Oh, Rats! May 10, 2019 @goldenoakfarm
Once a whole diaphragm….
The neighbors to the south of us have a huge corncrib that they leave open. They literally have hundreds of rats over there. After a few years, they have migrated to our property. This winter they found our trash and garden shed.
I was given a non-toxic (to other animals) poison recipe for them and it seemed to clean them out of the shed. Yesterday my helper took out the backpack sprayer to start the foliar spraying for the season, and discovered the diaphragm had been completely chewed away. It’s going to cost $40 to replace. But I must have it, as we use the sprayer weekly. I now must find a new place to store it, inside the house.
It’s to rain all day today so I went out really early and picked a lot of raspberry leaves and violets to dehydrate. That first batch of violets I thought would nearly fill the quart jar, barely made it to ¼ full. So I need to be picking a lot more of them as they come along.
Even though we are down to 14 hens thanks to the fox, we still have a lot of eggs coming in. I planned to make a LOT of devilled eggs (my helper likes them) to use up some of the older eggs. Older eggs are much better for hard boiling as they peel so very easily.
I got this lovely FireKing dish at an estate sale last weekend. Makes a great dish for holding the eggs.
Tomorrow there are lots of tag sales, so we will be busy all morning.
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Rats? No fun. How come the fox killed your chickens and not the rats? And why do your neighbors leave their corncrib open? Seems unwise...
Hard boiling fresh eggs is a common complaint in the backyard chicken group, how long do you age them? I found them nearly impossible to peel easily, but dangit, I'm not buying eggs lol
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The fox does kill the rats. But she is outnumbered about 500 to 1. She got tricky. She could not get into the coop. So she charged the fence, the birds freaked out and flew out. Dinner! We moved the electric wire so she can't charge the snake fence anymore and closed the top of the snake so the birds can't get out. But we can't put the electric wire around the stationary pen. So we must raise the sides so they can't fly out. There's been too much rain to get this done....
My eggs tend to be at least 2 weeks old and often 3 weeks old when I finally boil them. I did 19 of them yesterday, all peeled like a dream. Another secret, once cooked, keep them in the cold water until the instant you peel them. If one seems like it might stick, put egg into cold water and squeeze shell gently, to get water between egg and shell. Let hydraulics do the work... :))
You need some good, hard-working mousing CATS out there for the rats - works a treat and is nature's way.
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