Here's the bear's surprisingly small hole in my once beautiful chicken tractor:

The remaining chicks seem to be fully recovered and thankfully much less blood-splattered. The few with scrapes and punctures aren't letting it interrupt their ravenous morning attack on the feed trough. Perhaps their freakish rate of growth allows them to heal unnaturally fast as well! Luckily they appear to be too stupid to be emotionally scarred from their horribly violent brush with death. Many were already back to eating and drinking before we'd finished separating the dead and wounded last night - strange!

On a much lighter note, the twin kids were cuddled up in mom's feeder this morning. Ever so cute:

And here's the new goat hay feeder I built saturday to reduce feed waste (huge problem around here). It's really fun to have a woodshop, even if it's very ill-equipted, and like any self-respecting farm/ranch we have a huge assortment of building materials, aka junk. I sure miss Olaf's awesome wood and metal shops when I'm swapping our one feeble battery from the screw gun to the chop saw and back again. Or when I'm picking through the screw bucket!

In other exciting news, Peter brought three new rabbits to the ranch yesterday to start up our meat bunny enterprise! He built them really cool hutches (which now seem not very bear-proof), and they're stationed in our garden for weed disposal and cuteness. Currently the buns have a view of this new wacko community gardener who showed up this morning with her latino gardener and is ordering him around to set up her tiny plot - Bizarre!

Massacre at Rock Bottom!

I had just gotten into bed Sunday night and was flopping around trying to get my back in a comfortable position without sending Cecil flying. I heard a few chirps out my open window, but ignored it. Then a few more chirps, but I was just starting to get comfortable, so stayed in my happily horizontal position after a long week. I perked my ears and listened for chickens.

More chirps. I started thinking about bobcats and mountain lions and coyotes, but I had compeleted the chicken tractors just hours before and knew every inch was securely covered in wire. The bottom two feet was bolstered with a second layer of thicker wire because possums and coons are known to reach in and pull legs and heads off birds sleeping within paws' reach. The chicks were so quickly outgrowing their pens in the barn, and the stentch and heat from all of them packed in had become not only uncomfortable but deadly. I'd found three birds, flat as pancakes and featherless from post-mortem trampling, in the last two days and had made completing the chicken tractors my first priority. As often as we mucked, we just couldn't keep up with the pace of the eating and shitting, and the ammonium and bacteria and rising temperatures created a dangerous combination. At long last the pens were ready, and we herded the birds into dog kennels for their trip across the farmyard. They seemed so content in their new home with a fresh breeze ruffling their feathers and sping grass under their feet for the first time. We released the last kennel late in the evening, and I left them with a great feeling of satisfaction, pleased to have vastly improved the quality of life for these strange little meat makers. This picture shows the barn, yuck:

The chirps became a chorus, and something was definitely wrong out there. This wasn't just a bird complaining about getting squished by his siblings. I slid into my crocs on the way out the door and grabbed the coleman lantern. Once I got out the door, I could hear the chickens clearly and there was distinct pain and panic in their screams. I started running and fumbled hastily with the gate, one of many on the ranch that dangles from it's twine-reinforced hinges and has to be wrestled open. As I closed in on the pens my lantern lit a large hole torn through the wire side of one and a ribcage lying in bloody feathers. A brown furry something was moving in the pen, and chicks were flying through the air. My lantern was not putting out much light, and I started hollering "OUT OUT OUT YOU!" but the predator didn't turn or seem to notice me. I got close enough for my light to reach inside the pen, and the brown butt turned around and it was a bear with a chicken in it's mouth and paws sweeping through the hudding, screaming flock. It looked at me for just a moment, then turned away and continued the slaughter.

Bear! I hadn't even considered a bear, and I staggered back, feeling so unprepared in my pajamas and crocs. I ran back for the subaru, and raced to the pasture. The bear kept up his killing despite the headlights pouring in and my hollering, but began trying to escape when I laid on the horn (not in the middle of the steering wheel I finally figured out). He squoze himself through the hole he'd torn and loped off towards the river.

Corpses were stewn in every part of the pen, none eaten but many disemboweled. Every single chick had blood somewhere on it's body, and as I went for gloves Caitlin and Peter came running out to help.We triaged the birds and drowned the fifteen who seemed "unrehabilitatable" (a euphamism they employed at the animal shelters). Forty birds died tonight, and we'll probably loose a few more by morning to overlooked and internal injuries. We still have two hundred and five, and they're back in the barn on fresh straw to wait for their electric poultry netting to reinforce the pens (and I hope I fry that bastard when he comes back for seconds). Three o'clock and I'm off to bed but the adreneline is still fading from seeing that bear and the devastation he wrecked on our helpless chicks. I can't imagine why they kill so ruthlessly and needlessly, but I've read it's not uncommon with other predators like dogs and possums and weasels either. I'll have to talk to the ranchers who told us this pen design was predator proof and see if we left out the razor wire or something! I'll post pics of the surviors and the hole in the pen tomorrow. Phew!

Sampling and Monitoring!

It's so exciting to use my grad school knowledge! Due to immune nonsense (EBV, now CFS?), I've taken a break from dashing around feeding/planting/cleaning/fixing/watering/weeding things to plan some rotational grazing for Noah's Arc. I clipped some forage samples to measure pasture productivity by making a sq ft wire hoop and throwing it around the pasture to attempt randomness (it was also exciting to use geometry!).

These two pictures are taken less than ten meters apart, and the difference in plant height, species composition, and amount of litter really shows what happens in continual grazing...PATCHES! Not great for productivity because the areas with lots of litter get essentially choked out, and the areas getting constantly nibbled kill off the desirable species by preventing them from storing energy in their roots. With some portable electric fencing I can concentrate the animals on a small area for a short time so they graze it evenly and then move on before over stressing the plants. Currently this pasture has only ~1500lbs of forage production per acre, and it should have over 4000! Despite the poor/nonexistant management, the ranch still has excellent production (thanks to subirrigation from the Roaring Fork) compared to the northern front range where 300-700lbs/ac is typical.

Anyway, on a more interesting note, our 2 week old cornish cross chicks are growing like crazy (freakish), and eating and shitting like crazy (nasty), and are crazy lopsided from their bizarrely huge breasts (pretty gross). Pictures to come. Their much cuter heritage breed counterparts are less than half the size at the same age, which is completely amazing. We get to put everybody out on pasture at the end of next week which will smell a lot better, but means I have to order fencing Tomorrow! Which means lots of decisions in a very short time. How much? What kind? eeek!

We had two twins arrive yesterday just before lunch from our Alpine goat Deliah. A boy and a girl, both very healthy and cute. I'll have to take some more pictures now that they're a little more lively and fluffy, because they're unbelievably adorable! I got to towel them off, betadine their umbilical chords, and help them nurse. I guess it's important that they get a good drink in the first hour, but they're so adorably bad at finding a teat and pretty much tried sucking on everything from mom's elbows to eachothers ears. I guided a nose to the right area while holding up a very wobbly chest, and after tasting every other part of Deliah's udder and upper thighs nursing was a success!

Awesome new job, Awesome new location!!!

Cecil was so excited to get out of the car after our five hour drive! He immediately jumped on the bed and took a looong look out the window. He was standing like this for at least five trips up and down the stairs with boxes. Mules and miniture cows must be fascinating enough to break through the sedatives for some intense tail-twitching observation.

Big Willie just before I dusted him for mites...in his pits and buttcrack. also ears, inner thighs, and second chin. Laura-jean's week old piglets :)

Cecil surveying the view from the porch roof outside our window