Day 21 for the rest

Today is day 21 for the remaining half of the incubated eggs. The first thing I did when I got home from work was check on the hen.  I noticed she had moved to the other corner of the box.  I saw two empty eggs left behind from where she had been and a black blob in the back corner of the box.  I really couldn't tell what the black blob was but I was thinking perhaps the black chick died.  Thankfully I didn't reach in to take it out because it was a big load of chicken poop.  Lol, who knows maybe it would have made for a funny blog.

I moved Broody Judy and saw a total of 5 chicks.

All of the chicks that hatched today were white.  I saw black marks on at least 2 of them.  They'll start exploring over the next couple of days and I'll be able to get a better look at them.  

I hope you enjoyed reading as they hatched.  I'll keep posting more pictures as they grow.  Oh and we're buying some more chicks on Wednesday.

Day 21 for some

April 29, 2012

In preparation for the possibility that the eggs may hatch, on Saturday, I removed the bowl of water placed a chicken waterer in the brooding area.  I put glass beads in the water so the water would be shallow and no chicks would drown.

I was not feeling optimistic about these eggs hatching after they had gotten cold.  It takes 21 days for a chicken egg to hatch. Today is day 21 for about half of the eggs under "Broody Judy".  I went out to check on the eggs and I swear I heard a peep.  No, I must be crazy!?  Well there was one way to find out. I lifted up Judy and this is what I saw...

2 chicks!!!  Yippee.  Sorry the picture isn't very good but I wanted to leave them alone.  The black chick was nice and fluffy and the brown one was fresh out of the egg.  

As of tonight at 8 PM, there were still only two chicks but that's two more then I thought we'd get.  

Another nice thing that happened today was our friend Scott, who works for our town with my husband, Steve, and owns Bergeron Lawn Care came to the house to quote us on some yard work.  We removed a 30' above ground pool last year and there was a lot of material (mostly sand) left on the ground.  We were able to barter. Scott to clean up the area and remove the sand in exchange for Steve working some of his hours.  No work required for me; I'm loving this one! :) 

As you can see, Scott has done a great job so far.  Next, we're going to order top soil and plant some grass seed.  Anyone out there want to barter for top soil?  I've got some sheep available.

I'll try to blog again tomorrow to give a status on day 21 on the other half of the eggs.  

Did they make it???

Earth Day:

Earth Day was yesterday, April 22nd.  It rained all day so we really didn't have the opportunity to do anything too "earthy" on earth day.  I spent some time in my kitchen filling my two new pantries with food from my cabinets.  We had been storing food in lower cabinets, making it difficult to access and see.  I wondered what I could do to celebrate earth day so I decided to recycle my expired food.

Recycle food?  Yup, our expired chicken broth will be mixed into the dog food at dinner time instead of water.  Our old bread crumbs and crackers are going to the chickens.  No biggie, just something little to help take up less space in the landfill.        

More About Chickens:

After finding the chicken on the wrong eggs on Friday, I was very anxious to get her moved into a separate brooding area and candle the eggs.  I set up a large wire dog crate on the floor of the coop and put her new laying box in it.

As Steve and I moved her eggs into the new box, I candled each of them.  1 of the eggs looked like it stopped developing at least a week ago so I tossed that one.  It looked like 7 of them had a good amount of development but I didn't see any movement.  It did look like there was a little flicker of movement in 1 of the eggs.  It was hard to tell because I was candling fast during the move.

(See how much darker the egg is as the chick develops and takes up more room?)

I placed the 8 partially developed eggs with Broody Judy in the new box.  I'm not optimistic about them hatching at this point but I'm hoping we get at least 1 chick.  After all of her hard work Judy deserves to be a mother.  If none hatch, I may try to find day-old chicks and trick her into thinking her eggs hatched  by sneaking them under her at night.  

Tonight we'll be sleeping with our window opened.  Steve came home and saw a fox scoping out the hens.  The best access to the coop is inside of the sheep pen so we'll be listening for any sounds of distressed animals outside.  We've got the gun ready to go just in case.

Brooding worries

Chicken eggs hatch after just 21 days so we're almost two thirds of the way there.  On Friday (April 20th), I decided that I'd move my brooding hen, Broody Judy, into a laying box on the floor.  I looked around for a box I had used in the past or anything else I could use for that matter.  I didn't have much luck so I decided to just build a new one.  It won't be winning any construction awards but for some scrap plywood and a few minutes of time, it'll work. 

I'll be putting the box in the coop on Sunday.

