Farm News 04-10-05
Farm News
Sunday morning, after chores, 54°, a beautiful Spring morning
Tinkerbell Lays Eggs
After a year of growing, Tinkerbell has categorically established her sex by starting to lay eggs. Some people can turn a goose upside down, look at its backside, and pronounce what sex it is. I can turn a goose upside down, look at its backside, and determine that geese can carry a grudge for a long time.
So, after a year of wondering, I now know that Tinkerbell is female. I have strongly suspected that she was female based on my method of sexing poultry. I leave them right side up and look at their faces. Then a say a dirty word. If they blush, they're probably female. Using this method I achieve about 40% accuracy, which is far better than the 25% or less accuracy when looking at the back sides.
One would think that 50% accuracy could be achieved by simply flipping a coin. Unfortunately, the laws of science interfere. The Astrophysical Ducks discussed this subject at length. They explained that, “The curvature of space causes things and events to be constantly going round the bend, so to speak. This leads to a universe in which the bizarre is constantly overwhelming the banal, making sex determination a science without sanity.” You can count on ducks to say things like that.
Nyn Has Ten
Nyn had eleven bunnies this time, ten of whom survived to three days. I should have tossed out two of the surviving bunnies, they are both tiny, but, you know . . .. So, if the runts continue to find their way to nurse often enough, Nyn will raise ten bunnies.
Nyn is a big gal, probably with lots of Checkered Giant ancestry. She could probably raise a calf if she could get it to lie down to nurse. She's slow and easygoing, generally, but if you pick her up and she doesn't like it she can kick pretty hard. This is her second litter, so she still has several productive years ahead.
When I started with rabbits I decided on Mini-Lops because of their docility. Ayte and Nyn, though, both big Checkered Giant types, produce such nice big babies. Do I choose rabbits for personality or production? I'm starting to think production, now. Most rabbits are pleasant enough whether their parents were selected for personality or production.
A bag of rabbit feed, 50 lb., costs $8.00 in Perry, currently, and the price is stable. I bought a bag on 4/1/05 but didn't start using it until 4/4/05. I'll start reporting rabbit feed consumption here and let's check it out. Currently, there are three production age Checkered Giant does: Nyn, Ayte, and Svenn. I haven't bred Svenn yet and she is simply a freeloader. Fluff, the buck, is a Mini-Lop. Rosie, who is not a very good mother, is also a Mini-Lop. Rosie has lost two litters and not an economically viable occupant of the rabbitry.
A 'Mini-Lop', by the way, is a small sort of rabbit with floppy ears that hang down. Floppy-eared rabbits are generally very docile and easy to handle. If I 'retire' Rosie then Fluff will be the only Mini-Lop there. He has a pleasant disposition but he sires small, slow-growing bunnies.
The two top production rabbit breeds are New Zealands and Californians. New Zealand rabbits are red in color and Californians are white with gray ears.
Birthing and Sexing Ungulates
A fellow turkey fancier obtained a pregnant llama who then presented her with a baby llama. She asked, “Anybody know how to tell if he is a she or she is a he?” That is a perfectly reasonable question from someone who is not familiar with ungulates (hoofed animals).
If you are with the mother when the baby is born, make certain the baby's nostrils are clear and then let the mother clean the baby. While the mother is doing this she'll have a long string of afterbirth stuff hanging out of her. As she licks the baby she is picking up a bunch of hormones that trigger off some of the maternal behaviors. The same goes for the afterbirth, she needs to be allowed to eat that stuff. Once the baby is cleaned off some, paint the end of the umbilical cord with a bit of iodine to prevent umbilical infections.
Sit down on a low stool and place the baby across your lap, legs dangling, umbilicus between your legs. Lift up it's tail and look under the tail. You will see the anus. If the baby is female there will be a clearly defined vulva (a vulva is 'v' shaped with a vertical slit opening) beneath the anus. If there is no vulva, then you have a male. You will know this is true if at this point the baby starts peeing on your leg.
