51 Eggs (as of 1/8)
8 Eggs (on 1/1)
59 Eggs This Year

A busy week in eggland, or whatever you want to call it. Saturday we took the three does to a relative's house to get bred. This includes Clover, who, though she spent time with an obliging buck, failed to get pregnant. Clover and Ebbie are with one buck, and Ellie is with the other. Given the propensity of the family line of one of these goats (Ebbie, I think) to have triplets and the others to twin, we could have a total of twelve goats by summer. Hmmm.

While we were at the relative's house, my daughter asked if we could bring one of their kittens home. They have several cats that live in and around their goat barns, and the place was crawling with them when we visited last time. I thought about it in the time since, and thought it might be a good idea to get another cat to become barn cat in training since Cleo is getting up there in years (although, it was later pointed out by my wife, who was less than happy about the idea of having another barn cat, that Cleo was not as old as I thought... oh well).

Long story short, I told my daughter okay if I could name it (I had a name in mind), and I spotted a little grey ball of fluff that I thought would suit, so I strongly suggested that one. So we brought home Biscuit.

(Biscuit is named after this joke: George W. is in Austin, Texas, where he runs into John Kerry. He asks the Senator what he's doing in Texas, and the Senator says, "Well, Theresa and I have decided to move here. What's more, Theresa is in the family way, so I'm proud to say that our child will be a Texan!" To which W replies, "Now hold on there, Senator. Just because an old momma cat gets into the oven to have her kittens, doesn't mean they're biscuits.")

Now Biscuit was born in the stall of the buck that is currently tying to impregnate Ellie. So while that doesn't make him/er (haven't figured that out yet - wife thinks its a she, previous owners think its a he - no matter, Biscuit will never reproduce, pending a future appointment with the vet) a goat, it does mean that it is used to living around goats. In fact, Biscuit rather likes goats, and one of the wethers, Lewis, has taken a fancy to Biscuit, too, and they have been seen nuzzling.

I think this worked out well because:

1) Cleo is afraid of the goats. In fact, she's afraid of the chickens, too. In fact in fact, she's afraid of Biscuit, who is one-third her size. But as I said, Biscuit likes the goats (yesterday I found her sleeping under the hay in the goats' feed pan). It also likes the chickens, and trots out to where they are. The chickens, however, haven't figured out whether they like the kitten or not. They haven't attacker Biscuit yet, but some have flapped at it, and there have been some feints at pecking. The funny sight is watching Biscuit go to hang with the chickens, and the chickens walk away, preferring to avoid him/er. Then Biscuit follows them, and they walk away again... and again... and again...

2) This also means that the cat knows its place. We fed Biscuit right away, but we have had no problem with it coming to the door and scratching to get in like Cleo did in the early days (letting Cleo in was not an option - I'm allergic to cats). Because of his/er birthplace, Biscuit has thought that her/is place is with the goats.

3) Hopefully this also means that Biscuit has had some early mousing experience, too. We've seen Cleo with mice, but she is also a bit of a wanderer - for a couple of years running she would simply vanish over the summer and not return until the end of October. If Biscuit has good mouse-killing skills, it'll be nice to have a cat that wants to stay in the barn, near the goats (and chickens if they work that whole thing out).

My daughter and I also tried to do an autopsy on the eggs that got too cold to hatch during the Broody Wyandotte Experiment. The mistake I made was waiting to do it (hey, I was busy with other things).

For what it's worth, I now know without uncertainty what a rotten egg smells like. I also know what they sound like when you tap their shells, what they look like inside (vomitous green), how hard the rotten membrane is to break, and how truly putrid a rotten egg is when it is opened. Of the eight eggs, I only got three open before my daughter and I were so repulsed that we called off the autopsy. We did find an unfinished chick in one of the three eggs, though. This brings a whole new meaning to things like the expression "he's a bad egg." Never again.

Speaking of eggs, my wife reports that we're getting an increased number of eggs with meat spots in them. She read in that this could be a hereditary problem. We haven't had much of a problem with them before, and I'm wondering if it might be related to my changing their diet for the winter by adding more carbs (in the form of cracked corn)- so they can produce more body heat. I don't know. This is something I'm going to have to research.

Also, the new McMurray Hatchery catalog came over the weekend. Spent time checking out the flock stock. My wife has already put in a request for meat birds. It may be time to start looking at the inventory of scrap lumber and planning that chicken tractor...