Bruce's Journal

You need a broody buster cage. I made mine out of scrap wood and 1/2" hardware cloth. All sides, top and bottom are hardware cloth. You need to elevate it and do not put any bedding material in. Mine is about 3' off the ground on a stand I made from scrap 2x4s. The concept is that you need to make it so they can't stay hot underneath. I've had several hens that would try to hatch shavings several times a year each. If you don't break them, they'll keep going back to their nest pretty much forever as far as I can tell.

Sorry to hear your Columbian Wyandotte is a broody. I try to not order broody breeds and Meyer says they are "infrequently" broody.

I forgot to mention that we saw the little turtle, deemed TINY TURTLE!! by DD1, in the pond the other day. It just happened to be really near the edge where we were looking for red salamanders, or maybe the big turtle. It doesn't look like it has grown much over the winter. But I suppose they must do some sort of hibernation so wouldn't be growing.

They will burrow in mud and being cold blooded they grow slower and can survive by slowing down their metabolism....that is why they bask in the sun...to digest and get warm oxygenated blood to the muscle to "run/swim" for their life at a moments notice....

Now we'll have to find it in the fall and see how much it has grown.

Going to the Farmer's Market tomorrow and if the bait store has any fathead minnows and/or golden shiners I'm going to pick some up for the pond.

Got some fathead minnows and shiners for the pond today. They mostly headed for deep water as they were poured out of the cooler. I have no idea how they knew where the deeper water was. Don't know when we will see them again.


Nearby frog


Angel and her babies in the barn alley. I wonder when she'll take them outside. Pretty windy today, probably best to stay inside.

Saw some of the minnows in the pond. I know it isn't a great picture, best I can do.


Angel took the kids out of the barn today so they have scratched in dirt (rather than old coop bedding), didn't have my camera with me.

The 4 remaining (of 7) 2015 girls.
No separate picture of Angel (White Rock) without the "kids". 2 of the chicks are WR's.


Penelope - EE


Mellori - Black Australorp


Nuit - Black Australorp


And because he was there when I had the camera out. The pair are still really nervous when I'm around which I don't really understand. They are either the same birds as last year or one of them is a bird that fledged out of the nest in the barn. Really unlikely some random barn swallows would just happen to shoe up and build a nest in the exact same place. As such, I'd think they would have figured out by now that I mean them no harm. But they still fly off the nest when I come in and if I'm there when they fly in they get all whacked out.

We saw the big snapping turtle today. I was doing evening animal chores, the alpacas were outside the north door looking at something, kind of nervous but not alerting. I kept looking in the distance and as usual couldn't see anything. Then I heard some noise near the fence and Laddie looked that direction. Looked to me like the turtle was trying to get through the 2x4 welded wire, having no luck. It was partially buried under the tall grass I had taken down with the string trimmer yesterday. I went to get DD1 since she's never seen it and REALLY wanted to but she and DW had gone to feed an ancient horse and a couple of cats. Rebekah is doing this Wed-Sunday, morning and evening all summer.

I got DD2 and we took a couple of pictures. Of course I STILL can't figure out how to transfer them from the phone to my computer so I'll add them from the phone after I post this. After I finished chores DD1 & DW happened to be just arriving home so we went to look at the turtle. It wasn't there but DD1 spotted it about 30' down the fence line so we went down to it. We watched as it buried itself in the massive quantity of grass, it was at least 5' tall when I whacked it. I don't know what it was doing that for but I sure hope it isn't still there the next time I go to whack (long before it is 5' again!) the grass, sure wouldn't want to step on it.

I also saw a shiner in the pond. I hope the rest of the fish are still alive and just hanging out in the deeper part. Haven't seen any evidence of them dying. Adam and Eve are still in the bucket in the house, guess it is time to set them free and hope for the best.

I'm glad that DD1 and DW got to see the turtle.

Mmm, turtle soup!