• Georgia
• Betsy
• Farmer John is working on a hay shed. The building also holds the milking stand.
• Pink dawn viburnum blooming
• I finally bottled the calendula salve I made from our calendula flowers.
• I also bottled our homemade mint extract.
• There are crazy mushrooms growing in the yard.
• The Delaware chicks from this spring are starting to lay.
• The youngest chicks on the farm, a Cream Legbar and Olive Egger

The post 2016 Update – Week 44 appeared first on .

• I was bummed that only one Cream Legbar hatched. But, I was happy to have the one. However, the reason I wanted Cream Legbars was to breed them. And, this one has a wonky comb. Dang it!
• Farm Kid1 is working on redoing the goat play structure•  Farm Girl likes worms. I don’t dislike worms, but I’m not going to pick one up for the fun of it. I’m glad they don’t bother her.
• Milking Willow in my workout clothes…
• The little girls got collars.
• We have barely seen any slugs in the last couple years. We also had ducks free ranging. We haven’t had ducks for a number of months and now here is this big ol’ slug. hmmm….
• I got the ADGA paperwork in the mail. Yippey!
• Tuesday was Ladies Night at Wilco. I bought a couple things and they gave me a free bucket. Score!
• I can’t get enough of their cuteness!

The post 2016 Update – Week 43 appeared first on .

The previous hatch did not go as expected. I wrote the company from where I ordered the eggs. Their policy is no refunds, etc. since they can’t control what happens with the eggs after they leave their farm. Understandable. I still wrote them, though. Number one, as a company I would want to know when things didn’t go as planned with one of my products. Number two, I was wondering if they had any tips on how to have a better outcome if I ever decided to order hatching eggs again.

I was pleasantly surprised when the company offered to send me a replacement batch, free of charge. I graciously accepted.

When the eggs arrived I let them rest a bit longer this time before placing them in the incubator. Then I placed the 19 shipped eggs and 2 eggs from our farm into the incubator.

Well… long story short. I didn’t have any better outcome this second time around.

Of the two eggs from our farm, within the first week I knew one wasn’t developing. I don’t even think it was fertile. So, I took that one out. I was left with one of our eggs. It hatched just fine.

Of the shipped eggs, not many even made it to lock down. One hatched. A Cream Legbar this time. The last time a Black Copper Marans hatched. So, at least I got one of each.

Cream Legbar at 5 days old. Pretty cute!

Cream Legbar & Olive Egger x BCM at 3 weeks.

Hatching eggs shipped across the country apparently isn’t going to work for me. It must work for some people. But, my experience was crummy. Out of 38 total eggs shipped, 2 hatched. Not good. Not good for me mentally, not good for my pocketbook and certainly not good for the chicks.

Live and learn, I suppose.

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Warning: this is not a happy hatch day post. If reading about the bad days doesn’t interest you, you should probably skip this post.

Cream Legbars have been a breed I’d been wanting for awhile. The timing never seemed to work out and there aren’t many breeders nearby. This summer I finally decided to take the plunge and order hatching eggs from a company in the Midwest. I read good things about them. So even though I was hesitant getting eggs in this manner, I did it anyway. With all the good reviews I read, I assumed it must work out most of the time.

Shipping costs a fortune, so I ordered a few Black Copper Marans eggs to make me feel better about that expense.

I’m not gonna lie, I was teenage giddy when I unpacked this box. #soexcited

I let the eggs sit and rest for about half a day before placing them in the incubator.

When the time came, here’s what went in the incubator:
6 Black Copper Marans
13 Cream Legbar
2 Olive Egger x BCM (from our farm, similar to the ones hatched earlier)

About 36 hours into incubation I decided to check on the eggs. I went to pick an egg up to give it a slight turn and found it was stuck to the turner. We’ve done many hatches in these incubators and this was a first. The egg was stuck like glue. We had to use a scraper to get all the egg shell off the turner. There ended up being a couple more stuck in the same way.

I don’t know why they were stuck. The only thing I can think of is that the egg leaked and then hardened to the turner. But, why would they do such a thing?

All the eggs came out and I quickly washed the incubator and the turner. We got everything back to the way it should be and hoped for the best.

The next day I checked to see if any more were stuck. One Marans egg was stuck. But, just a tiny piece of shell stayed stuck to the turner. The membrane seemed intact, so I put tape over the missing shell piece and placed the egg back in the incubator.

This is not a good sign. You should not see liquid oozing from from an egg.

Between stuck eggs, rotten eggs and eggs not developing I was down to a fairly small batch at lock down:
3 Black Copper Marans
5 Cream Legbars (although, from candling I thought only 3 were actually viable)
2 Olive Egger x BCM’s (from our farm)

Just like clock work on day 21 the 2 eggs from our farm hatched perfectly.

One Cream Legbar pipped, but never finished hatching.

The other 2 I thought were developing correctly appeared to quit growing very late, not quite making it to the 21 days.

One Black Copper Marans pipped and just couldn’t zip. When there is a big hole like this, you know there is a problem. They should be zipping all the way around the egg, not staying in one place.

I have had this happen before and learned that helping them out rarely does them any favors. If they are too weak or have some other problem why they can’t get out of the egg, they usually aren’t going to survive.

However… Farm Girl and my niece had been watching all this and they begged me to help the chick out. After telling the girls the chick may still not make it even if I help it out, I carefully pulled the shell from the chick.

The poor thing didn’t look well. Shell was stuck to the feathers. Feathers were missing. It was weak.

