The journey into the abyss of no return

[farmerjan]

Yep, cow crap is "crappy"..... feel for you trying to get lights fixed like that with them still in there... At least empty you could take a hose and get the bulk of the wet stuff washed off....

So glad to hear that you can get all your own water there from your own property and not have to haul it from town or where ever you were getting it before. I am assuming you have a cistern in the root cellar so it will not freeze during your terrible cold in the winter time... and will use up the totes for the ducks before it freezes so as to not bust the totes. They do degrade in the sun and will get brittle and break or crack and split... Have had several over the years here that wind up splitting...

We are getting desperately needed rain... had a 1/2 inch in gauge earlier and still raining... it did not let up this evening early enough to see much, so will go to the calf barn in the morning...

 

[Mini Horses]

I rarely get deep freeze here but, cold enough!! My lines in barn have heat tapes, covered with pipe insulation and normally not an issue. But we leave water dripping at DD house in bad cold. She's only one that needs the water to travel....otherwise, I'd cut it off at house to barn. But that then feeds to all lower fields & her house, underground.

 

[Weldman]

Going to take a few "miles"of Cat 6 cable and a lot trenches about a week or two of work, but schit is getting real here on securing the homestead. This isn't your Lorex system you find at local box store or consumer online site, only pros go here.

 

[Baymule]

I was thinking that’s so cool until I saw the price. Those idiot yay-hoos have no idea who they are messing with.

 

[Mini Horses]

Wow ... I didn't look at price.

 

[Weldman]

Going to run some at the quarry though will have a WiFi antenna to bounce signal back, might have to do 2 systems such as a repeater due to line of sight over a mile might be obstructed. Basically 4 of these antenna's with what I would call a sub station that would take signal from quarry, receive it half way to a router that can offset it in any direction up to 150 feet and send it back to the house.
These antennas can send a signal up to 3 miles and some can send further. Next time driving past a cell phone tower and you see those round white dishes or ones that look like this one, that's what they are doing is sending signal to each other talking encrypted of course.
Don't think anyone out here has the brains to attempt to sidejack the signal to jam it, so we are good there.

Tired of trying to figure out why there is still no duck eggs despite Pooch tied up and the court order hasn't been put out yet. Tired of finding random tire tracks and if they get get enough liquid courage they do stupid schit.

With this system I can be anywhere and see what is going on at home.

 

[farmerjan]

I admire the tenacity for a system that sophisticated... AND... this is also a way to get concrete evidence if they start to do more stupid stuff...
One question... do you have up NO TRESPASSING signs? Only reason I ask is that here you have to have the signs to be able to LEGALLY have people charged with trespassing.... most everyone has them on their fences near gateways and such on their pastures... it them covers them to be able to legally have people charged..... You know so much about all those things, but something as simple as that might have slid under your radar.

How old are the ducks? Didn't you say they were laying last winter? After they get to be 1 1/2 or 2, they will slack off laying alot more... Plus, they are "wired" to lay in the spring, and after laying all year they just might be "shutting down" for the cold. AND have they molted all their feathers yet?
Most pullets (chickens) will come into production at about 20-24 weeks... so spring born will lay through the winter, once they hit that 6 month of age,...as long as they get sufficient light... and will lay for about a year then molt. In the more prolific egg producing breeds, they will lay decent but not near as much the 2nd year... after that egg production will drop significantly. One reason why so many egg producing farms will change out and bring new ready to lay pullets in every year or no later than every other year. It does not pay a poultry producer to keep them past the 2nd year... they are eating feed but they will produce less than half and it is not economically practical.
On top of that your ducks have been traumatized... they may not come back into production.

 

[Weldman]

I admire the tenacity for a system that sophisticated... AND... this is also a way to get concrete evidence if they start to do more stupid stuff...
One question... do you have up NO TRESPASSING signs? Only reason I ask is that here you have to have the signs to be able to LEGALLY have people charged with trespassing.... most everyone has them on their fences near gateways and such on their pastures... it them covers them to be able to legally have people charged..... You know so much about all those things, but something as simple as that might have slid under your radar.

How old are the ducks? Didn't you say they were laying last winter? After they get to be 1 1/2 or 2, they will slack off laying alot more... Plus, they are "wired" to lay in the spring, and after laying all year they just might be "shutting down" for the cold. AND have they molted all their feathers yet?
Most pullets (chickens) will come into production at about 20-24 weeks... so spring born will lay through the winter, once they hit that 6 month of age,...as long as they get sufficient light... and will lay for about a year then molt. In the more prolific egg producing breeds, they will lay decent but not near as much the 2nd year... after that egg production will drop significantly. One reason why so many egg producing farms will change out and bring new ready to lay pullets in every year or no later than every other year. It does not pay a poultry producer to keep them past the 2nd year... they are eating feed but they will produce less than half and it is not economically practical.
On top of that your ducks have been traumatized... they may not come back into production.

There is "No Trespassing" signs and I have served all with no trespass warnings. The birds are only about year and quarter old.
So since these ducks since been traumatized they have a chance they will not come back into production is what you are saying? They have molted went through the phase and still nothing after a month of molting. They laid their first egg September 9th of last year. They were laying throughout the winter down to -20°F. Been over two months on no eggs now. I think it's time to erase the slate and start over more secure for the next batch.

If I have to cull my flock that's going to add an extra layer on top of the other layers of anger towards these people so when it finally lets out it's going to be epic.

 

[SageHill]

I’m with @farmerjan on this, the ducks are going into a time off, slack off production mode.. I’ve never had ducks, but I’ve had chickens for over 30 yrs and that’s what they do. Yeah - to the point of not laying when I need the eggs the most - Christmas baking! I just culled our chickens - egg eater chicken started their downfall. I now have five 5 month old chickens and <cough> had to buy eggs at Costco - OMG the large eggs are way small - rip off. Can hardly wait until the new chickens start to lay.

 

[farmerjan]

It is possible they may not come back much.... these are Khaki Campbells right? They are among the more "laying" of the breeds of ducks. But, we usually figure at least 2-3 months from molting to back to laying on most chickens... so they may still come back to laying in another month... the trauma may affect them in delayed laying response also...
I don't know what would be the best advice on them... I think I would give them another month or so.... and hopefully no more traumatic upsets...
I figured you had covered the "no trespassing" sign thing... sometimes the simplest things can get overlooked... so I thought I would mention it...