Ungulate females have a genito-urinary tract ending at a vulva. The genito-urinary tract is both the birth canal and urinary canal.
Look the baby over carefully, check its hooves for development, unfold its ears, and begin teaching it that you won't hurt it. If the baby is to be adopted out or the mother is somewhat tentative about her new baby, squeeze out a few drops of milk from the mother onto the baby's face. The mother will smell her milk on the baby and decide it is hers.
Actually, what the mother produces for the first few days is not milk but colostrum, sticky yellowish stuff that contains a lot of startup hormones and immunity builders. I generally milk out a bit of colostrum from a new mother and freeze it in an ice cube tray. One cube of frozen goat colostrum, thawed and warm, is good starter fluid for almost any orphaned baby mammal.
Depending on the animal, babies can sometimes go several days before eating. If they seem healthy, don't worry. A lot of little ones need a few days of rest before starting out in the world. Others jump right up and take off. Some goats will start trying to hop before they are a day old.
Try to spend a few minutes touching and talking to the baby every day. Now is the time to socialize them to liking humans. Whenever possible, have other people join you when you visit the baby. Animals tend to be hyper-specific: they will learn to like you but be afraid of all other humans unless you introduce them to strangers early on. An animal that hasn't had lots of experience with both adults and children often won't recognize children as being people.
One of my favorite experiences was with a baby giraffe, born a few hour earlier. I watched it stand up for the first time. It was a little over seven feet tall and weighed about 200 pounds. Quite a baby.
Staying Out of the Nursing Home One More Year
Check out the new Windows Media Center PC:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/mediacenter/default.mspx
You can operate it from screen menus with a remote. And, the screen can, and should be, of course, big and wide; not a little PC monitor but a big home entertainment center screen. The PC can receive broadcast radio, XM sat radio, broadcast TV, cable, VCR, and DVD and can route all of those media feeds through a wireless network of speakers and display panels.
Imagine that Millie is seventy-seven, living alone on Social Security in a two room apartment, unable to walk. Sitting in a corner of her apartment is her “Cadillac”, a Media Center PC. She has a big flat panel display in the living room and a smaller one in the bedroom. Speakers are located in both rooms, as are microphones and video cameras, all connected to the computer. She carries her remote controller along with her cordless phone on a cord hanging around her neck.
Every morning at 7:00 am, her selected wakeup time, her home support system lights up the screens, her choice of music comes on, her favorite morning TV show appears in a window, and her wakeup menu appears in a larger window. The wakeup menu is a big window on the screen that, in Millie's case, says, “Good Morning Millie. How are you? [Fine, So-So, Terrible].” Millie clicks to indicate she's fine, the music fades, and her TV show window expands to fill the screen.
At 8:00 am, the computer interrupts the commercials with a menu to take her through her morning pills routine. ' . . .. Do you have 2 red pills, 1 white capsule, and 2 pink capsules and a glass of water?' “Okay” 'Take the pills, drink the water, and click okay.' “Okay” 'Have you had breakfast?' ”No.” 'Do you want to [1] Skip Breakfast [2] Go to the dining room [3] Eat in my room . . .'.
At 8:30, during the commercials, the computer calls Doris down the hall, just like it does every morning, and tells Millie to pick up her cordless phone, that Doris is on the line. At 9:30, 10:00, 10:30, and 11:00 the computer reminds Millie that it is Wednesday, the day for lunch with the Quilting Club, and that the bus will be here to pick her up at 11:30. It also reminds her to do her wheelchair push-ups, an exercise that helps reduce pressure sores.
Get the idea? Creating these sort of user interfaces, where the computer puts menus and reminders on the screen and reads them aloud is not rocket science by any means. There is no programming involved, it is all done by filling forms. The real difficulty is in deciding what sort of help Millie needs and how to get there through click menus. And if you think Millie might resent this as intrusion, you haven't thought much about life in a nursing home.
