Two weeks old!

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

3/31/16 June's first hatch

What a lovely surprise! I moved June three nights ago to this hutch so that she could be alone to brood. Her coop mates were stressing her out so much and kept laying eggs into her nest. This lead to some dirty pile ups and 14 eggs under her. I currently have 5 of the dirtiest eggs in a brooder in my house. And left 9 under her. Not sure if the dirty 5 will make it, but i wiped the eggs best I could with warm water. For June I now use tiny containers for water and food. I have placed them nearby on a ledge. I made sure she was off layer feed and back onto regular food. I was definitely very nervous to move her since I knew the due dates started tomorrow, and ran till the 7th of April. Moving her at night seemed to be a good trick and she laid right back down on the nest.

Here is June looking all happy! She is no longer as pale as she was last week.

 The best news is, we already have 2 chicks. Here you can see a very healthy one peeping out from his mom. I bugged her three times, and so now ill give her another day till i check under her again. :)

Spring is definitely here! What loveliness to bear witness too. I enjoy having a broody hen far more than an incubator.

Happy Spring! 

Orusts in the snow.

What incredible camouflage! Some nights these birds do not go in to roost, and it takes putting on the flood lights and using a headlamp to find them. Here they are in broad daylight in the bush looking very much so like mottled leaves against the snow!

Here is a pic of them sunbathing best they can!

Enjoy! And we will post soon again! 

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!

Mabon and the curious egg..

Hello everyone! The last 2 hatchlings just appeared this morning. The pips last night were the giveaway of their arrival. I slept right through the hatch, well, for these last two at least. I have been waking up at 2am for the other 4 hatches and coupled with work and home life schedules, I am beat!

mabon

mabon

All my hatches went according to plan except for one little guy whom i was EXPECTING a welsummer. I collected an egg i assumed was an egg from the Welsummers. It was in the Welsummer coop, it was a brown egg, and it was very large, even a little bit larger than the normal welsummer eggs i had been getting. For sure it was a welsummer egg!


 But when this little guy/girl started to hatch i saw the color of the down was NOT a welsummer. It was black. link to my welsummer parent flock.

After he pooped out it reminded me of my silver-laced pullet i have whom at the time of lay, would have been only 19 weeks. So, Is it possible on of the Orusts got to her on my watch for those couple hours the boys got out on the 16th of Sept?? And then is it possible for the Silver-Laced Wyodette, named Samantha to go up to the nesting boxes in the welsummer coop to lay an egg the very next day instead of the only coop she has known?? Oh the webs we weave!


As i can not be certain why or whom or when, BUT I am so very curious (and enthralled by this cuteness) to attempt a second hatch of this colouration. :) So, as soon as my incubator is disinfected and dry. I will be looking to plan out a November hatching date :)

Enjoy!