Update

The chickens have been in the coop for a full day now. It has been raining since then. The chickens made a lot of noise during the day. I placed glue traps but no rats were caught. Two brown eggs, no blue egg yet. I am waiting with baited breath, or rather, baited traps, to solve this whole thing. I feel bad for the chickies.

Developments

I have seen a wasp chase a hummingbird away from the feeder. I noticed the wasps drinking sugar water for a week or two, and then began to take notice. It was just one wasp present when I saw the hummingbird chased away from the feeder. Who knew? I guess it behooves that bird to be cautious. I heard about wasps swarming in defense. I purchased wasp attractant to place in the wasp catcher that the previous owners left here.

I have been giving chicken scratch to the chickens, but only inside the coop. They have grown more comfortable going in there. While luring them, I noticed eggs in the separate laying box on the patio. Nobody ever showed much liking for it, but I had two eggs in there yesterday. How encouraging! So, sadly, I coped the two Americanas because they were in there together and they are hard to catch. Blackie wouldn't come around, but I caught her later and stuck her in there. They complain. I feel bad. But then I set out two glue traps. I need to get rid of that rat.

I also heaved large slabs of stone in for a patio area back there. In the rain. Now I want more. They seem so, small.

animal management

I have spotted the rat out during the day a few times. Just for the sake of grammatical comfort, let's assume there is just one really fat rat that I'm dealing with here. I saw another path of travel it uses. I'll move the bait station to that one, and later, over to the worm bin area. I cleaned out the coop and put the wood chips in a spot where I'd like the kitchen compost pile. I set the live trap on there, adjoining a cinder block I saw the rat climb through. This morning the live trap was sprung, but I don't know if it was chickens or Mona doing her ditz run through the coop area.

I gave the chickens scratch inside the coop. Blackie and Yellow Cheep both went inside. I came out onto the patio so they'd get used to me being out there while they are inside. I came out later when Little Red was inside the coop, too. Tomorrow I am going to get two of them inside and then shut them in. I'll probably have to catch at least one chicken, unfortunately. I don't know how long I will need to jail them in there. One, I want to know if anybody is laying. Two,
I want to cut the rat off from the chicken food. We'll see if that makes the bait or the peanut butter more tempting to the rat. I should also get a glue trap too.

Rat Sighting!

I saw the rat. It was fat. It jumped easily, and then strolled down the stairs. The chickens were making a racket at the time. That's why I went out there, and the rat jumped out of the coop and hid. I set the live trap, right where it has been sitting for a long time. I expect it to get knocked by something other than a rat, but hopefully that big wad of peanut butter will be irresistible to the rat.

I have some photos I recently uploaded. I have yet to figure out how I can organize my things on the web. I started a site with google. I am hoping that each photo I uploaded to google-owned sites would magically appear in their picasa program. Here they are just in case:

Oregon grape, or mehonium

One morning I got three eggs. Did I post this? This is the only blue egg I have gotten to date. I thought it could have been reduced egg production due to excessive heat. Obviously that is no longer the case. It could be the rat issue. But anyway, wasn't this a beautiful morning in terms of eggs?

Ben and Kayleigh jammed out in a duet of piano and guitar. It was rather melancholy in tone, but went on and on, beautifully. I was afraid taking photos would disrupt it, but they even played through the flash. I love the view out that window.

Finally, I took a photo of my beloved border collie, sleeping.

who says roosters are noisy?

The chickens get really noisy every so often, usually in the morning. Then the dog barks and there's no sleeping after that.

home again, home again

I was pleased to return to the chickens being just fine. They were not roosting in the rhododendron near the house, nor in the coop, for awhile. I took that to mean they missed us.

A day or two later, I checked the coop and saw a rat sauntering slowly out the back door. Eeeeuw! So, I placed the poison in the bait station and replaced the chicken feeder with the bait station. Since then, the chickens have been using the coop. I have opened the door on Red Cheep, who scurried out of there, alarmed. Just this morning I opened the door on Yellow Cheep (formerly known as Black Cheep), who just sat there as I calmly closed the door back up. Later I went out and found three eggs! And one of them was blue!

I am happy to know they are starting to lay, and using the coop. While I was gone there were no eggs for my beloved chicken checker. I was concerned that they were laying in the garden somewhere. Now I am just curious who is laying what. There was one small brown egg, one large brown egg, and one large blue egg.