Finally not a chicken failure

At least not a, letting a hen hatch out some eggs failure. It's only taken four years, but it finally worked.

Making babies, We're in lockdown

We're on try number three incubating eggs. Three days before they're due to hatch you're supposed to take the eggs out of the turner, if you have one, lay them flat, add water to the incubator to increase the humidity, close the lid, and leave them the crap alone. No opening it for anything. Not for the first few chicks hatched. Quit turning the eggs, just keep your damned fingers out of the incubator. Yeah, that's gonna be hell for me.

I want to see what's going on inside those shells. I want to shine a light through the shell and see what's going on. So I compromised. I candled them all after I removed the turner. Out of 32 eggs

All ready for Winter

I haven't been really good about getting home from work with there being enough daylight left to get any good pictures of what's been going on. I took a few crappy pics with the phone this afternoon after I got everyone fed and watered.

Scott got the frost free hydrant that was freezing up on us all last winter, dug out and fixed. Teh Boy gave him a hand while he was down for Turkey Day. It's so nice not having to have to have yet another extension cord stretched across the yard to run the hot tape to keep the water faucet from freezing. I still have to drain hoses after every time I run water through it. Scott has taken over most of the morning chores for me and he gets the waters filled for me.

Speaking of water, it was becoming a huge hassle to keep the steers watered. It got cold enough that going out and busting the ice off the water troughs wasn't working. They were froze solid all the way through. Dragging hose across Andrea's property, across the road, and out to the pasture, twice a day, then dragging all that hose back, and making sure it was drained so it didn't freeze wasn't worth keeping the boys out on the pasture any more. Now they are in the round pen. We got em moved Mon after I got home. One cord to the front of the house and they have a tank heater. We threw some straw out to keep them off the snow and mud. Norman has some serious fuzz going on.

While the boys were down for Turkey day, Mike helped me bring the brooder pen Scotty made for me, back into the garage. It was still out next to the chicken condo from when we moved the second batch of meat birds outside. Speckles and her little chick are in it now, all cozy in the garage. When I bring the water bowls in for the rabbits, they unfreeze, so I know she can keep the little chicky warm. They are out of any draft, and the other chickens, or predators can't get to it. I still don't know yet if it's a pullet, or a cockerel chick, but I'm leaning towards pullet. It's going to have Barred Rock coloring. 

The big chickens outside have their heated water dug out of the garage, cleaned out, and plugged in.

The ground looks ugly. We had weird weather this year. No rain really or snow to speak of. It was getting into the high 40's during the day, maybe the low 50's. Then BAM, Cold. Down into the negative numbers in the morning, teens during the day. The ground didn't have any moisture to make it freeze. When we finally got snow it was that really dry powdery stuff and it mixed with the dry powdery, sandy soil underneath it. My front yard looks like someone took dirt, and sprinkled white playground sand in it.

The ponies have their blankets on and they're off the pasture too. They're in the dry lot right next to the haystack so I can feed easier. Then hop the electric fence and feed Dave's horses.

Scott got a good chunk of the firewood bucked up into rounds and the biggest rounds split to fit in the stove.

The wood rack he built for me last year is working perfectly. It takes me two wheel barrow loads to fill it, and filled it will last me about three or four days. 

Connie has been working over at Valley Country Store. Scott is still working nights (which I hate) at IMP. I'm still grooming dogs at WindSwept Kennels. 

I Haza Baby Chickenz!!

Actually I have two little chicks. Two little, home grown, my own broody hatched, chicks.

The Austra White hen, Speckles, decided three weeks ago that she wanted to set that day's eggs I hadn't collected yet. With my two failed attempts already, I figured why the hell not? Sure it's getting to be cold, and there is likely to be snow on the ground soon. Not like any of them are gonna hatch anyway. I thought Tues this last week was going to be the hatch date, and I wasn't terribly surprised when Tues came and went with no chicks. 

I did remember to mark the eggs this time and I knew she stole two more, so I thought I'd just let her set a few more days to see what happens. Color me giddy when I got home Thurs night and picked her up to peek under her. A little fuzzy chick was peeping under there. It was too dark to really see anything, but today I got pics. She hatched out a second chick Fri morning too. 

