July 2005 Journal

7/28 Raccoon # 48. We had 1/2 inch of rain on the 26th and a cool day yesterday so we spent the day catching up on heavy work that could not be safely done in the heat. Illinois was declared a federal disaster area two days ago because of the drought.

Our sprout maker contraption is putting out 15 pounds of sprouts per day now. At the retail price of alfalfa sprouts of $1.49 per 4 ounces that is equivalent to a retail value of $89.40, making it a capital expenditure payout of 1 day-not that we would ever pay that much. All capital equipment should pay out like that! On the down side I need 25 pounds per day, so we are trying to figure out where to put the rest of the shelves.

I am reading a very awesome book: The Whole Soy Story by Kaayla Daniel. I knew soy was bad, but this expose is amazing. A must have for every health library. http://www.wholesoystory.com She sends out signed books when you purchase from her site.

The tiny six-week old baby died yesterday. I put all the youngest babies out, this one included. The pictures were taken shortly after they were put outside. I told the bird it had to choose to die or live, hanging out at one pound indefinitely was not going to cut it. In the barn pen it was plucky and rushed to the food every time. Once outside, it did what rheas are so very, very good at-leaving their bodies rapidly and going to the other side. Rheas exist right on the edge of dimensions and if things scare them or confuse them they leave their bodies behind. We know this as STRESS, a very real biochemical condition which can kill an otherwise unharmed adult rhea in 2 hours.	Pathetic thirsty corn. A sickly sage green instead of the vibrant deep green. The grass in the foreground should be green. We are not in Oklahoma.
The increased intelligence means less confusion and a greater ability to deal with unknown situations in this dimension. It makes it harder for them to die by choice. They are not Einsteins, but they recognize us and come immediately, a new behavior and one that makes taking flock pictures difficult. Babies have always crowded us to some degree, but not like this.
The babies yesterday. Some of the older ones have bent legs but they will recover. I don't go out in the morning wondering if any died; it is a rare occurrence now.
Our front pasture is green where because we have such a high water table from the springs. This pasture, at the Jacksonville airport 2 miles away, is not so lush. The corner is the distance is very uneven and even has a brown section in the middle. In my rear view mirror there is a perennial garden in front of the white fence. Normally ablaze with color it is very brown.
The silkworms are going to hatch any day now, and we will try again on the live food issue.

Yesterday morning was near catastrophe. On 7/23 I told the person going to check the raccoon traps to check the feed and water in the big pen. It is right there so it should be an automatic task to do. I didn't think a thing of it assuming it had been done. Yesterday, in preparation for the extreme heat I checked for eggs (they have stopped laying, the earliest ever) and any adults in distress as well as food in water. I almost passed out when I saw the stock tank on an automatic waterer on its side and dry. The other tank, had nothing but mud in the bottom. I righted it, opened the hydrant and stepped back as the entire flock flocked to get water. 100 gallons later the birds were satiated. In today's heat we would have lost birds.

The offending party was scolded for failing to recognize that extreme conditions require extreme vigilance. And then he went to fix the automatic waterer in the heat.

Two hours later we ran out of water. The well was dry. The hose repair failed and the open hydrant drained the well. We live in an area called Gravel Springs so it regenerates quickly, but it still makes me very nervous when we need the misters to keep the babies and sprouts alive.
Its a laugh a minute here.

The "pasture" where the adult birds live. Notice not a blade of grass and trees pruned to the 8 foot line. This is the drought right in our back yard. The underground water table is not high enough to withstand the rigors of grazers.

The chick on the left is 5 weeks old, the same age as the white one in the center picture and 10 days older than the larger bird in the right picture. Notice its spinal deformity. It also has, and has had for weeks now, a very pliable bill. This bird was a victim of the mold problem and bee stings. It will probably die although it eats well. Its bones were so pliable 2 weeks ago we thought the wing was broken.

The white bird was also part of the silkworm problem and is the nicest of that clutch. White birds were notoriously difficult to raise. Now, they are fed properly and thrive.

When I think back on the arrogance of the animal health professionals at the height of the ratite breeder's market a decade ago, it infuriates me. They simply took confinement operation rules and diets and made edicts that these methods were appropriate for these animals. It was a fraud, designed for them to gain money and unearned kudos, all the while viciously me and causing untold suffering in the baby rheas and ostriches. Scientific fraud that was hardly science yet proselytized by the animal nutritionists, veterinarians, and universities. The scientific journal articles about the rhea are deadly wrong but somehow passed the peer review process. My copy of the 1400-page tome Avian Medicine has entire sections crossed out and notated "WRONG!" in the margin.

These people and institutions killed hundreds of thousands of chicks with their arrogant idiocy. That crime has never seen justice.

7/24 Raccoon #47 brings us to well over 500 pounds of raccoon. The May feed bill skyrocketed by $255 and now we know why.

At 8:00 AM it is 80 degrees heading for 102 and a heat index of 110-114 depending on who you listen to. We are judiciously watching the well. The water table is down 5 feet so we have less to play with and more uses. I made an excellent call in March to change to a drip system and straw mulch (65 bales so far) in the garden. It uses the least amount of water and the heavy mulch conserves water, controls weeds and keeps the brassica's (cabbage, broccoli, kale, cauliflower) roots cool. It will decompose and provide organic matter by next spring.

