10:55 PM, 8 February 2010
Temperature: 41 F, overcast, calm

At least some of Minnow's babies continue to be alive and active. They've already easily doubled in size. The rabbits are taking fairly well to the arks, although it's made handling them (giving them individual handling and attention) a little more difficult. Minnow is having to forego grooming until her babies are weaned; we don't want her attention off of them too much.

Only one duck out of the enclosure this morning. It followed us around during the feeding cycle hopefully and came into the proper enclosure when food was taken into there. Experimentation shows that the ewes in there have become fairly fearless in their efforts to eat the poultry feed when it's set down, but the judicious use of a shepherd's crook to bonk said ewes has proven fairly useful in pushing them off. Unfortunately, the geese are just as wary of the crook, despite it not being aimed at them.

We intend to move the poultry soon into the other sheep enclosure, to see if they'll be willing to eat an ant or possibly a termite mound that's in there. If not, they can de-bug it of any other insects.

Tootles was suitably loving today, as were the rest of the barn cats. Progress is being made. The topic of using gladiator-style throwing nets in future for capture of sheep has been broached.

The farm store closes early even during the week; six pm weekdays, five pm Sundays. We made it just barely under the wire and picked up eight bales of hay - four alfalfa, four orchard grass. This should see us through for a while to come. It's been placed safely under tarp on the pallets as per our standard arrangement.