting in September, but do you suppose anybody has one? I guess people have finally figured out how impractical they are, because no matter what, you always end up throwing 1/3 of it away. Suffice it to say that laying tapered off to nothing until I made the decision to coop up the birds until late afternoon. I did that and mirable dictu! - all of a sudden I was back up to three eggs a day. I do need to go in next week and clean out the buckets that only one hen it bothering to lay in.

We're getting about 12 - 15 eggs a week. I need a couple more layers to keep up with family demand. I also consider it a blessing to give eggs away, and I gave a lot away when I had lots of layers. I'd like to get to that point again, only with perhaps not so many birds about. A scaled down version, perhaps.

I'll be back next week with Fair results. Although technically, since I'm writing this during a break from the Fair, I know what part of the results are already. But we're going to all pretend I don't know anything yet. Right?

PS: Yes, I know this layout is sloppy and unprofessional and even unbecoming an Accidental Farmer. But I'm in a hurry, am going back to the fair in a short while, and haven't the time for formalities. Perhaps I'll fix it later...

PS2: Forgot to mention that it was worked out so the goat that recently delivered but lost her kid could make it to the fair. It has to be kept at least 1 pen away from other (that is, not our) goats. Logistically interesting, but not impossible. More later.

Eggs (week ending 8/12): 16
Eggs (year to date): 57

Friday morning while letting the chickens out, I couldn't find the little black buck that was born on Monday. I went into the milking room and found its mother, and then I found the buck dead on the ground between the milk stand and the wall.

There was no sign it had been attacked or outwardly injured. It was just dead. Perhaps something internal, like a bad heart, killed it. We don't know. Or maybe, like in the old preacher's story, The One That Brings Death came by for one of us, and God let it have the little buck instead.

My daughter was distressed by this, but said, "Farmers have bad years, and this one is mine." In a word, yeah. Two runty does, a bred doe that miscarried. The goat that delivered the little buck was part of the herd she wanted to show in competition, but now due to the government health agencies managing scapies (a mad-cow related disease that goats and sheep can get - pardon the lack of a link, but I couldn't find a good one), she probably won't be able to take her because she kidded less than a month before the fair. She bred this doe specifically so it would have a kid at the fair because the board paid a premium for does with newborn kids on display for visitors - but the rules suddenly, and apparently recently, changed. So not only can she not display this pair because of the buck dying, but the government would have kept them out of the fair anyway.

And now is appears that this same doe is going into heat again - even though it is being milked twice a day. Go figure that one out. Or, my oh my that was a fast recovery. Take your pick.

Aside from being late to work for burying the little buck and consoling wife and daughter on Friday morning, I also spent too much money at the local Tractor Supply - all the food ran out at once - dog, cat, rabbit, chicken (feed and scratch), and goat (goat feed, sweet feed, and oats for the kidded doe).

Killer. Sometimes it's killer.

But it's still worth it, in an odd sort of way. I think I'd get suspicious if things went perfect all the time.

Oh, and a week ago Saturday we went to the State Fair so my daughter could take her knot tying project. It was just like the county fair, only bigger.

Here's a look at what I needed to accomplish this weekend, and what I actually did.

• Oyster shell for the chickens (this means finding the aluminum dog food bowl I was keeping it in and a trip to Tractor Supply).
  
  
• More scratch grain and layer feed for the chickens (as long as I'm going to Tractor Supply). Plus sweet feed for the goats and oats to "clean out" the doe that just delivered. Unless my father-in-law beats me to these latter two.
  
  
• Taking down what is left of the repaired goat gate on the milking room - it was repaired at one time but goat interest tore it down again. Bring in the ready-made too-big gate and make it fit somehow.
  
  
• Mucking out both the goat stable and the milking room. And the concrete part of the barnyard.
  
  
• Pull a scur off of the head of one of the cart goats so he's presentable for the fair.
  
  
• The usual maintenance stuff, like changing the fly paper in the coop.

Eggs (week ending 8/12): 16
Eggs (year to date): 41

The second full week of the hens laying gives a total of 16 eggs, down one from last week. I'd say someone was slacking, but I'm so happy to have laying hens again that I'll gladly overlook this.

This morning while going to let the birds out, I did my usual diversionary tactic of putting a can full of grain into the manger for the goats. On the way out from doing that, I glanced back into the goat stall and saw a small, dark kid staggering around. Great, I thought, the little runt goat is in trouble. Then I saw one of the does licking it and it struck me: that goat is too black to be the runt.

So I went to investigate. The last of the does to be bred delivered her kid this morning. This is a change because every other doe born here (including last year from this same mother) was born in the late afternoon (and were discovered by yours truly just after I got home from work). This one is black with some white highlights on the face, and dark brown and white socks on all four feet. So my daughter now has a newborn kid to take to the fair in a couple of weeks (I guess the fair board pays a bonus for this because city folk love to stop by and go "ooh-ahh" at the babies). This new arrival comes on the very day that two of my daughter's yearlings go off to their new home with a farmer wanting a couple of pet goats (actually, he only wanted one, but goats are best kept in pairs - my daughter, the salesman).

The next projects on the Accidental's list:

• Oyster shell for the chickens (this means finding the aluminum dog food bowl I was keeping it in and a trip to Tractor Supply).
  
  
• More scratch grain and layer feed for the chickens (as long as I'm going to Tractor Supply). Plus sweet feed for the goats and oats to "clean out" the doe that just delivered. Unless my father-in-law beats me to these latter two.
  
  
• Taking down what is left of the repaired goat gate on the milking room - it was repaired at one time but goat interest tore it down again. Bring in the ready-made too-big gate and make it fit somehow.
  
  
• Mucking out both the goat stable and the milking room. And the concrete part of the barnyard.
  
  
• Pull a scur off of the head of one of the cart goats so he's presentable for the fair.
  
  
• The usual maintenance stuff, like changing the fly paper in the coop.

The game I'll be playing this weekend is, "Let's see just how much of this I can actually get done..."