The heat increases insect activity which gives the babies more to eat and I have to feed them less. They take breaks from insect hunting in the shade or the misters.

Yesterday the sprout system provided 7 pounds of fresh greens that I didn't have to chop. This is something I have toyed with for at least 7 years but this year's drought certainly forced the issue. In years past I even made a few small and very complicated prototypes. The sprouts are going to cost $.13 a pound or less in contrast to the purchased vegetables that are costing $.40-.60 per pound to supplement the garden.

Now we are making progress on the issue of commercial viability.

Standing room only at the misters. Each misting head uses .75 gallons per hour. We are running 32 of them scattered around the chick house, the SW side of the house and the sprout system.

The sprout maker watered by misting heads cable-tied to plastic storage shelving. The trays are from my incubators and hatchers. Located under the steps to the top of the barn and incubator room.

7/23 Raccoons #45 and 46. Heat index expected to be 105 today. The leaves in the soy fields are starting to desiccate. The corn is curled and turning yellow from the bottom up.

This is one of the birds blinded by the bees on 7/5. It has developed enlarged hocks and "sits low in the saddle". The ligaments in the pelvis are loose and the bird has a stilted walk. It should survive, but will grow slowly and not have much fun.

A chick enjoying the mister in 95 degree heat. This is only the second day we have had them on and already the babies understand them. These babies are smarter than they were when they were raised on commercial feed. They are readily trainable and can make choices. The chick's only experience with rain was a month ago. I went out there to put them in their house only to find them all high and dry in the house. Baby chickens won't do that and the baby rheas from 10 years ago never did get it.

rhea_chick_ in _mister_2005.JPG (38317 bytes)

7/20 Raccoon #43. Huge difference in feed consumption. The birds are not ravenous, the wildlife was. The last three months our feed bill increased by a whopping $250.

The little voice in my head is telling me to give it up. I can't. These dinosaurs are too important and no one else cares. The fifth chick with an exposed brain area and greatly shortened or non-existent bill hatched today. This is a specific anomaly for something.

7/19. Forgive me for being monotonous. Raccoons 40, 41, and 42 entered the traps last night. Will this ever stop? Even the animal control people are wide-eyed when I bring the near-daily delivery.

The initial pilot plant for sprout fodder started up today. That's a very fancy way of saying I morphed cheap plastic shelves I use for seedlings in the spring with our misters and irrigation bits. We always do salvaged material prototypes before investing in the real thing. Salvaged material prototypes are immediately usable and correctable, commercial products are not.

The crops are shriveling up. The corn is a sad sage green color as it literally dries up in the fields. The soy is more drought tolerant, but grew too rapidly after the last rain. The canopy is collapsing under the relentless heat which stands to worsen over the next 7 days with no rain in sight. This is economic devastation for this part of the country. Hardly national news, but of great importance to a large part of Illinois.

7/18. The creek is dried up completely again, so we were surprised to catch an adult raccoon last night. On a bright note, there is no chance of a West Nile problem this year. I am posting the protocol for Infectious Mononucleosis that worked for Troy in March. His girlfriend, Karen, was quite ill for a month including a hospital stay and a few bouts of 104 degree fevers. Troy was afraid he was going to get it and asked-no, he DEMANDED, I design a protocol to prevent this. I am used to dealing with the easy stuff like allergies, cold, flu, and fibromyalgia. This was very virulent, which shocked me. It is worth reading, I really designed it for West Nile but thought it would work for Mono. It did.

The babies are virtual eating machines. 75 babies ate 9 pounds of fruits and vegetables, 11 pounds of meat and egg and 4 pounds of sprouts + whatever bugs they caught and the general grazing. They average over 2 pounds. We weighed them today and will review the data to see it we have broken any weight gain records. Most of the bills were rock solid, another sign of robust health.

7/14 It rained-a full .25 inch. We were expecting 2-3 inches so it really hasn't helped much. The creek is a trickle. The birds are thriving-which is good and bad. Their diet is producing some fabulous chicks, but the labor is incredible. I have 75 ravenous little birds that will die if I use a commercial diet before they are two months old. I am rethinking how many pounds of sprouts I will need per day.

7/11 2 more adult raccoons caught; we know saw more young ones. 38 raccoons and counting.

Coming: About the farm, mister systems and lowering AC bills, raising sprouts for livestock.

7/10 Six more raccoons, bringing the total to a whopping 36. Have at least 2 more that we saw, but we may be seeing the end of this infestation.

The chicks are looking gorgeous, the crisis is over for now. One of the blind ones can see again, the other is dead.

7/7 Another baby died. So much for steroids, but it is what I expected so I am not disappointed. I expect a blind one to die shortly. We are bringing raccoon #30 to animal control today. The creek has stopped flowing, the second time in 13 years.

Evening. 2 more died, compromised by the contaminated water of the first two weeks. Everyone else is thriving. Wonder what happens next?