After letting it rest, I took a warm wet towel to wipe off all the stuck on goo. Then had the girls hold it, while wrapped in a towel, to dry him/her off and stay warm.

I am happy to say the little guy pulled through. He/she is the one in the middle.

About 6 weeks later:

A quick note about the band on the leg. I put the band on to mark which chick was the full Black Copper Marans. If you use a band, make sure to check it often. As the chick grows the band gets tighter. If it gets too tight it can cause problems for the chicken.

This was a disappointing hatch. I have never had so many things go wrong.

I don’t know the reason behind the hatching troubles, but I do know the 2 eggs from our farm hatched perfectly.

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• The sunset is lovely this time of year. I took advantage of it with a few garden shots.
• The pumpkins didn’t do so well this year, but I harvested a bunch of gourds.
• The Cream Legbar is about 3 weeks old and lookin’ good.
• I brought home a White Leghorn cockerel from the neighbor’s. They didn’t want him and I’d love to have him. I enjoy leghorns. We already have a few leghorn hens, so hopefully come spring we will have leghorn babies.

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This week it’s all about the chicks we hatched over the summer.

• The one lone black copper marans chick. (top left)
• Olive Egger – Black Copper Marans x Olive Egger (top middle)
• Barnyard Mix – Rhode Island Red x Olive Egger (top right)
• Olive Eggers – Black Copper Marans x Olive Egger (middle right)
• Cream Legbar – hatched last week (bottom right)

• Many of the chicks have the featheriest shanks I’ve ever seen. For the first time, a couple of the buff colored chickens have feathered shanks.

• This hungry cooper’s hawk thought he’d get his lunch from our yard. Thankfully, that didn’t work out for him. He did, though, grab a chick that was free ranging right in front of Farm Kid2 and I. It happened so quickly, but Farm Kid2 scared him off and he let the chick go.

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• The pumpkins and squash are growing… slowly. The plants look good, they just aren’t producing much. And for some odd reason, a couple of the seeds just germinated a couple weeks ago.
• Occasionally, particularly in the summer, I like to take photos of the night sky. I didn’t get any wowing pics this time around, but it’s still fun to try.
• Tomatoes growing in a barrel. Love!
• It seems we are having more than usual squirrel and chipmunk type critters visiting us.
• We live on an unmaintained logging road. The only upkeep on the road is after a logging task or when we or the neighbors fix it. New neighbors moved in not too long ago. They fixed the road! Woop, woop! I love them already. As a small token of our thanks we brought them hard cider and apples from our trees.
• The company sent us, at no charge, a new batch of hatching eggs. There was not any better outcome than last time. This time one cream legbar hatched. Also, one of our own olive eggers hatched. Crummy, crummy, crummy. This really messed up my breeding plan. Time to come up with a new plan… without using hatching eggs shipped across the country.

The post 2016 Update – Week 36 appeared first on .

This week it’s all about eggs.

We have eggs coming out our ears. The ladies are laying great. This is a fabulous problem to be having. We are also hatching eggs.

•  For the first time ever, I ordered hatching eggs. I’ve been wanting to add to our Marans flock, but haven’t found what I was looking for locally. Also, I would like to try raising Cream Legbars and haven’t found what I wanted locally. So, I opted to order from out of state. At this point, I am unsure if I think this was a good plan. I was definitely excited to try it as this opens more options for future breeds. I was impressed at how well the eggs were packaged and that none were broken. Once I got the eggs home, I let them sit for about 7 hours before placing them in the incubator. Possibly I should have let them rest for 24 hours?

• About 36 hours into incubation, I tried to pick up an egg to give it a little turn. It was stuck like glue to the turner. The egg broke. Two more eggs did the same thing. And by stuck, I mean stuck, stuck. We had to use a scraper to get it off the turner. My guess is it was the egg leaking, then hardening. Weird. I have never had that happen before. I’ve also never had eggs shipped across the US before. At this point, I need to do more research to find out if this is a common problem with shipped eggs, or if there was something weird with this batch. Also, the egg yolk and white parts seemed a different consistency, more liquidy, than regular eggs. Coincidence? I’m not sure.

• We quickly took the eggs out and cleaned the incubator. Then, put the turner and good eggs back in.

• The next day I checked on the eggs again looking for any that might be stuck. One Marans egg was stuck just a tiny bit. When I picked up the egg a tiny piece of shell stayed in the turner. Ugh! The membrane was still intact. So, I put tape over the missing shell piece and am hoping for the best.

• Thankfully, no more have stuck since then.

• Almost a week into incubation, the majority seem to be developing. Awesome!

• However, last night I noticed a slight odor when I opened the incubator. Dang! Farm Girl and I used our detective sniffing skills to find the culprit. We found it, took it out and smashed it to see why it was stinky. Nothin’. It wasn’t developing, but it also wasn’t rotten colored. It was more liquidy, though, than I feel it should have been.

• I am conflicted on what to feel about this. It is definitely frustrating since these eggs were quite expensive. However, it is still amazing to me that I can hatch any eggs that came all the way from Ohio. The way things are going, I will be thrilled with a 50% hatch rate.

• The barn swallow babies I’ve been admiring have learned how to fly, so I’m sure they’ll be on their way soon.

• I found another nest. This time belonging to a white-crowned sparrow. So far, there are just two eggs.

• The ladies are cranking out eggs like crazy. We’re getting nearly 2 dozen every day.

• We can’t eat all the eggs we are getting, so I have been putting extras in baggies and freezing for future use.

• We have two incubators. A couple weeks ago, I set eggs in one of them for the first time this year. Right now they are busy hatching!

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