Well, I haven’t lost any more chickens.  Of course, that could be because we have not forgotten to lock them up!  We have been leaving the trap baited during the day in a hope that I may catch something.  Well, I did catch something just not what I wanted.

Three days running this bird kept coming down and eating all the leftover dog food.  The last time it was in the trap long enough to get tired.  Annmarie said the bird let her pet it and bring it out of the cage.  It has not been back since.
I did catch a kitten tonight.  I did the shake and release treatment.  Maybe that will freak it out enough it stays away.  I plan on getting some chicken coop time this weekend to get ready for winter.  I need to finish digging out the deep litter and hanging the other waterers.  Luckily, I found the cause of my short in the coop.  I changed the breaker today and went outside to attach a waterproof cover on the back of the old house.  One of the screws I put in to hold the outlet in place rubbed through a hot wire and was shorting out the power feed.  So it is fixed!!!  Woo, hoo!!  It was fairly easy!

I am gaining but so are the predators.  Caught another raccoon last night  (so far 8 raccoons and 2 skunks down).  This one was very large probably around 25#.  I am betting this is the one that ate my favorite chicken.  It will be eating my chickens no more.  I really feel that the predators can quit coming for a free lunch at any time.  I cannot keep feeding them.  I now have 26 laying hens and I think only 7 of the babies are hens( they have another 3-4 months before they start laying).  If I lose another 15 hens in the Spring I will be down to 19 laying hens!!  I really need another 2 dozen babies in December.  But without a guaranteed heat source the babies will die.  I would have to mail order the chicks and shipping for them is around $40.  So those 24 chicks would cost around $120.  Those same chicks in the Spring at the feed store would cost $72.

The problem with that is I am having power issues (I hated to admit this).  I wired the chicken coop and have had the breaker trip three times in the last week.  I am not sure why it is tripping.  I only have the chicken light plugged in to that circuit.  It has four outlets wired with only the one inside the chicken coop in use, two of the others are on the outside of buildings but they have waterproof covers over them with the flip open doors for access.  So I am truly not sure why it is tripping.  I may have to just change the circuit breaker out and hope that is the problem (since it is the easiest fix, what do you think the odds of that are?).  If not, I am going to have to tear into each outlet and see if I have some wires touching.  After that it gets complicated.  So we are going to hope that one of the first two fixes works.  I may also put a waterproof cover inside the chicken coop.  Not for any water, but to keep the dust out of the outlet that is not in use.  Chickens are very dusty.  The last thing I need is a fire in my chicken coop.
So I am not sure what to do.  First thing is to fix the power supply.  Once that is corrected I will have to decide on purchasing new chicks this Winter.
I did find out today that around 1 ton of grapes is around a normal/acre yield.  (I read any where from 2-6 tons/acre depending on soil condition)  So ideally you should make around $3K/acre/year, but I was told that doesn’t always happen.  Truly, we would like to make around $20-40k/year net.  I expect it would take 20 acres for that to happen.  So I will keep up the research and question asking.  A friend offered to hook me up with a honest irrigation supplier and post supplier.  He just said to let him know.  I have a coworker whose husband is a vineyard manager.  So I plan on using that angle but it is harvest time now so I am leaving him alone.

Well, I went out tonight to check on my trap.  Sarah had already told me that I didn’t catch anything.  The trap door was sprung shut, but no critter.  The dog food was still inside the cage.  So it looks like something fairly large was trying to get the food.  I re-baited and set the trap again.  I only put one side up tonight also.
I must confess that the reason we lost another chicken is I forgot to lock the chickens up one night last week.  I just spaced it.  They were just waiting for me to let my guard down!!!  So now I am being hyper-vigilant about locking the chickens up.  If I could just eliminate the problem my life would be easier.  This is definitely the worst predator year I have had.

I am thinking that I am going to have to build a multitude of traps if I put in grapes.  I may just build a second trap next year so I can run two traps.   I would like to stick one on the far end of the Ram pasture.  I suspect the predators are coming from that direction since there are no houses or disturbances.

Well it appears the battle is back on.  I made it a point to check for our banty Brahma tonight when I locked up the chickens.  No Brahma.  So check one more chicken gone to predators.  The worst part is it was our favorite chicken.  She was incredibly mellow with lots of personality.  So I lifted one side of the trap only this time and baited it with dog food.  Hopefully, I won’t catch a bunch of kittens.  I fed the baby chickens some zucchini that was going bad (they had some salami too, any one care to guess which one got ate first and they kept stealing from each other?)  (yep, they like protein over veggies!!)  The chickies have killed all the grass in their enclosure so I have been making it a point to give them veggie treats from the garden.  I never have any compost cause the chickens eat it all.

I made $8.64 for the month on an average 27 hens laying (all my hens are now in except for the blue layers and they are still babies). (for the year my net income is -$6.55/month (I gained a whopping $2/month). (For the year I am -$58.92 total).  I had $36.88 in expenses for feed (200#) this month.  I had an extra $31.98 in expenses for heaters for my new chicken waterers.  For the year, my monthly expenses are $54.80. We collected a total of 361 usable eggs (44 more than last month) averaging 13.6 eggs/day collected (for the year the average is 11.9). The chickens ate 0.47#food/egg (for the year are averaging 0.67#/egg) In September it cost $0.09/egg or $1.08/doz for feed (my yearly average is $0.14/egg or $1.68/dozen. This is a penny an egg better this month.)  I thought I would start tracking how many total pounds of food are consumed each month so everyone can see what happens as Winter comes and the chickens have no outside food to supplement. 
I went out with Sarah tonight to lock the chickens up.  She had to collect eggs and I watered the babies.  They caught on in one day using the new drippers.  Those 12 chickens drank 5 gallons of water in just a few days.  She noticed that the Brahma hen was missing from inside the coop.  We looked all around and could not find her.  She has gone broody so we are hoping she is outside hiding somewhere.  Other wise  I will have lost another hen.  I will set up the trap again tomorrow night.  The coyotes are howling every night and seem to get closer every day.  I may have to go out and call some coyotes in next month.  By mid November we will have to start locking the sheep up every night.  We think the next batch of lambs is due around December. 
I worked on the wiring inside the Library today.  I thought it would be simple.  Not so…  I crawled under the house, I could make a small fortune using it as a haunted house.  Spider webs were thick.  I had to use a rake to sweep them out of the way.  The heating guys ran a large 16 inch duct under the house, it is insulated and was supposed to have two inches of space between it and the ground.  I made them go back under the house and dig it out, but did not reinspect it.  So now, I get to crawl back under there in the Spring so there is air all around the duct and the insulation won’t get damp.  I ended up drilling a few more holes to run wire.  Sarah was sick so I went to town and detailed Annmarie’s car.  It was pretty dirty after using it as a pickup during Round-Up. 
So far the sheep have not gotten out of the pasture.  I am crossing my fingers on this one.