Wow, it's been a busy month!
We butchered our last batch of meat chickens. Unfortunately I made a big error - I transported and stored the chickens in heavy cardboard boxes I got from work. I had punched 1" holes in them, but it was apparently insufficient - we lost about 1/3 of the birds we brought in. It was a devistating loss to what would have been one of our best runs. Well, live and learn - I think our next step is to invest in some cheap plastic storage bins. I used some of those for the ducks (and previously for chickens, and they seem to work well. I used a hole saw to cut eight 2" holes around the top edge, and could fit about 4 or 5 chickens in each 20 gallon tub. They're not space-efficient because they're so tall, but that could probably work for helping with airflow. They also don't stack tight enough for carrying on the trailer, so it's the back of the truck for now. I think maybe if I build flat tables for them with bars for holding the base steady, they might work better that way, but for now the truck has enough space for 18 bins, stacked two-high.
The turkey poults are growing like mad. We haven't lost any more since we lost the first 4 of our 7. The two older ones are big, almost the size of the grown meat chickens. The younger one has gone through a growth spurt and is quickly catching up with his older roommates. They're very personable birds - of any so far, I think they're the most likely I'll feel bad about butchering. They make a pe-pe-pee-peep sound when they're little, and we took to making that sound back at them, since they seemed to view it as communication. Possibly as a result of that, they're very interested in us and not afraid. When I come up to the side of their pen, they walk up to take a better look at us, and make little young-poult gobbles.
We are also current fostering a mama cat (named Juno) and her kittens for the local Humane Society. We got her about 4 weeks ago when she was fat with her babies. Right after we got her, Juno was scared by a dog and went nuts on my hand, but otherwise she's been a loving affectionate cat to us. The other cats, however, Juno picks fights with - even when not near the kittens. The dogs she generally tolerates, unless they wander close to where the kittens are hidden. The dogs never really had to deal with aggressive cats them, so they get confused when Juno goes into defensive-mama mode. I think they're most freaked out about how such a small thing can produce such rage. The kittens are finally big enough that Juno is taking them out for walks, however. They're very cute and in that clumsy new kitten stage. We're starting to handle them to get them used to human contact. Most of them seem ok, except for the one kitten who looks like Juno (a tiger calico). I was holding her last night and thought she was having trouble breathing and sneezing - after a minute I realized that she was notstop hissing at me, and occasionally spitting. I got her to calm down a little and she went down to occasionally hissing and the most ferocious growl a 4-ounce cat can produce. I'm a little worried she's hurt somewhere, but we'll see what happens as we start handling the kittens more. Juno's an ok mom, but she doesn't care much when we take the kittens - she's mostly interested in getting attention from us, and the kittens get forgotten.
The garden I planted this year is going so-so. We had some early hot weather while I was off work late April, so I was optimistic and planted a lot of seeds and a few greenhouse plants. We then got a few weeks of frosts at night, so much of the plants died and nothing seemed to sprout. The pepper plants I had picked up from a greenhouse seemed ok, however. Then I did a second planting in late May, since other tips I got said after Memorial day I should be ok. We got a second set of frosty nights, and then even the plants that had made the first frost died off. At that point I kind of gave up on the garden, and weeds started coming up. It was very heavily covered with chicken manure, so the weeds really liked it.
Then I looked at it again a few weeks back, and noticed that some plants were coming up! Sugar snap peas and bibb lettuce were part of my first planting, and they were sprouting in their rows. I had lost most of my squashes, but it seems that the melons I planted were doing ok, and one zucchini plant made it. Two of my red cabbages seem to have pulled through also. I went back and heavily weeded around the plants that were coming up, although much of the other areas remain overgrown with weeds. The lettuce has gone amazingly well. Only about 3/4 of the rows I planted came up, but that's still far more lettuce than we can eat on our own, and my wife really likes her salads. The sugar snap peas are growing up a simple EMT trellis I made for them, and last week they rewarded us with some large, juicy pods full of peas. There's even a small zucchini growing - although the melons are still bare and the cabbages have yet to ball up and show signs of insect invaders. I have a plan for next year, but having a one-year cycle time for my designs means that issues I find take a long time to fix.
