Springing Up

Gina above, the yard below.

Crookneck squash below.

Northern beans below.

Garden so far...

Close up of the greens.

jina and Goose

4.21.2016

I know i promised gardening photos in my last post, but the lovely Spring days here on the farm has allowed for some wonderful outings for the chicks.

We have a total of eight! Momma hen June, is doing an excellent job raising them. When they get time out in the yard, June teaches the chicks everything about scratching the grass to get to the dirt!

The last chick to hatch was 2 days after the previous. When I candled everything seemed A-OK but during hatch a different story emerged. Last Thursday (today is the following Thursday) I heard the chick faintly peeping. I was relieved to finally have my last one coming! At this point of 2 weeks after the first hatchling i was ready to put away the the incubator (if you are following the blog you know there were several eggs that I had separated from under momma because of the poop on them. This occurred prior to me giving momma June her own coop to hatch in peace from the other fowl. Now i know to move her earlier. So the messy eggs I had to clean and isolate them. In the end, I had 3 'bad' eggs which were developed chicks but died of an obvious bacterial infection, and oh my goodness were the eggs stinky, no need to candle or crack em open!!!! yuck!, and the rest were a successful hatch. I actually buried them because of the stink.)

Well come the next day, on Friday evening, the sound of the peeping was more intense. I checked and made sure the humidity was good, that she was on a dry paper towel, etc etc. I thought we were ready to go. Well, come Saturday morning and fully expecting the chick to be out I was surprised she was not. And when i peered in to study the egg, I quickly found out why she had not yet hatched. She was upside down and trying to hatch out of the narrow end of the egg! Luckily she was strong and she had cracked a weird round area off. The chicken uses its beak under its tiny right wing to guide it in a circumnavigational pattern to hatch off the blunt end. When the chicks hatch on the short pointy end, they can not turn because there is no room or leverage for them to spin in a circle. And even worse, most chicks die from hatching on the short end because the air sac is usually on the blunt end as well.

Well I scooped her up, walked her to the bathroom and ran my hot water. I adjusted so temp it felt just perfect and let the water pool into the palm of my hand. I slowly pulled the membrane back to open the already cracked area. Well, its all she needed, she popped that shell right off onto my hand. She also stayed seated in the shell! So, I did a quick check that the yolk was fully absorbed, that there was no blood either, I supported her and I quick snapped this beautiful photo.

 

              Last But Not Least

She sure looked happy to be finally out! I don’t blame her!

June and the Eights

I hope everyone is enjoying the early spring. We sure are.

4/9/16 Five chicks and a hen.

Did you say snow? Pretty late season snow came today. Still flurrying as i type. So I seized the moment and went out and took some photographs of the yard. Sure was pretty!

The backyard: a view from the coop.

You can easily guess the age of the chicks by how Yellow their down is. They are born very yellow and loose that colouration within a week. So, from the photograph concerning the two chicks directly in front: The front left is 9 days old. The front right is 4 days old.

backyard beauty! with the temps hovering around 33 degrees, the snow fell very wet and clung to all the branches. Sure did make for an epic photo!

This is my road out front. Sometimes during bad weather I can not even leave my driveway!

I hope you enjoyed my pretty photos! Next up... Gardening!


SpotOnFarm

chicken selfie@

Mabon is going on 2 months of age! She is so friendly, and as i write this she is upside down and laying on my lap. so cute!

First hatchling! Success!

My very first hatchling. This little one sure was determined to get on out and into this world. When he broke open his shell he peeped up a storm. His entire body rocketed out of the shell that only a lone leg was still half in. He had kicked his shell away within 5 minutes... then to much surprise, circumnavigated the entire incubator within 15 minutes (re)organizing every other egg into a jumbled heap. I have been saving various sized boxes over the past 3 weeks and so i put one in the incubator at 45 minutes to get him to settle down so he could rest and the others could develop without issue! Time line: First peeping i heard was at 6ish this morning. seven hours later came the first pip. From pip to hatch was 13 hours almost to the minute. Zipping didn’t occur till right before he kicked his way out!! Let's welcome this little guy/girl with lots of love and cuddles and mealworms :)