Latent Lyme disease and exercise??? a link?

As I've stated on this site, my wife and I had Lyme, Babeosis and Erlichosis. We spent about 50 grand, two years and a lot of antibiotics to get back on our feet. I've been relatively OK.

HOWEVER, I started a new project around the house. My 20,000 gallon in ground pool is surrounded by patio blocks that aren't even close to level, in fact, they look more like the Tetons. Also, I'm getting water intrusion around the coping that is wrecking the bond beam. The quotes we got were about 15 grand or so to redo the deck. I figured that since I don't belong to a gym, it might be a good thing to get some manual labor in. My 13 year old son and I have been removing blocks, knocking off the mortar, regrading, hand tamping and resetting the stones. The results are looking great.

BUT - the other day, I came down with a 24 hour 'flu'. Part of it might be that the window fan was blowing on me. But I began to think. It seems that every time I get into a heavy project, I end up with a 'flu' lasting anywhere from a day to a week.

THEORY - It is pretty much of a fact that lyme buries itself deep in the tissue. I suppose that what might be happening is that the exercise is forcing blood down into the muscle which is causing a herxheimer effect (an effect where the killing of lyme disease results in a fever). This makes sense in that, when I think about it, it seems that there is a correlation between hard exercise and the onset of a fever. I don't keep a journal so I don't have hard data on this.

ACTIONS - My first thought is that I probably want to keep up with the pool. and other regular hard exercise. (1) I need to get it done and (2) It seems like it might be killing the Lyme that is buried deep. Also, I think I need to get back to regular appointments with my massuese. She does deep tissue massage which seems to have a similar effect.

Anyway, I'd appreciate anyone who has had similar experiences if you would chime in here.

Youtube video on Lyme Disease

Here is a Youtube video about Lyme Disease.

Lyme disease is often misunderstood and misdiagnosed. This particular video covers the basics and shows some of the pain that Lyme disease sufferers endure.

Lost everything to a fox

We were down to one leghorn. All of the guineas had met their demise as well as most of the chickens. I had 10 chicks that had feathered out and I put them out in the chicken shed.

About a week ago I saw something white moving at the edge of our woods. As I ran into the backyard, I saw a fox carrying off our leghorn. There wasn't much I could do as we are in a no-discharge zone. I went back to the shed and found the corner where the fox had gotten in. All of the chicks were gone (probably as fox brunch).

So, the lessons learned

• The critters will find any weak spot in your protection. The chicken wire needs to be inspected regularly.
• Have a backup plan to battle ticks - We are still supposed to get guineas although they won't be ready to roam for a couple of months. In the meantime, I'm keeping the grass short, putting out mouse bait and will be ordering some pullets from our local poultry place.

Lyme spreads in Chester County

Lancaster Farming has an article on the spread of Lyme disease in Chester County.

A really intersting quote in the article was

“Vets are more up to date on Lyme disease than medical doctors,” Pete said of using their services for their dogs, who also have also tested positive for Lyme.

I have to agree with this. For some reason it seems that the medical community is either ignorant about Lyme, slow to treat it when they find it and unwilling or unable to provide an aggressive enought treatment regime (Perhaps large contributions by the insurance companies to our state legislators???) .

http://www.lancasterfarming.com/node/1070

Guineas in harsh winter environments - reader question

A reader emailed the following question to us

"Our neighbors have guniea hens and we have been thinking of getting some. However we live in Wisconsin and have cold winters. What would we have to do to protect these hens during the winter months? Could we let them out or would we have to keep them inside?"

I'm not that familiar with the weather in Wisconsin. I imagine it's a little more harsh than Pennsylvania. I'd check with people in your area if you can find anyone who has guineas.

Our birds are pretty wild and are not trained to live in a coop. If you can build a coop or avairy and get the birds to return to it each night, that would probably work. If you do a coop the problem is that you really need to be there each night to close it up. Otherwise a critter might get in for a late night guinea snack.

What we do is simply

• put a poultry waterer out that sits on an electric heater. You can probably purchase that at a feed store or over the internet.
• Make sure that the birds have plenty of food. We use layer pellets. We also have a regular bird feeder and they guineas (if you don't have too many of them) can scavenge what falls from the feeder.
• If we are going to be away for a while, I try to set up an automatic deer feeder loaded with layer pellets. that way, even if it snows, the feeder will dispense pellets regularly.
• The birds will usually stay in the tree until I plow at least part of the driveway. You just have to make sure that the birds dont' get in front of the snowblower.
• They can use a place where they can get in out of the snow and especially the icy rain. Our birds like to get under our picnic table. Keep in mind we have a small flock.

That pretty much takes care of it. There was one time when it was really nasty and the birds weren't doing too well. I was able to catch them by putting a towel over them. I put the tractor outside the shed with a tarp and let the birds sleep in the shed. You have to watch that they don't try to eat some of the stuff in the shed.

One goal would be to have at least a couple of birds survive the winter. The experience they pass on to the keets is invaluable in helping them survive.

Good luck...

