Homemade Rat Trap Success

I finally caught the rat that was drilling the floor of my barn. Our metal barn is built on a wood foundation resting on gravel. The rats have an easy game drilling tunnels under the wood beams, which weakens the 30 years old beams. They steal food and garden seeds, and leave a mess behind.
I have been trying to catch the rat responsible of this for some time, using a pipe trap. The pipe is resting horizontally on an axis in its center. Once the rat gets in and passed the middle, the pipe then flips vertically, the rats falls in the bottom of the pipe and is stuck there.
That did not work very well. The rat would get in there, fall in the bottom, eat all the bait, and somehow get back out.
Next try was to remove the end cap, and set the pipe above a metal garbage can. Instead of falling in the bottom of the pipe, the rat would fall in the garbage can, and would get stuck there. A foot of water in the garbage can would prevent the rat from jumping back out, and would also drown it, trapped rats can attack you.
After a few unsuccessful trials where the rat would trip the trap and eat the bait, but get away, I finally got him. I actually got two rats at once (which raises the question: how many are they?), and immediately reset the trap. So here is the homemade rat trap:

Click on the image for full size.
The piece of 2x4 at the entrance keeps the pipe in position. Once the rats pass the middle and start moving the pipe, the piece of 2x4 falls, which increases the imbalance and causes the pipe to tilt more rapidly.
Here is the inside of the pipe, with the bait (you can see the piece of 2x4 resting on top of the pipe at the other end):

Here, the pipe after the rats tripped the trap:

Notice how the pipe end just comes to the top of the garbage can, so that the rats slide nicely into it. Here is the graphic result:

I did not expect to catch two at once. They are big with that. Since the pipe does not come back into position after the trap tripped, they were inside the pipe at the same time. Cool catch! So the trap has been reset. I will eventually have a more permanent setup, but for now, this is working well.

Drying off our goat

Poppy, our dairy goat, had kids last year in mi December. It is now time to dry her (actually a few weeks late). I will follow recommendations gleaned from the Fiasco Farm website. First step, starting tonight, no more grain. Tomorrow, I will milk in the morning only, no milking at night. This will go for one to two weeks, depending on how full the udder is after one week of once a day milking. Once the udder is not as full, I will milk her every 2 days for about a week. After that, Poppy should be able to dry off.

This is our first dairy goat, we will see how that goes.
Normally, Poppy should have been bred to have kids again in December, so that she stays dry only 2 months. We decided a freezer full of milk will keep us going for a while, and breeding goats once a year is hard on them, so we will wait until we breed her again, or maybe we will breed her daughter, Achille, next year.

Summer Farm Update

Since the last post in April, quite a few things have happened:

Ziggy the buck has been sold to our neighbor. Difficult decision, but Ziggy was getting stronger. I have no doubt he would have eventually overpowered me, and that would be dangerous. Ziggy, who was lonely with us, has a herd of ~ 10 does for him now.

The geese had two more eggs hatch, those that the hen was brooding. Unfortunately, a predator took care of all the goslings, none survived. Next year, we will have to incubate all the eggs. a goose egg turner will become a useful device.

We got a Black Spanish turkey, she is growing well, and now about twice the size of a hen. She is also pretty agile. I was fixing the barn gutter yesterday, and left the ladder against the barn roof. When I went to milk the goats, I heard the turkey, but couldn't locate her ... until I looked up. She was on the barn roof, apparently scared to move. I had to get her off the roof. I think she got there by climbing the ladder.

Our 2 acre field is now occupied. It is rented by a lady that takes care of miniature donkeys. They are mostly rescued animals, so we rent the pasture for a low rental price. The donkeys are fun, and they take care of the grass. Cutting the grass will also remove rodent habitat. So I think it is a good arrangement. We have 10 miniature donkeys, all females, in our back pasture. I can now proudly state that I am no longer the ass of the farm!

I am cutting all the unused wood I have around, for winter firewood. There is a lot of wood from the old deck that has stayed outside last winter. It is now dried, so it is a good time to gather it.

I have been looking at upgrading our 35 years old electric furnace. I can't convince myself to replace it though, because it performs well, and it is similar to the backup system of a modern heat pump. Part of the cost of buying a new heat pump would be to buy something I already have. I'd rather add to the current system. I have been looking at solar hydronic. The most cost efficient upgrade at this time would be to install a solar hot water system for this winter, and think of upgrading the heat source next year. Weather stripping and some simple zoning would also help.

Our roof needs to be replaced. We are getting ready to have a metal roof installed.

The rainwater tanks are connected to the barn roof. They are both almost full. I need to connect them to the outdoor faucets.

I have located where our bat colony (~12 individuals) enters the house: they roost in the attic, and the entry point is a gap between the roof and the masonry chimney. This winter, I will build the best bat house I can build, and mount it on the chimney, then I will conceal the entry point. When the bats will come back from winter migration, I hope they will move to the bat house. I will also build several barn owl nest boxes, as well as Kestrel nest boxes.

I have two beehives, one survivor from our terrible summer, and a new colony. No harvest this year.

Mid-October is when our milking goat needs to go dry. Until then, we are still enjoying goat milk, yoghurts and goat cheese. The freezer is full of goat milk. The cat and the dog enjoy a sip of goat milk every morning and every night.