A great many seniors end up in long term care facilities because their families are afraid that they won't remember to take their pills. And, the families are usually right, but if Millie has a nice computer that interrupts her favorite TV program during commercial breaks to remind her to take her pills, then Millie might be able to stay at home one more year.
Today, Millie's home support system will cost $3-7,000. In sixteen months, the price range will probably be $2,500-12,000. If you add the installation costs then an average system will probably be about $5,000 in 2006-9. Millie's system will have ongoing costs for system support services and maintenance and a broadband Internet connection.
Using the internet, Millie's system can connect her to a full care facility for emergency services and possibly add even more months for her living at home. It can also connect her to her on line bridge group for bingo game or to a web cam connected to her granddaughter's computer. Millie can leave a video message for her granddaughter and then ask her computer to help her select and email cards for the family birthdays this month.
It can play videos of her great-grandchildren fifty times a day if she wishes; Millie's computer can store hundred of hours of video. Her computer, TV, and radio are all incorporated in one intelligent center with a remote control operated interface. Millie can control her system completely from her wheelchair.
How do you put this together? How can Millie have a system like that installed and maintained? In the IDFA model, home support service technicians, independent local licensees who operate regular service routes, provide everything from battery replacement service for every device in the home to installing home support software like Millie uses.
IDFA is interested in supporting the development of modular, plug-in system components for home support systems like Millie's and for hosting centers that provide on-line support for seniors. We would like to be involved in designing training programs for service technicians who will be installing, supporting, and maintaining Millie's system. IDFA believes that a network of self employed service and support technicians can be developed with on line training and certification, and that those technicians can become a critical component in reducing long term supportive care costs.
For the next fifty years senior services will be a major area of growth. Developing and supporting the software, the desktop scenarios, for home support software can and should be an open source project. Anything we can do to reduce the costs of senior care will be a service to our nation and should be able to attract the kind of funding necessary to create and support the software.
To contribute stories or complain send an email to FarmNews@GeezerNet.com . The editor reserves the right to steal ideas submitted, rewrite submissions, and sign false names to them whenever it strikes his fancy to do so.
Sunday morning, after chores, 54°, a beautiful Spring morning
Tinkerbell Lays Eggs
After a year of growing, Tinkerbell has categorically established her sex by starting to lay eggs. Some people can turn a goose upside down, look at its backside, and pronounce what sex it is. I can turn a goose upside down, look at its backside, and determine that geese can carry a grudge for a long time.
So, after a year of wondering, I now know that Tinkerbell is female. I have strongly suspected that she was female based on my method of sexing poultry. I leave them right side up and look at their faces. Then a say a dirty word. If they blush, they're probably female. Using this method I achieve about 40% accuracy, which is far better than the 25% or less accuracy when looking at the back sides.
One would think that 50% accuracy could be achieved by simply flipping a coin. Unfortunately, the laws of science interfere. The Astrophysical Ducks discussed this subject at length. They explained that, “The curvature of space causes things and events to be constantly going round the bend, so to speak. This leads to a universe in which the bizarre is constantly overwhelming the banal, making sex determination a science without sanity.” You can count on ducks to say things like that.
Nyn Has Ten
Nyn had eleven bunnies this time, ten of whom survived to three days. I should have tossed out two of the surviving bunnies, they are both tiny, but, you know . . .. So, if the runts continue to find their way to nurse often enough, Nyn will raise ten bunnies.
Nyn is a big gal, probably with lots of Checkered Giant ancestry. She could probably raise a calf if she could get it to lie down to nurse. She's slow and easygoing, generally, but if you pick her up and she doesn't like it she can kick pretty hard. This is her second litter, so she still has several productive years ahead.
When I started with rabbits I decided on Mini-Lops because of their docility. Ayte and Nyn, though, both big Checkered Giant types, produce such nice big babies. Do I choose rabbits for personality or production? I'm starting to think production, now. Most rabbits are pleasant enough whether their parents were selected for personality or production.