Raccoons in the Henhouse

A couple of days ago, our son noticed that the birds were making a racket in the henhouse. It was about an hour after dark and we had locked up the henhouse at dusk.

I went out with the big handheld searchlight and saw two coons in the henhouse. It looked like they were eating the eggs and hadn't gone after the chickens yet. There isn't a whole lot of light around the henhouse so I went and got the tractor to shine it's lights on the house. While we were watching, it sounded like the coons escaped through the back of the building. (It's an old building that has seen better days).

Two of the birds came out of the house so we locked them in the other outside enclosure. I decided to go in to check on the remaining two birds, a leghorn and a rhodie. Both were sitting on their usual perch which was a metal stock tub on top of the nesting boxes at about waist height. They looked OK. I just didn't consider that they would sit there calmly if the raccoons were still in there.

Chris and I went around the back of the house to try to see how the coons got out. For the life of me I couldn't figure it out. There is a gap under the house where critters have dug access holes but the floor had seemed to be intact. I got some expanding caulk and cayanne pepper. I filled the holes with layers of cayanne and caulk. (that should keep the critters from nibbling through..)

OK, now I was getting confused, I saw no way that the little Houdinis had gotten out. I went back in again and didn't see any critters or escape routes. Now, we know that they can't teleport so there had to be another answer. Had I thought to apply Occam's Razor, the simplest solution would be that the critters were still in the shed.

Chris wanted to go in an pet the leghorn that we call 'whitey' . Against my better judgement I said Ok. As I went in, I took one last look... There was a gap of about 6" between the wall and the tub. Whitey was perched right over a clump of grey fur. I warned Chris and we immediately got out of the henhouse. Being in close quarters with two raccoons could turn deadly even without rabies.

So now, we had a dilemma, how do you get the birds out safely?? I could have shot through the wall with a .22 and hit the coons except that (1) the town is a no discharge zone (2) there are too many houses nearby anyway and (3) If the raccoons were rabid, that would put rabies tainted blood all over the place.. So, on to a plan B.

Plan B was to punch through the plastic window and use a long pvc pipe to dislodge the birds.. After about 10 minutes it was mission accomplished. We got them into the outside enclosure and pulled the henhouse door closed. Now I had two irritated raccoons trapped inside the henhouse. I wasn't sure what to do so in the words of that famous senator I figured "I'll drive off that bridge when I get to it" and turned in for the night.

I heard some commotion at about 5 am and went out to look. I saw a larger coon right outside the henhouse and it waddled off. The birds looked ok.

When it was daylight I let the birds loose and looked in the windows. There was no sign of the critters. Eventually I carefully opened the door and sure enough, they were gone. They had chewed through the bottom of the henhouse door. I found where they got in which was where the top chicken wire meets the side wire. There was just one weak spot. I took about 25 of those plastic electrical ties and closed up any and all gaps.

It occurred to me that the two coons must have gone right by the chickens when they escaped but didn't appear to go after them.

Anyway, here are some lessons learned.

• Be extremely careful if you think there are raccoons in the henhouse. I was in there three times at least and did not see them. The houses is only about 4'x8'. There isn't any clutter other than the tub. We were very lucky not to have gotten bitten or worse. Had we reached over to handle the chickens that might have been enough to cause all heck to break loose.
• Raccoons will find any and all weak spots in your henhouse. You really need to go over it periodically to make sure that there are no spots where they get in. This means going over just about every square inch looking for gaps and rusted chicken wire.
• Raccoons carry rabies and a really nasty parasite in their feces. The eggs can live for something like 10 years. If you ingest the eggs of the parasite, the worm will work it's way to your brain and eat your brain (that might explain some of the behavior in congress lately). The next day, I wet down the straw to keep the dust down, used a good mask, rubber gloves etc and cleaned the shed out. Even with the precautions, there is some risk to doing that.
• I could use a better lighting system in the shed. Harbor Freight had reasonably priced lights that were solar charged. I'm going to pick one of those up and set it up for lighting the inside of the house if I go in there at night.
• I'm not sure if a motion detecting light would help. Again, Harbor Freight has solar powered motion detecting lights. I'm not sure if that would scare the little buggers off or not. Maybe one of those halloween gadgets that screetches and cackles when you walk by would work.
• I had seen our trashcans overturned a couple of times prior. I should have been more proactive and made sure that the raccoon trap was baited and set.

Final Scores

Birds:0
Raccoons: 3 eggs
People:0

Pheasants and tics - Response to comment

Sorry to whoever posted the question asking if pheasants will eat ticks. I got fumble fingered and accidentally deleted that comment.

As I understand it, gallinaceous birds eat insects including ticks. Gallinaceous birds include grouse, pheasant, turkeys, quail, partridges etc.

The downside is that the birds can also be hosts for ticks to some extent. However, there is evidence that the presence of birds will reduce the tick population significantly. You can get some info on that study from Mother Earth News

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Livestock-and-Farming/2003-10-01/Go-Ahead-Get-Guineas.aspx