Bonjour
Back in the village. Obviously. I saw somewhere on the Blogger webpage that you could post via a mobile phone, so I may give that a try if ever I get a signal at Harris. Utter crap weather here at the moment. Annie and I had a wet walk into Kinloch yesterday, but it went by quickly. Nothing much to report really, it's kind of quiet here now with everyone gone for the season. The goats are still doing goat things. We just named the new batch of kids... after fruit (Leslie's idea). My favourite is Pumello, who is Flo's kid and has the best horns of the little ones yet. Quality stock.
I'm at the end of my rope with my current facial hair situation. The plan was to take some pictures this weekend, then shave it all off. But I'm still waiting on my camera, so the beard will stay for now. It's just an unruly mess, and doing me no good in the looks department (Jess - I finally see your point ;).
Last night was a solid night in the shop, bolstered by the productive week we had at Harris. We rocked hard with some students from a forestry college (they're over for 2 weeks). According to Annie we retired around 5am. Last thing I remember was catching peanuts in my mouth in the castle kitchen... and just making a mess in general.
A few people must be wondering what the hell 'observing goats' entails, so here's the details for any interested parties. I do two kinds of observations:
1) Activity Budgets: pick a focal animal (we are recording female behaviour only at the moment) and watch them for 30 minutes. Every minute, or close to, I write down what the animal is doing. There are five categories: moving, standing, feeding, lying down or ruminating (chewing their cud). Also, if there are any interactions with other goats, I record what happened and with whom. Usually the sheet consists of nothing but 30 F's down the page, as all they do is feed. I also record group composition, overall quality of the animals, weather conditions etc.
2) Vigilance Rates: basically stare at one animal for 5 minutes, recording the number of 'looks' out it makes. A look is classified by the head being raised above the horizontal. Personally I think this is a crap measure, and getting high inter-rater reliability between myself and Annie is an ongoing problem. The difficulty lies in recording what the goat looked at... a male, female, kid, or just 'out'. It totally depends on your vantage point, and really hard to do when staring through binoculars as your field of view is limited. Anyways, the data will be compared to another goat population in Wales, one that has natural predators unlike these beasts on Rum. Additionally, we record what type of vegetation the goats are feeding on at the time. In theory, the vigilance rate should decline as the food quality increases, to allow for maximal energy input. Again... a crap measure, I think it's more influenced by group size and experience (age). But I am just a peon.
So... we aim for at least 8 activity budgets and 10 vigilance samples per day. We simply follow one group around as they graze in the hills then move to another if we run out of goats to sample (have to wait at least 2 hrs before we can repeat an animal).
Welcome to my life.
I'm at the end of my rope with my current facial hair situation. The plan was to take some pictures this weekend, then shave it all off. But I'm still waiting on my camera, so the beard will stay for now. It's just an unruly mess, and doing me no good in the looks department (Jess - I finally see your point ;).
Last night was a solid night in the shop, bolstered by the productive week we had at Harris. We rocked hard with some students from a forestry college (they're over for 2 weeks). According to Annie we retired around 5am. Last thing I remember was catching peanuts in my mouth in the castle kitchen... and just making a mess in general.
A few people must be wondering what the hell 'observing goats' entails, so here's the details for any interested parties. I do two kinds of observations:
1) Activity Budgets: pick a focal animal (we are recording female behaviour only at the moment) and watch them for 30 minutes. Every minute, or close to, I write down what the animal is doing. There are five categories: moving, standing, feeding, lying down or ruminating (chewing their cud). Also, if there are any interactions with other goats, I record what happened and with whom. Usually the sheet consists of nothing but 30 F's down the page, as all they do is feed. I also record group composition, overall quality of the animals, weather conditions etc.
2) Vigilance Rates: basically stare at one animal for 5 minutes, recording the number of 'looks' out it makes. A look is classified by the head being raised above the horizontal. Personally I think this is a crap measure, and getting high inter-rater reliability between myself and Annie is an ongoing problem. The difficulty lies in recording what the goat looked at... a male, female, kid, or just 'out'. It totally depends on your vantage point, and really hard to do when staring through binoculars as your field of view is limited. Anyways, the data will be compared to another goat population in Wales, one that has natural predators unlike these beasts on Rum. Additionally, we record what type of vegetation the goats are feeding on at the time. In theory, the vigilance rate should decline as the food quality increases, to allow for maximal energy input. Again... a crap measure, I think it's more influenced by group size and experience (age). But I am just a peon.
So... we aim for at least 8 activity budgets and 10 vigilance samples per day. We simply follow one group around as they graze in the hills then move to another if we run out of goats to sample (have to wait at least 2 hrs before we can repeat an animal).
Welcome to my life.
posted by Ian at 2:18 PM
3 Comments:
Hey ian,
i wondered what it was you were doing last 3 months , so your sittin watching goats and writing down if they are standin up or walkin or feeding...here was me thinkin you were doing something stupid too !!!
Anyway we are all looking forward to seeing you towards the end of this month, maybe try and do wha wha done las time u were here lol yup how much u remember of that? hahahaha
had a game for the school today , i had a goal taken off because the referee says i fouled but it was a bad call, it looked a good goal though, header from the corner.
had a rough weekend, got chased by alot of rough people round here and half the family were out lookin for a fight hahahaha
anyway Ian ill talk to ya soon. Take care buddy
chris
ps.u betta call a goat afta me :p chris the goat .. got a ring to it dont it
Hey pal, just checking up on how things are going. I just got back from a small trip of my own, my company sent me to Vancouver for a sales conference ... 50% sales, 50% party, 100% great time! Until next time.
Ryan
There are plenty of goats to go around. We're actually starting on a new heft group in April, so the name game will begin.
ps. that crank radio is the best thing ever! walked into the village today with it stuffed in my pack, belting the tunes.
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