Two traps have been damaged by raccoons and need to be repaired before they can be used again. It is unbelievable the kind of damage a 15 pound animal can inflict on a metal cage. The other has a very ripe dead baby rhea that was supposed to catch an unknown animal, maybe a fox, that is harassing the chickens. The country life has its romantic moments and then there is reality.

Five weeks until my youngest, Troy, leaves for college at Oklahoma State University. I love teenagers and will be totally devastated.

7/6 The chicks are eating and another baby has died. Two did not respond to the steroids and will probably die-they are blind.

The straggler hive is gone but the few remaining bees are obnoxious. The extension service is concerned about the aberrant behavior. I catch one, jar it and take it in for identification. To date, Africanized bees have not been find north of Arkansas.

Next anomaly. Half a mile south of us is Mauvisterre Creek, crossed by Gravel Springs Road, a magnificent short scenic drive (or was) running through old growth forest crossing the creek into one of the few swamps in central Illinois. A touch of Louisiana's riches with turtles basking and greater blue heron. Although rural, our particular 1 mile square neighborhood is an ecologist's island in the middle of soy and corn, and home to many of the town's biology/ecology elite. It is a birder's paradise and boasts a blue heron rookery ( We get occasional calls about a rhea being out. I ask if it flew away and they always say "yes". Rheas don't fly.)

The landowners of 150 years decided to harvest the lumber this year. The nightmare began in early May. It stirred up a huge controversy because it is an aesthetic and environmental nightmare with some of the trees over 200 years old. Now, the forest is gone, replaced by bulldozed dirt. To my neighbors, that is their main concern. Mine is the sheer stupidity of doing this in spring when animals are nesting and giving birth and the impact it is having on our farm. Untouched for 200 years, the uprooted animals are now on the move-and it seems all the raccoons are finding their way to our creek, one of the few still flowing, although barely. And to think we surveyed it to calculate if it was suitable for microhydroelectrics! It was then, not now.

Since raccoons pose such a hazard to baby animals, we had a nuisance wildlife trapper clear the property of raccoons in March and April. We caught 7.

Then suddenly in a three-day period in the second week of May we lost 5 juvenile chickens and 5 juvenile ducks. The adult chickens abandoned the chicken house for the safety of the trees surrounding the house. Our feed bill skyrocketed. We purchased 3 traps. In 5 days we caught 11 raccoons. This morning we are bringing raccoon #29 to animal control and there are still more. Two more traps have been ordered.

7/5 Morning. The situations have settled down and the latest 20some chicks are thriving. All that is left of the bees is the straggler's hive which will leave tomorrow morning.

Afternoon. As I am bringing the chicks lunch I am dodging bees. Looking at the small pen I see the few chicks out on this nice sunny day are not moving and their eyes are swollen shut. Putting the dishes down, I grab the hose to fend off the bees so I can get a better look. It is total disaster-the bees have attacked the babies. The smallest are in anaphylactic shock. I am just in shock. I summon Troy home from his lunch date. We don mesh bags (normally used for growing sprouts for the chicks) on our heads and long sleeve shirts. Troy's girlfriend, Karen, mans the hose as Troy and I carry the chicks into the barn in buckets. Six required steroid injections and 2 died within hours.

We are one of the few remaining farms that still raise rheas and the only one, to our knowledge, that is still hatching, studying, and selectively breeding rheas in the US. So, now there are very few Rheas left in the US, most sequestered as backyard pets or in zoos. Even in zoos the rhea is hard to find with the more docile and well-known emu the more popular of the two.

Here in Illinois we are in a severe drought and grazing is very poor - we are trimming trees to provide a substitute. Going into the season I had no idea what effect this would have on the chicks. The eggs either do not have the nutrition required and/or have sequestered the toxins from the concentrated well water. As in 1996 we again lost yearlings to crop spraying. The importance of pasture cannot be overstated.

This is the worst year for problems I have ever had. Roll every single issue we have had to face the last 12 seasons into this season, then add a few problems we have never encountered and that is what we are dealing with. We are seeing all the leg problems we have rarely seen since 1997, including never before seen leg rotations at 3 days of age-before the chicks have begun eating, which means the problem started in the egg. Two chicks had no upper bill and an exposed, malformed brain area, a deformity never before seen.

The eggs are not up to par, we are having a poor hatch and we have had to take extreme measures to ensure the health of the chicks. This year, with the help of my college-bound son and his best friend, we had the manpower to attempt a wild-type diet on the rhea chicks. I have no doubt had I tried commercial feed all the babies would all be dead.

The first 30 chicks, now 6 weeks old, have only 10 survivors, deformed and stunted. Optimistically, the chicks born since mid-June will be fine. However, their numbers are lower because the infertility rate/first trimester embryo death rate is abnormally high this season. So there is no way this is going to provide enough birds to meet the supply for some time.

So, the supply for ATP Boost just isn't there and won't be for at least two years. We encourage you to try Harmonic Balance as a substitute. Harmonic Balance is 100% ostrich heart and has a wavelength of 71.07 Mhz. ATP Boost has a wavelength of 71.08 Mhz. The two products are very similar.

The bees this year are very aggressive. We are having the hives removed from the front orchard/chick pasture.

Journal July 2005