Outside work has slowed to a crawl this last week. The next round of must-do’s is for the pigs and bees in April, so even with the nice weather, we let the mud convince us to work indoors. Then we had a fine cold and snowy weekend. Once the blizzard had actually started, I remembered that we could have cleaned out the beehives without getting too messed up by the mud. Oh well, with 9 more inches of snow to melt, we can do it this week.
Bjarki had his first puppy kindergarten class yesterday. Apparently a great time was had by all. Lisa has him doing ‘sit’ and ‘down’, at least when there’s a bit of deli ham in the offing. He could care less about official doggie treats. Next shopping run, we’ll try a pack of fish-flavored cat treats. He loves his tuna, so perhaps they’ll work better. This week’s homework is walking on a leash.
We seem to be having chicken issues. Our egg production is barely averaging 2 per day, down from 3 plus when we first got them. The only thing I can think that we might be doing wrong is letting their water freeze too often. The weather won’t be helping a lot this week, so I’ll try to change it more often.
All is well on the sheep front.
The chickens have certanly made the water go away. I’m sure they’re drinking quite a bit of it but they seem to be splashing it on the floor as well, albeit without dumping the bowl. Which is quite impressive: the sheep would dump it or crap in it within minutes. It’s too early to see results in the egg laying.
We always see egg production go down when it gets colder. They put their energy towards keeping warm.