Our second hatch of 2017 resulted in Easter Egger, Oliver Egger, White Leghorn, and Delaware chicks.

DEVELOPING

Candling an egg on Day 5. This egg looks good. You can see the embryo in the middle surrounded by blood vessels. You can also see the air cell at the top of the egg.

Both our egg turners have quit working. So, I set these eggs right in the incubator and turned them by hand.

HATCHING

One egg pipped!

CHICKS!

I adore this one. It has a unique pattern for our flock.

White Leghorns

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This first hatch batch of 2017 was in preparation for the Spring Poultry Homesteading Faire.

In the past, many people at the Faire have shown interest in Marans. Currently, we do not have a Marans rooster. So, instead I focused on Olive Eggers. I also hatched White Leghorns and Delaware chicks.

Love this! Farm Girl asked if instead of reading to me she could read to the eggs. “Yes! Yes, of course you can!”

THE EGGS IN LOCKDOWN

WHITE LEGHORN

DELAWARE

I banded the Delaware’s to identify them from the White Leghorns. A word of caution if you use bands: watch them carefully and remove them before they get too tight on the chicken.

OLIVE EGGERS

Many of our Olive Eggers hatch looking quite similar to our Black Copper Marans – makes sense since many are crossed with Marans hens.

The egg tooth is easy to see on this dark friend.

I adore this fluffy little fella. He/she even has feathered shanks. Most of our chicks that have feathered shanks are black, so this one is unique.

This hatch many chicks do not have feathered shanks.

But, some do.

Another successful hatch of cutie patooties.

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Most birds and reptiles have an egg tooth, which is an essential part in the hatching process. On birds, it is small, sharp, and sits at the tip of the upper beak.

The egg tooth is the cream colored pointy object at the end of the beak of this chick:

While chicks are developing they need oxygen. Since egg shells are porous, chicks receive oxygen through the pores. As hatching day nears, though, the chick gets too large for oxygen to flow well. It is then that chicks use their egg tooth to break into the air cell inside the egg to get more oxygen.

There is a limited amount of oxygen available in the air cell, so soon they use the egg tooth to pip a small hole in the outer shell. Then they rotate and unzip the egg shell.

In the cracked part of the shell the beak and egg tooth are visible in this photo:

White Leghorn chick pushing itself out of the unzipped egg shell.

This Easter Egger is resting after a long day.

This 2 day old chick still has its egg tooth, but within the next day or two it will fall off.

HAPPY HATCHING!

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White leghorns are another of my favorite birds to have on our farm. They are a basic, no nonsense bird. They rarely cause any trouble. They eat. They lay eggs.

They are on the flighty side, so aren’t the best choice for a pet chicken. But, as part of our barnyard flock they are perfect.

Our birds are not American Poultry Association show quality birds. They are, however, fabulous backyard birds for egg laying & meat purposes.

Chicks

White leghorns are the super cute, pale yellow, fluffy chicks that you can’t resist at the feed store.

Coloring

Comb, face, & wattles: bright red
Eyes: reddish bay
Ear lobes: white
Beak: yellow
Shanks & toes: yellow

Hens

These two are enjoying a refreshing summer drink from our pond.

White leghorns are good foragers.

Of course, they also like kitchen scraps.

Roosters

We have pretty good luck with well behaved roosters on our farm. This guy, however, is on my shit list. He has attacked me.

Outside of his bad attitude, I think he’s quite a handsome fella.

Eggs

The #1 reason to have White Leghorns in your flock is their large, white egg. They are great egg layers, producing 4 or 5 eggs each week. They are such great layers that they are the breed commercial egg producers use for a typical carton of eggs sold to grocery stores.

White Leghorn Bonus

On a personal note – an added bonus the white leghorn has going for it is that it originated from Tuscany, Italy. Swoon! I love to travel. I have made it to Italy once… but not to the Tuscany area. It is a part of the world that is on my must-see bucket list. Maybe I need to go there to do chicken research…

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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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Already well in to Augsut and here’s what going on:

• Tilapia feeding time
• An Easter Egger has decided to sit on eggs in the goat house.
• There is a cucumber growing in the herb barrel that I didn’t plant. Weird. It’s doing well, so I’m leaving it.
• Farmer John made me a hall table out of an old closet door. I love it! It holds cookbooks and cookie cutters.
• White leghorns are one of my favorite breeds for egg laying. They don’t eat a ton, and not too much disrupts their laying.
• A deer and our goat, Sven, ate dinner together one evening. Neither one seemed bothered by the other.
• For the first time I harvested mint to make mint extract. It’s sitting nicely in the cupboard for awhile. Hopefully it turns out as good as my friend’s did.
• I’m also making calendula oil for the first time. I love the calendula flower and I’m excited to turn it into a salve or soap.
• Farmer John picked peaches at a local orchard and canned them. He would have liked to have canned more, but he ran out of time.

