The Old Folks Home

[microchick]

Here's Turtle Dove sharing my desk with me.
View attachment 2754921
So nice of her to visit and check out Baby Jay's food.
And I thought I would add a shot of the mouse trap I got at TSC. I put Remik inside and have caught well over a dozen mice so far. Field mice abound here. View attachment 2754920
At least I don't have to worry about the kids getting to the poison and it's a one way trap, in but not out. One morning I found a female that had delivered 4 babies inside the trap, and another 3 mice to boot.

So do you have to discard them yourself or does the Ramik pretty well do the job for you?

 

[microchick]

Micro how's my boy Varn doing?

Did you get this picture? I pm'ed it to you some time ago.

I think in May. As you can see, he is fat and sassy, literally. Plus quite the character. He reminds me a lot of the Cattle Dog we lost two years ago, Dingo only with more attitude. He has turned into a little chub and needs to be on a diet.

Did you hear that we lost Sidney in May to Pythiosis? Quite sudden-sick for 8 days. She was terminal and we let her soul fly free. Couldn't let her suffer any longer and there was no survival for what was wrong with her.

We lived in fear of the others getting the same infestation and losing them also but so far so good. We think she caught it from the 40 foot little pond in our back yard which they all play and drank out of. We filled it in this spring. I am still grieving for her but at least the others are still healthy....and ornery.

 

[CSolis]

So do you have to discard them yourself or does the Ramik pretty well do the job for you?

I take the trap and wait until they're dead then dump it out in the burn pile. Kids never go near the burn pile. But it's easy to open the lid and dump it out without touching anything.
I also have some plastic coffee cans with an empty tuna fish can inside where I stick more Remik. I cut a small hole in the lid and the mice go in and rob the can and take it back to the burrows or tunnels. I'm going to keep it up until the entire tribe is wiped out.

 

[pertnear09]

Gee, I almost forgot I belong on the Old Folks Home - turned 74 Wednesday

Happy birthday, DD.

 

[bruceha2000]

I still cannot get people from other parts of the country to believe that we get nearly no rain...like .10 inches of rain for 6 months of the year.

And yet people choose to live there!

So far, so good on the chick integration today. They're in the growout pen in the coop.

I just went out to check on them. They're peep-peeping. The next step will be how the bigs react when they go in to roost tonight.

We had a weird one tonight. Nuit has had the littles (4 week on Monday) up on the roost since mid this past week. Tonight when I went to lock up she and they all flew down from the roost. What the heck! They all came out of the coop, had a dickens of a time keeping all the other adults in there. The littles went in the brooder door and snacked some grower then they and Nuit went for a drink.

Seemed like Nuit couldn't decide if she wanted to go back in the coop or the brooder so I removed the cardboard "adult excluder" and she went in. The babies followed (eventually) but 2 of them came out the chick door into the coop. Of course the twits can NEVER find their way back in there when they come out. And if they go in that door they can't find it to exit!

In any case those 2 went up to the roost. The white one went to the right where Nuit has had them in the past and got pecked by Penelope. So she went to the other side of the coop and decided to jump on the back of her "mom". Except that Mellori (she, like Nuit, is a Black Australorp) wasn't amused at all. I ended up catching the 2 wayward chicks (who ran in fear of course), stuffed them in the chick door and closed it.

I turn 68 a week from tomorrow don't feel a day over......74?

Given all your health issues, it would be amazing if you didn't feel a day over 84!

 

[microchick]

I'm going to have to look about getting one of those, @CSolis.

My coop is an old shed that was a work shop years ago so it has double walls. In other words a mouse motel. Mice are a constant problem and I have to be diligent.

I have Tom Cat bait boxes that I put out overnight and some home made bait boxes. If I get a rat burrow going I use the Ramik bait, pock some down a tunnel then cover the tunnel entrance with some chicken wire panels that I keep on hand so the birds can't get to it. To make sure I put a brick, or concrete block over the hole.

Usually takes two or three baitings to get rid of the vermin. I just wait for that unmistakable odor of success to waft up through the ground.

 

[microchick]

@bruceha2000, believe me, there are days........

 

[microchick]

There's a storm heading our way so I best be getting off the computer. Hope it isn't a repeat of last night.

Have a good night, old folk.

 

[bruceha2000]

Usually takes two or three baitings to get rid of the vermin.

Careful with that. I would guess one might do it. I thought the Ramik was disappearing because the rats ate all of it. Nope, after the rats were long gone I found some stashed nowhere near where I placed it for them down in the lower part of the barn.

I can't be sure but I suspect a couple of the juvenile skunks found a cache. Can't think of any other reason they would be dead side by side in the drive bay without a mark on them. They had been happily romping in the grass in front of the barn, between the barns and behind the barns for at least a week.I hadn't even seen the parent until that same morning when it was in the Havahart I set out for the young ones.

 

[CSolis]

Careful with that. I would guess one might do it. I thought the Ramik was disappearing because the rats ate all of it. Nope, after the rats were long gone I found some stashed nowhere near where I placed it for them down in the lower part of the barn.

I can't be sure but I suspect a couple of the juvenile skunks found a cache. Can't think of any other reason they would be dead side by side in the drive bay without a mark on them. They had been happily romping in the grass in front of the barn, between the barns and behind the barns for at least a week.I hadn't even seen the parent until that same morning when it was in the Havahart I set out for the young ones.

Ya think the mice will stash it in their burrows for winter feed? I at least hope they will. I checked the shed and didn't find any stashed in there.