YAY, /HappyDance

I don't have any idea who the baby daddy is. Neither of them have a puff on their heads. The black one does have a little yellow spot. I'm just tickled pink that we Haza Baby Chickenz!!!!

Broody chickens 0 for 2, Chicks, Tractoring

So I didn't get anything to hatch. Again. The first time last year the roo was a dud. All the eggs had turned into liquid yellow water on the inside. None of them developed anything. This year we got a little further than that. I finally did eggtopsies Wednesday. That was day 25. They should have started hatching out Friday night or Saturday morning if they were going to.

I won't post pictures of all the gory insides. First off, ick, and second, my hands were covered in liquid chicken bits and no way I was going to be able to take pictures like that. Out of the 10 eggs we started with, and the 4 more she stole, 5 actually had something in them, besides yellow water. Four chicks looked like they made it to about day 17-ish I'm guessing. They still had large egg sacks attached to their bellies. All four of them were about the same size. Day 17-ish was also the day the broody hen stole a thin shelled egg and it broke over the others in the nest.

The last developing chick had actually pipped, or broken through, the inner membrane of the egg into the air cell in the top. From there it should have hatched, but again, eggs got broken over the nest. This time I think it was a squabble with someone wanting to lay in the box the broody was in. Now that the creepy meats are free ranging I haven't been banning the older hens from the chicken house. They had been laying under an overturned feed bin. I'm just guessing, but either the broken eggs coated the outside of the developing eggs and suffocated them, or there was some sort of bacterial or other ick transfer into the eggs.

I've been throwing the broody hen, Crooked Toes, out of the nest box trying to break her of her broodiness. No eggs, but she still wants to set in there. They don't leave the nest or lay eggs when they are setting and she's getting skinny. Once a day they run out, eat as much as they can hold, drink deeply, take the biggest broody poop you ever saw, and maybe sneak in a dust bath before returning to set and zone out. It's time for her to start eating and laying again.

Instead of wanting to set, today she decided to adopt all the older chicks out in the yard.

The older hens just chase them around like big bullies when they come in the feed. Not her, she bullies everything but them. This morning she fluffed all up, spread her wings like a strutting turkey and went after Bastard, the cat, when he got too close to the chicks. When I got home this afternoon she was laying out with them. I could see them darting nervous looks at her, just waiting to get pecked on the head like the other hens do. After I fed she got closer and closer as they ate. When they realized she wasn't going to chase them off, they all gathered around her. She kept setting down and spreading her wings trying to cover any chick that got near enough, never mind that at five weeks old, the creepy meats are almost her size. That one white one in front of her is a White Rock pullet, and the rest are creepy meats. 

She's actually making cooing noises at the White Rock chick as it preens it's feathers. All around I guess they're all happy now. Next time I get a broody, I'll put her, her eggs, and some shavings in a dog carrier, move the whole shebang into the brooder, and make sure she only has good sturdy eggs. It's gonna be a little while, since we put Kato in the freezer, and the new little pecker head is only five weeks old.

And now for shots of the newest chicks. No, I didn't get any more. I promised Scott I wouldn't bring home anything else that eats. Pete at Valley Co-op sure tried his hardest to get me to buy a turkey chick or two the last time I was in there though. It was hard to say no, but I did.

Growing by leaps and bounds they are. They just started using the branches as perches. Some of the them are really getting very pretty feather colors. Almost makes me want to keep one or two of the pullets as egg layers and see what I get for chicks with a cross with the Sagittas. The little Banty pullets is still tiny. The Easter Eggers are changing color as their feathers come in. I'm excited to see if they lay blue or green eggs. 

Scott borrowed Uncle Mike's tractor again this year. He tilled and corrugated the garden for me. It's been hard to not rush right out and plant anything, but a good rule of thumb around here is to not put anything in the ground until Memorial Day. Good thing too, cause we got frost last night. 

 The garden before, and full of weeds. 

Scott working working some tractor magic.