A bag of rabbit feed, 50 lb., costs $8.00 in Perry, currently, and the price is stable. I bought a bag on 4/1/05 but didn't start using it until 4/4/05. I'll start reporting rabbit feed consumption here and let's check it out. Currently, there are three production age Checkered Giant does: Nyn, Ayte, and Svenn. I haven't bred Svenn yet and she is simply a freeloader. Fluff, the buck, is a Mini-Lop. Rosie, who is not a very good mother, is also a Mini-Lop. Rosie has lost two litters and not an economically viable occupant of the rabbitry.
A 'Mini-Lop', by the way, is a small sort of rabbit with floppy ears that hang down. Floppy-eared rabbits are generally very docile and easy to handle. If I 'retire' Rosie then Fluff will be the only Mini-Lop there. He has a pleasant disposition but he sires small, slow-growing bunnies.
The two top production rabbit breeds are New Zealands and Californians. New Zealand rabbits are red in color and Californians are white with gray ears.
Birthing and Sexing Ungulates
A fellow turkey fancier obtained a pregnant llama who then presented her with a baby llama. She asked, “Anybody know how to tell if he is a she or she is a he?” That is a perfectly reasonable question from someone who is not familiar with ungulates (hoofed animals).
If you are with the mother when the baby is born, make certain the baby's nostrils are clear and then let the mother clean the baby. While the mother is doing this she'll have a long string of afterbirth stuff hanging out of her. As she licks the baby she is picking up a bunch of hormones that trigger off some of the maternal behaviors. The same goes for the afterbirth, she needs to be allowed to eat that stuff. Once the baby is cleaned off some, paint the end of the umbilical cord with a bit of iodine to prevent umbilical infections.
Sit down on a low stool and place the baby across your lap, legs dangling, umbilicus between your legs. Lift up it's tail and look under the tail. You will see the anus. If the baby is female there will be a clearly defined vulva (a vulva is 'v' shaped with a vertical slit opening) beneath the anus. If there is no vulva, then you have a male. You will know this is true if at this point the baby starts peeing on your leg.
Ungulate females have a genito-urinary tract ending at a vulva. The genito-urinary tract is both the birth canal and urinary canal.
Look the baby over carefully, check its hooves for development, unfold its ears, and begin teaching it that you won't hurt it. If the baby is to be adopted out or the mother is somewhat tentative about her new baby, squeeze out a few drops of milk from the mother onto the baby's face. The mother will smell her milk on the baby and decide it is hers.
Actually, what the mother produces for the first few days is not milk but colostrum, sticky yellowish stuff that contains a lot of startup hormones and immunity builders. I generally milk out a bit of colostrum from a new mother and freeze it in an ice cube tray. One cube of frozen goat colostrum, thawed and warm, is good starter fluid for almost any orphaned baby mammal.
Depending on the animal, babies can sometimes go several days before eating. If they seem healthy, don't worry. A lot of little ones need a few days of rest before starting out in the world. Others jump right up and take off. Some goats will start trying to hop before they are a day old.
Try to spend a few minutes touching and talking to the baby every day. Now is the time to socialize them to liking humans. Whenever possible, have other people join you when you visit the baby. Animals tend to be hyper-specific: they will learn to like you but be afraid of all other humans unless you introduce them to strangers early on. An animal that hasn't had lots of experience with both adults and children often won't recognize children as being people.
One of my favorite experiences was with a baby giraffe, born a few hour earlier. I watched it stand up for the first time. It was a little over seven feet tall and weighed about 200 pounds. Quite a baby.
Staying Out of the Nursing Home One More Year
Check out the new Windows Media Center PC:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/mediacenter/default.mspx
You can operate it from screen menus with a remote. And, the screen can, and should be, of course, big and wide; not a little PC monitor but a big home entertainment center screen. The PC can receive broadcast radio, XM sat radio, broadcast TV, cable, VCR, and DVD and can route all of those media feeds through a wireless network of speakers and display panels.
