Sorry for the delay. I lost part of an entry of a new blog post due to not saving while taking a break. I was going to apologize and post it while I work on the actual post.
That plan didn't work. I got an error message that I can't post unless I have at least 150 characters. It keeps track of how many more i need, at least. I expect I will fall asleep in the middle of this post, so I need enough to save it.
Ok, now I do this post in earnest, while eating breakfast, of course. I am receiving feline assistance for writing. Unlike Hemingway, my cats have the normal complement of toes. They are extra inspiring to make up for the deficiency in toes.
Once my chickens got good at eating as many earwigs as I dumped into their bed box, I decided to try one with an earwig trap. I picked one of thm up and cuddled her a bit and carried her outside near an earwig trap. She was a little disoriented by the open space all around her, so I waited a few minutes to let her calm down. I took the board off of the trap. Mass exodus of earwigs in all directions. The chick seemed overwhelmed for a moment, but then she recovered and began feasting on earwigs. The chick was not fast enough to catch many, and a lot of earwigs escaped. She also got full quickly and stopped eating.
I decided to try more chicks at a time on the next earwig trap. I carried three of them out to the next earwig trap. The three chicks settled down faster than the single chick had. I opened up the second earwig trap. Mass earwig exodus. Mass chick feast.
Even three chicks at once could not hold enough earwigs to eat all of the earwigs in one trap. We discovered another problem with chicks and earwig traps. That problem was some of my other critters: my dogs and cats. The dogs and cats were not trying to eat the chicks, because we had already gone through a training process to eliminate such ideas with the feed store chickens. It was just that the dogs and cats were used to saying hi to me when they saw me outside for a while, and they didn't see any reason why some chickens would be bothered by that.
Unfortunately, the chicks didn't agree. They were most definitely bothered by having a lot of potentially bird-eating predators all around them. The chicks panicked and ran in all directions. The dogs and cats, thinking this was a delightful new game, gave chase. This did nothing for the chicks peace of mind, or mine. It took a little while to sort out chicks, cats, and dogs.
The aforementioned event convinced me that it was necessary to train my chickens to stay with me, especially in an emergency. It was also clear that my cats and dogs needed to learn to not only avoid killing chickens, but not to upset chickens.
Gotta go do other stuff now. I will write more later.
That plan didn't work. I got an error message that I can't post unless I have at least 150 characters. It keeps track of how many more i need, at least. I expect I will fall asleep in the middle of this post, so I need enough to save it.
Ok, now I do this post in earnest, while eating breakfast, of course. I am receiving feline assistance for writing. Unlike Hemingway, my cats have the normal complement of toes. They are extra inspiring to make up for the deficiency in toes.
Once my chickens got good at eating as many earwigs as I dumped into their bed box, I decided to try one with an earwig trap. I picked one of thm up and cuddled her a bit and carried her outside near an earwig trap. She was a little disoriented by the open space all around her, so I waited a few minutes to let her calm down. I took the board off of the trap. Mass exodus of earwigs in all directions. The chick seemed overwhelmed for a moment, but then she recovered and began feasting on earwigs. The chick was not fast enough to catch many, and a lot of earwigs escaped. She also got full quickly and stopped eating.
I decided to try more chicks at a time on the next earwig trap. I carried three of them out to the next earwig trap. The three chicks settled down faster than the single chick had. I opened up the second earwig trap. Mass earwig exodus. Mass chick feast.
Even three chicks at once could not hold enough earwigs to eat all of the earwigs in one trap. We discovered another problem with chicks and earwig traps. That problem was some of my other critters: my dogs and cats. The dogs and cats were not trying to eat the chicks, because we had already gone through a training process to eliminate such ideas with the feed store chickens. It was just that the dogs and cats were used to saying hi to me when they saw me outside for a while, and they didn't see any reason why some chickens would be bothered by that.
Unfortunately, the chicks didn't agree. They were most definitely bothered by having a lot of potentially bird-eating predators all around them. The chicks panicked and ran in all directions. The dogs and cats, thinking this was a delightful new game, gave chase. This did nothing for the chicks peace of mind, or mine. It took a little while to sort out chicks, cats, and dogs.
The aforementioned event convinced me that it was necessary to train my chickens to stay with me, especially in an emergency. It was also clear that my cats and dogs needed to learn to not only avoid killing chickens, but not to upset chickens.
Gotta go do other stuff now. I will write more later.
