Yolks

11:50 pm, 18 February 2010
Temperature: 29 F, clear


Last night it froze, although not too hard. The grass was all over hoarfrost this morning until well past 9 a.m., and the rabbits' water was all mildly iced over.

The sheep have gotten incredibly bold when it comes to the poultry feed. A crook around the neck hauling upwards no longer spooks them; it barely is grounds to break with their feast. Mountain lion imitations do a bit better, but even that wears off quickly.

Experiments have shown that a goose egg is about equal in effect to two jumbo (supermarket grade jumbo) chicken eggs. The yolks are a richer colour, but we suspect this has more to do with the freshness than solely with the species.

The ducks have shown themselves willing to sample old leek greens when given them as waste, along with onion soup that would otherwise have gone to waste. The sheep sampled the soup as well, but did not find it to their tastes; they did not appear to recognize the leek greens as immediately edible. Understandable, perhaps, as there are some wild plants which resemble spring onions and the like which are quite wildly poisonous. They do still quite like their hay, and will line up when we approach with sheaves of hay and don't bother to get out of the way when it's tossed over. This sometimes results in a living hayrick effect, with sheep wearing the hay while other sheep begin to make their meal.

The pregnant ewes still have not popped. A woman at the farm store who saw a picture of our ewes had her eyes bulge in shock. She was very surprised we'd dare leave the farm at all with them in this state; we had to explain about them being self-lambing and having previous experience with motherhood.

A 50 lb bag of rabbit chow goes for less than $20 at the farm store. It's vitamin and mineral-enhanced pellets, which is both good and bad; good in that it lessens the chance that they will need further supplements, but bad in that most pellet food is much dryer than hay and grasses and much more likely to have a constipating effect.

Minnow is getting shaggy; that combined with daytime temperatures getting up into the 50s suggests we'll want to give her a trim sooner rather than later.

We procured various rabbit chew-toys in the hopes of slowing the work the buck and agouti have been making on their enclosures. The buck has done much more than the agouti, and we've spotted him chewing not only on the wood but the wire; bucks do tend to be more 'naughty' than does, but hopefully this will help him be a bit more occupied. Once the last freezes are done, we may allow him to be a bit occupied in ways for which nature has so uniquely qualified him, should our does be willing.

We are still considering our options for guardian animals. However, so far our options are proving less than certain.