The female of the two cots that hatched on October 8 laid her first egg today. This was one day short of 10 weeks, which is right on schedule. This egg is smaller than usual, but that is how it goes with young layers. She’ll produce bigger eggs after she has had some practice. Quail […]
After Church, there was a moose in the garden near the raspberry arbors, eating some of the willow tree. This one was not very big. I suspect this is its first winter on its own. In the winter, moose come into town from the surrounding areas to look for food. We often find moose tracks
First Moose of the Winter Read More »
Between yesterday and last night we received over a foot of snow. The trash cans in the picture already had snow on them, so the height of the piles is more than a foot. Fortunately, this snow was fine-grained and not difficult to shovel. After I cleared the necessary paths, I got out the snow
This was final exam week at UAF. My partners and I had to finish our project and give our final presentation about it. The device sits on a plywood box which holds the Raspberry Pi and the breadboard that contains the weighing circuit and RFID circuit. The keyboard, monitor, and mouse would be connected to
Currently, we do not produce produce for sale, but we have dreams of doing so. To that end, I signed up to take the class. In Alaska, the Office of the State Veterinarian and the Department of Environmental Conservation work with the Food and Drug Administration to manage the sale of food products. We
Produce Safety Class Read More »
Two of the youngest quail got out of their pen. So, it was time to remove the brooder. While they were still feathering out, I had the infrared border in their pen to keep them from getting too cold. They have been fully-feathered for some time, now, but they like having cover and removing
We recently had a warm spell and, now, the floor of the coop is in need of fresh shavings. Are those things merely consecutive, or is there some causality? Hmm. If it has been cold outside and then warms up, soon after, the coop floor gets squishy. I use a hoe to pull the wettest
When I went to do chores, I noticed that some snow had collected at the intake end of the air pipe. If snow gets pulled into the air pipe, it will melt when it gets to the warmer part and water could collect. If it were only a little snow, it wouldn’t matter because the
Biomeiler Air Intake Read More »
One of the Pearl White Leghorn hens died. A quick examination revealed an egg stuck in her vent. For lack of any other evidence, I have ruled the cause of death to be “complications from becoming egg-bound.” That hen had particularly messy feathers on her backside for a couple of weeks before she died.
After I added the last wood shavings to the biomeiler, I began the activation process. According to the thermocouples, the pile has been inactive since it was assembled. No part of the pile measures hotter than 32 F. That was partly strategic. I wanted to begin with a non-composting pile so I can rule out
Biomeiler Activation Underway Read More »