Farm Fresh BlogSaturday, January 26 2019
At some time or another most adults have stared in confusion at a child's homework. For every generation there is now a new and improved method for extracting the same answer you got when you were a kid. (And show your work, please.) Although in the classroom we must all agree to accept that there is more than one way to skin a cat, on a farm, math always stays the same. For example, 1 Anatolian + 1 Old Pyrenees cross = 2 Livestock Guardian Dogs or stack it
+ = 2 Livestock Guardian Dogs Here are other equations:
+ = 2 Livestock Guardian Dogs 1 Anatolian + 1 Anatolian = 0 Livestock Guardian Dogs
+ = Zero Livestock Guardian Dogs
10 chickens + 1 raccoon = 9 chickens This leads to another equation: 9 chickens + 1 raccoon + 1 Anatolian = 9 chickens + 1 Anatolian + 1 dead raccoon therefore, 1 dead chicken = 1 dead raccoon Are you beginning to see how this works? Let's try another one.
Our next equation is: 10 chickens + 2 guineas + 1 Anatolian + 1 fox = 10 chickens + 2 guineas + 1 Anatolian + 1 dead fox thus, 1 dead guinea = 1 dead fox
A farmer has 20 chickens, 2 guineas and 7 dogs. If that farmer feeds and releases 17 chickens and 2 guineas to free range in the barnyard, and then takes 7 dogs for a walk, how many birds will the farmer have when she returns from a 20 minute walk? (The answer is actually in the form of a fraction.) The farmer will have 2 guineas and 16.2 chickens. A wing. (We will estimate that a wing is .2 percent of a chicken.)
17 chickens + 2 guineas = 19 loose birds subtract 7 dogs that leaves ....... 19 loose birds + BoogeyBeast X This results in 18 loose birds and a fraction of the 19th bird What is missing from this equation? Yes, the rest of the chicken. Who can project the next equation? Correct. The next equation is set up as follows: 18 loose birds + 1 Anatolian + 2 Pyrenees + BoogeyBeast X = ? Undoubtedly this will be the result
It is quite clear from our mathmatics equations that at no point can free range poultry be without Livestock Guardian Dogs for even the shortest amount of time. To hijack the quote by R.J. Childerhose, "There are old Boogey Beasts and there are bold Boogey Beasts. There are no old bold Boogey Beasts." Saturday, January 12 2019
Rubber boots aren't made for running, but I still managed to kick him in the ass like a soccer ball. Roosters. I hate Then my hens started free ranging. They soon left the barnyard area for excursions into the Land Of The Boogey Beast. Because I'd been wanting to add Blue-Laced Wyandottes, this was the perfect excuse. I They had proven resistant to Marek's disease thus it was really important to me to save those genes. When the first blue We marked and incubated the fertilized eggs last spring. None of Egger's eggs hatched. Four of Russell's eggs hatched. We Three of the four hatched eggs turned out to be roosters. The single hen looks exactly like my favorite hen who died of heat She is an angel. Her brothers are assholes. Well, not really. One The other brothers are exquiste. They were exactly what I wanted to reproduce. They were so beautiful I even forgave them Let's do some math. I started out with 7 Golden-Laced Wyandotte hens. I lost one to a predator when she left the barnyard and another got sick and died a few weeks ago. Let's ommit all the Marek's blue hens since they died. I can count the 2 new blue hens, and the one blue hen that I hatched. That's 8 hens. That's really all the chickens I wanted or needed, but then my mom ended up giving My chickens do not stay together. They split themselves into four different flocks, each with its own coop and its own yard which opens into the main barnyard which they all share. (Think of it as apartment complexes which open into the same city.)
Egger Allan Poe has 2 Blue hens, and 5 Sussex hens. Russell Crowe has 5 Golden Girls. Three Sussex hens have opted to roost in a coop Russell Crowe and Egger Allan Poe are excellent roosters. They take good care of their tiny flocks, but are being run Their own roosters cannot fight off two thugs because while the rightful husband is busy chasing one 1) This is NOT the natural order of things because in nature that many birds are not forced by food, fencing, and housing 2) I am the God governing this little planet that is my barnyard and if I say the behavior pisses me off, then God has 3) The first little snot who attacks me will be beaten to death with a t-post. He might have Marek's resistant genes but And so this morning the sun rose on a new chicken yard - Alcatraz. It's a 12 x 12 chain-link cell with a dog house in it. If a Thursday, January 10 2019
Look at this face. Part Snidley Whiplash, part Eddie Haskell, this dog is Billy Bob Thornton in "Bad Santa." An old geezer now, Cowboy is Each year we tell ourselves that this may be his last winter. Son jokes that we've said that for five years now and the His longstanding feud with Ranger, the Blue Heeler, seems to have settled into "Grumpy Old Men" status. One is Jack Time has not been kind to him. Years of pulling on the bars of kennels have broken his canine teeth. He had three more Wednesday, January 09 2019
I measure the success of the Livestock Guardian Dogs not by the body count of dead predators, but by the body count of live Most of the year we live in relative solitude, but Deer Season in Texas is by all measure, the shotgun start of weekends This past weekend was the last weekend of Buck Season and so hunters were down trying to get their last shot at a big Briar and Bramble are normally loose all day long. In the evening Bramble is locked in the barn with the sheep. Jury Dogs MUST be loose in the barnyard at all times. It's easy to get complacent. Easy to assume. Surely the Boogey Beast We have 12 dogs. Twelve. Two more than ten. Except at night, half of those dogs are either running loose or locked in We decided to go out for a pizza. For two days we'd had rain and sleet, thus the outside kennels were a muddy mess. All We returned home exactly 1 1/2 hours later and as is my habit, I immediately went to lock coops and move Livestock There are several guarantees in this world - death, taxes, and the return of the Boogey Beast. It is likely this The life span of a chicken is from birth until its first encounter with a raccoon. The life span of a raccoon is from birth until its first encounter with a Big White Dawg. And there you have it. An hour and a half. That's the measure of your security system. It's easy to believe the dogs aren't worth the trouble when they're working and your nightly numbers add up, but how long can you go without the dogs? I cannot go even an hour and a half. |