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• A pile of feathers is never a good sign. Somethin’ got one of our free range roosters. From the way the feathers were spread out, I’m guessing it was a bobcat. They tend to leave piles of feathers in various places as they’re carrying the bird away.

• Lots of goodies are off to an early start in the greenhouse – like the Mexican Sour Gherkins.

• The swallows are still busy darting around. Love them.

• A few weeks ago Farmer John cemented posts in a bucket for me. However, once he learned I wanted to plant herbs around them he decided the pressure treated boards weren’t the best option. So, he redid the buckets with metal posts.

• The first mowing of the year was needed.

• We had a four legged visitor this week while our friends were off soaking in the rays in Hawaii.

•  A number of our hens are going broody. When a free range hen goes broody, we don’t tend to disturb her. However when one goes broody in one of our coops, it tends to throw off egg laying for many of the ladies. So, the broody’s have been relocated to the chicken tractors.

• I’ve been pulling weeds by the bucketfuls. I am never caught up, but every little bit helps.

• 2 white leghorns just chillin’ midday.

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• I’m fighting with Canadian thistles in all my flowerbeds. They are definitely my least favorite weed and unfortunately are quite prolific around here.

• Meanwhile the garden is battling with a broadleaf weed. They are just as difficult to get rid of as the Canadian thistle. They just aren’t pokey, so they don’t tick me off quite as much.

• Farmer John tilled a section in the garden, so we moved a few of the seedlings I started to that plot. Also planted were onion starts and a few seeds.

• I gave the rye grass fodder to the chickens. They devoured it.

• The ajuga is blooming in my favorite color.

• Bugs are coming out like crazy. The kids & I spotted a bug we haven’t noticed before. I thought it looked similar to a dragonfly, except it looks mean like a wasp.

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Now that the holidays and traveling are over, I decided to take a look around outside to see what needs done for spring. What I noticed was that winter is definitely upon us. It is a foggy, muddy mess out there. Not even the heather plants, which I love, can brighten the gloominess.

Here’s a quick run down on the state of our outdoor area we call home:

• Chicken Coops – muddy

• Garden – muddy

• Flowerbeds – muddy, weedy and in need of trimming

• Front Porch – Our wreath got taken off the door. However, only moved as far as the porch. The dog and chickens have been enjoying napping on it.

• More on the Front Porch – I set a small pumpkin on a table in the fall. It was simple, yet festive and cute. It’s still there – only now old and gross. One would think instead of taking a photo, I’d actually toss it in the compost pile. Nope. It’s still there.

• Flowerbeds & Off in the Bushes – We go through an incredible amount of feed, which means we have many, many feed sacks around. Sometimes I collect them for projects. Sometimes they get thrown away. And… sometimes they get left where they were opened or even placed beside the garbage can. Guess what happens to those? They decorate my yard and surrounding areas. The wind just whisks them away until a bush catches them. The strip that was pulled off to open the sack gets whisked away, as well. Ugh.

Spring will be here before I know it and the days will be filled with cleaning winter’s mess.

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This week was a lot less eventful than last week. And, I’m so very glad. We just had to tend to all the everyday feedings and such.

•  It’s warming up, but the first half of the week involved walking oh so carefully in the icy conditions to feed all the critters.

• The rain has returned. A tad more than I would like.

• The ducks are still content playing in the puddles on the patio. And so, the patio continues to be covered in poop.

• A few of the chickens, including a white leghorn, are not looking their best in the muddy conditions.

• Not many, but, we are getting a few eggs during these winter months.

• Pictured top right is our Old English Game Bantam. I think he’s quite handsome. He’s meant to be a 4H show chicken, but since none of our kids are participating in 4H this year he just gets to be our pet without the stress of showing off.

• Oliver, the pot bellied pig, and his goat friend, Lois, are still with us. Every morning I feed them in their shelter, but Lois always comes back out to get an extra hand out from me.

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