Imagine that Millie is seventy-seven, living alone on Social Security in a two room apartment, unable to walk. Sitting in a corner of her apartment is her “Cadillac”, a Media Center PC. She has a big flat panel display in the living room and a smaller one in the bedroom. Speakers are located in both rooms, as are microphones and video cameras, all connected to the computer. She carries her remote controller along with her cordless phone on a cord hanging around her neck.
Every morning at 7:00 am, her selected wakeup time, her home support system lights up the screens, her choice of music comes on, her favorite morning TV show appears in a window, and her wakeup menu appears in a larger window. The wakeup menu is a big window on the screen that, in Millie's case, says, “Good Morning Millie. How are you? [Fine, So-So, Terrible].” Millie clicks to indicate she's fine, the music fades, and her TV show window expands to fill the screen.
At 8:00 am, the computer interrupts the commercials with a menu to take her through her morning pills routine. ' . . .. Do you have 2 red pills, 1 white capsule, and 2 pink capsules and a glass of water?' “Okay” 'Take the pills, drink the water, and click okay.' “Okay” 'Have you had breakfast?' ”No.” 'Do you want to [1] Skip Breakfast [2] Go to the dining room [3] Eat in my room . . .'.
At 8:30, during the commercials, the computer calls Doris down the hall, just like it does every morning, and tells Millie to pick up her cordless phone, that Doris is on the line. At 9:30, 10:00, 10:30, and 11:00 the computer reminds Millie that it is Wednesday, the day for lunch with the Quilting Club, and that the bus will be here to pick her up at 11:30. It also reminds her to do her wheelchair push-ups, an exercise that helps reduce pressure sores.
Get the idea? Creating these sort of user interfaces, where the computer puts menus and reminders on the screen and reads them aloud is not rocket science by any means. There is no programming involved, it is all done by filling forms. The real difficulty is in deciding what sort of help Millie needs and how to get there through click menus. And if you think Millie might resent this as intrusion, you haven't thought much about life in a nursing home.
A great many seniors end up in long term care facilities because their families are afraid that they won't remember to take their pills. And, the families are usually right, but if Millie has a nice computer that interrupts her favorite TV program during commercial breaks to remind her to take her pills, then Millie might be able to stay at home one more year.
Today, Millie's home support system will cost $3-7,000. In sixteen months, the price range will probably be $2,500-12,000. If you add the installation costs then an average system will probably be about $5,000 in 2006-9. Millie's system will have ongoing costs for system support services and maintenance and a broadband Internet connection.
Using the internet, Millie's system can connect her to a full care facility for emergency services and possibly add even more months for her living at home. It can also connect her to her on line bridge group for bingo game or to a web cam connected to her granddaughter's computer. Millie can leave a video message for her granddaughter and then ask her computer to help her select and email cards for the family birthdays this month.
It can play videos of her great-grandchildren fifty times a day if she wishes; Millie's computer can store hundred of hours of video. Her computer, TV, and radio are all incorporated in one intelligent center with a remote control operated interface. Millie can control her system completely from her wheelchair.
How do you put this together? How can Millie have a system like that installed and maintained? In the IDFA model, home support service technicians, independent local licensees who operate regular service routes, provide everything from battery replacement service for every device in the home to installing home support software like Millie uses.
IDFA is interested in supporting the development of modular, plug-in system components for home support systems like Millie's and for hosting centers that provide on-line support for seniors. We would like to be involved in designing training programs for service technicians who will be installing, supporting, and maintaining Millie's system. IDFA believes that a network of self employed service and support technicians can be developed with on line training and certification, and that those technicians can become a critical component in reducing long term supportive care costs.
For the next fifty years senior services will be a major area of growth. Developing and supporting the software, the desktop scenarios, for home support software can and should be an open source project. Anything we can do to reduce the costs of senior care will be a service to our nation and should be able to attract the kind of funding necessary to create and support the software.
To contribute stories or complain send an email to FarmNews@GeezerNet.com . The editor reserves the right to steal ideas submitted, rewrite submissions, and sign false names to them whenever it strikes his fancy to do so.
posted by The Geezer at 9:20 AM
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