We have one room available for rent. Monthly rental is $400, and can be paid with work, partly or entirely, if work is worth. I don't have much skills in small scale farming, so if you are bringing in those skills, that would be worth something to me! The room comes with a parking spot, plus common facilities: bathtroom, laundry room, kitchen, living room with wood stove, deck, small backyard, all shared with only one other tenant. The rented area is 1400sqft. We can also add a barn stall, a small 1/5th acre paddock and parking spaces to the rent, for a fee.

Imprinting

Imprinting is a process that helps ducks and geese identify themselves. They will consider the first being they see as their mother, then the others as their siblings. If they are hatched from an incubator, and handled by humans, they will think they are humans, and will not mate with other geese. They will also seek human company.
IMPRINTING
To avoid this, I limited eye contact with the gosling, who is still in the brooder, on his third day now.
This morning while I was feeding the goats, the mother hen got out of the nest. I took advantage of this to take one of the eggs from the incubator and set it into the nest. There are now 5 eggs in the nest, and three in the incubator. I also ran a power cord from the barn to the geese shed. The next time the hen gets out, I will try to set a second brooder there, then I will set the gosling in there for a day or two, so that the hen will get used to his chirping. After that, I can try to set him in the nest, in hope she will recognize him.
The next weeks should be interesting as far as the geese.

First Gosling

Our first live gosling hatched today. Sadly, a second gosling died at hatching. Out of the 5 first eggs, two eggs were bad, two were dead at hatching, and one only survived. So far the gosling is still alive tonight, has dried up, and it now eating and drinking.
I understand better why the two others died. I had to help this gosling to hatch, and realize that the egg shell is way too dry. The incubator doesn't have enough moisture in it. I also need to get a goose egg turner, which will make the incubation process a lot easier.

Here is a pic of our gosling, about 12 hours after hatching:


The next hatch is due 5 to 6 days from now.

Ziggy the Buck

Ziggy our buck has a whole 2 acre pasture for himself. The problem is that he is lonely. We have to separate him from the milking doe, to avoid tainting her milk, and the kids are too young, he could hurt them. So he is lonely and complaining every time he sees someone.
Yesterday, I spotted a plastic bag on the pasture, which doesn't look very good, so I went in, first time in at least two weeks. Ziggy is fed through the fence, so he has minimum interaction with anyone.
He let me him, no problem, and then I walked to where the plastic bag was, always keeping an eye on Ziggy, because he has challenged me a few times. Nothing really bad, I just walked away to leave him alone those few times. But yesterday was different, as soon as I tried to walk back, he would stand in front of me, show me he wanted to play or fight, although I don't think he meant any ill. Foam was coming out of his mouth, and he was jumping and turning around in front of me, head up, then head down, showing his horns. I was quite scared at that point. He would not let me pass him.
The only thing I thought of doing, although I knew it was not good as far as training (it would reinforce his bad behavior) was to grab his horns and twist his neck to drive us next to the gate, then push him to the fence to shock him, and hope that would startle him enough to give me time to open the gate and leave. It took me a good 10 minutes to push him back the 100FT or so to the fence. He resisted to touch the fence, but eventually touch it good two times, and run away 10 feet from me. I ran and jumped the gate (not part of the initial plan...). I looked back, he looked disappointed that the game was over, which is why I think now he did not mean any ill, although yesterday, I was not sure at all of his intents.
I was exhausted, and promised myself to buy a cow prod and shock him good to show him who is the boss. These were my thoughts coming back to the house.

After a day reflecting, I am trying to come up with the best response. He is a beautiful buck, and I want to keep him, but not with this behavior, at least not with humans. So here is the plan:

1. Get a cattle prod. I hope to never use it, but I will if I have to (risk of injury for example). The prod will be locked so that nobody will play with it (I have seen kids playing with forcing their dog to walk through their invisible fence just because it was fun to shock the dog...).
2. Always have the prod on me, visible to Ziggy, when I have to deal with him. Put red tape on it or whatever will make it noticeable. Use deterrence as much as possible, rather than punishment.
3. Never go into the buck pen alone. This is the last time I deal with Ziggy on my own.
4. Use a spray bottle against Ziggy, and see if that works. If it does, this will be the main training tool. If not, unfortunately, the prod will, and the training won't be good. Here is an example of how well that simple trick can work: BackYardHerds post.
5. Train Ziggy to make him understand humans are not challengers to his dominance. Does anyone know how to do that?
6. Give him a companion. That will be our wether kid, he is 4 months old only, and still too young, he could get hurt. A companion will help Ziggy stay a social buck.
7. Interact with Ziggy as often as his behavior allows. Probably leave him alone with the wether during rut though...

If you have experience to share, please leave a comment. Thanks for visiting the blog.
Andre.

First Goose Egg

Yesterday, the geese took over the goat shed. The goose hen choose a spot to nest, her companion standing next to her, while the lone male was guarding the goat shed. The pic below shows the loan male guarding.


Needless to say, they were fiercely defending the area. I brought them some feed, and got attacked. So I suspected the hen had laid already, and hoped that she would brood her eggs.
This morning, I noticed the three geese were out, and staid out for a while. The nest appeared abandoned, so I went in there, and found three eggs, one been a chicken egg, one a broken goose, and the third one an apparently good goose egg. Here is a pic, the obscurity of the goat shed forced long exposure, which made the pic a little blurry. The broken egg was removed before the pic was taken.

Because the nest is abandoned, we setup our incubator. Hopefully the goose egg will fit inside the egg turner.

On the first pic above, the new Kestrel nest box is also visible.