Pregnant Ewes

10:59 PM Monday, 15 February 2010
Temperature: 47 F, overcast

The temperature last night got down to freezing. No harm done however, and Minnow's kits all made it through just fine. They're getting quite big; eyes still haven't opened yet. We must have found them within a couple of days of their birth.

Came home from doing errands to find a pregnant ewe out of their enclosure. We rounded it up and got her back in; gave her and the younger ewes in the other enclosure sheep mineral in the hopes that this will give her what is making her jump the fence and give the other ewes what makes them so desirous of the poultry feed.

The barn cats are doing a bit better; glad to see us as always. Tootles is displaying more propensity towards affection again, which is a good sign.

The rabbits have adapted quickly to the grazing arks, although we are discussing a colony arrangement for the females. We have not yet decided on if we will continue to raise rabbits in the long run. They are much more time-consuming than the other livestock; their output makes good compost, but the sheep are much better for that as they won't pass seeds in their feces which will then sprout. The rabbits also have much greater waste to use ratio on their feed; where the sheep eat most of whatever hay we give them, the rabbits do not. While they're better about not wasting food in pellet form, the pellet form is substantially more expensive than is hay, and there still is some wasted (rabbits spill food around and are generally very poor housekeepers).

Arguments in their favour do exist, but to date the predominant argument in their favour is that rabbit meat tends to be at best, about $7.00 per pound. Philosophically speaking, we don't mind taking a chance on the rabbits to see if it's worthwhile. Everything is an experiment. But it is due to this experimental nature that to date our rabbits (through 'surprise' method) number eight instead of an army.

A potential method of feeding them with less waste would be if we get some sort of tool which will grind the hay down into finger components. We would then be able to give them smaller amounts (and store it more sensibly). A manger effect might also be possible but there would still be more wasted with a manger than by grinding it down. Any method used will have some drawbacks, so ultimately we need to look into the one which saves us first the most time and second the most money. On a farm, time always ends up being money; anyone who thinks that farm life is slow and laid back is definitely looking at it from the city.

Fourteen holes have been dug so far for the trees; we're trying to break sod for as many of them as possible in advance of our getting them in hand. The mattock is a very good tool for that. We'll be setting up the seedlings soon.

An evaluation of the seeds shipped to us turned up an entire seed collection for the garden plus one additional packet had not been shipped although were listed on the invoice. We contacted the company, however, and they've promised to ship them to us tomorrow, the post office having been closed today for Presidents' Day.