Earlier today (April 21st) I gave my chickens some strawberries and left over strawberry cake from my birthday last week.  It was so funny seeing them dig into the cake and have frosting all over their beaks!  Like a good future mom, Judy didn't leave her box to chow down.  I delivered a strawberry to her laying box.  This was at about noon.

I returned home at about 9 that night and decided to collect the eggs laid and close up the coop for the night.  I was shocked to see Judy was not in her laying box.  She must have gotten out and returned to the wrong box.  Her eggs were cool to the touch.  I placed her back on her eggs but now I don't know if any will hatch.  :(  

Tomorrow, I'll candle the eggs to look for any movement.  If any made it I'll move them to the new box for hatching next week.  Fingers are crossed.

Little Losses

This week has been full of tiny little losses but don’t worry they’re not all bad…

Loss 1: Tulips

Last year I had planted a large variety of tulips in a bed by my front door.  They had come up but hadn’t yet opened (they were SO close).  Right before they opened my sheep ate them and ripped the bulbs right out of the ground.  I was very upset but I knew it was my fault for letting the sheep out to graze. 

This year I ordered new tulips.  I left them in the pots and planed on planting them later on.  I made a mental note NOT to let the sheep out and I had been really good about it.

On April 13, 2012, my husband, Steve, went outside at 10 PM and noticed 2 “fur balls” walking around by his car.  Yup, those brats broke out of their pen, found my tulips and ate them.  Thankfully they didn’t get all of them. 

BTW, is anyone hungry for lamb stew?  J.K.

Loss 2: Fence

I almost forgot about this one.  Obviously the sheep got out for a reason.  Our fence post had cracked a while back (ok, perhaps I cracked it when I hit it with the bucket of the tractor).  This winter the crack finally gave in and the pole was pretty much useless.  We rigged something up to hold it in place until we had time to fix it. 

The sheep have broken out a few times so on Sunday we cleaned out a poop load of poop and replaced the broken post.  A new gate will be going in soon.

 Loss 3:  Hair

This one is exciting… Andrew got his first haircut!  His curls are already coming back.

Loss 3: Egg

This one makes me a little sad L.  I wanted to check in on Broody Judy and candle some of her eggs to see how they were coming along. 

On Sunday, April 15, the eggs were 6-7 days old, depending on the egg.  I went out to the coop and picked Judy up to put her on the ground to try and convince her to eat and drink something.  When I picked her up she somehow grabbed onto an egg with her feet and it fell to the ground.  

I candled a few of the eggs and the ones I checked were all fertilized… check out the veins

I opened up the cracked egg to check out the development.     

Judy is still sitting on her 9 other eggs and I’m hopeful they’ll all hatch. 

As for the flowers, at least someone was able to enjoy them too bad it was the sheep. 

Easter chickens

I grew up on a hobby farm and my husband, Steve, grew up in a city.  We've combined our two lifestyles and have ended up with a small variety of animals.  We bought our house 5 years ago and I couldn't wait to bring livestock home.  Steve was a little harder to convince of how great it would be so I bought him 3 chickens to prove that not only could he handle "outside" animals but they're fun.  In time those 3 (named after Hugh Hefner's girlfriends at the time: Holly, Bridget, and Kendra) passed away for a variety of reasons.  We continued to introduce more and more chickens into our coop.  Sadly, at the end of the summer 2011, our chickens were attacked and killed.

We bought and hatched some replacements hens and kept them at my family's farm (Wintonbury Farm) for the winter.  On Easter morning, I picked out six (6) hens to bring home.  2 mystery breeds (mixes), 2 Columbians, 1 Rhode Island Red, and 1 Leghorn.

The purebred hens I chose were the most beat up looking ones.  I felt bad for them and I can't wait to watch their appearances change as their feathers grow in.  

I picked the black mystery breed hen because she's pretty.  I picked out the little brown hen because I wanted a broody hen.  Of the 3 brooding hens on the farm, she was the only one that didn't try attacking me :)  She is currently the only one with a name, "Broody Judy".

Since the hens had been with roosters, their first couple of eggs should have been fertilized (hopefully). I've marked the eggs and I'm allowing Broody Judy to sit on them.  Talk about a happy girl...

My son, Andrew, is a year old and he's not quite sure what to think about these crazy chickens yet.  We went into the coop today and he clung on tight.  We opened up the coop to the run for the first time and he enjoyed standing outside of the coop and watching the hens walk around in their run.  I have a feeling he wont be ending up with any of his father's city mentality. :)

Andrew and his Poppa