It's Still All About The Chickens

Buff Orpington chicks

Well it continues to be all about the chickens around here. (oh and yes, some ducks). Some Buff Orpington chicks hatched last weekend and some more are hatching today.

The weather is beautiful, though it is almost too warm out in the sun.

Welsh Harlequin Ducklings

hoop coop

Do you remember the hoop coop I built the first of the year? Remember how little the chickies were? Well all of those babies are growing up. The boys are starting to crow and a couple precocious girls have begun to lay tiny little eggs. (ignore all the junk laying around....)

The new chicken house

I've been working on the new chicken house whenever I can. It is post and beam construction and has required the digging of 8 post holes through rock and the caliche which is like concrete. Sometimes it has taken me two days to dig one hole. But I do go slow and easy and take frequent breaks. I don't have time to hurt myself! But this morning I finally got the last hole dug! The last four posts are plumb, braced and the concrete is poured! Oh Yeah! I might even have a drink to celebrate! The rest of the construction will be easy peasy compared to what the post holes have been!

And why do I go to so much trouble? Because I am having a lot of fun with my chickens. I love to get all the different colors of eggs each day. Can't wait until my Black Copper Marans start laying and add dark chocolate brown to the egg basket!

Eggs from March 12, 2013

SURPRISE!

pullet eggs

Well I had quite a little surprise when I went out to feed the babies this morning. Well I suppose at 3 & 4 months old they aren't really babies any more. Teenagers now, I guess.

Well there were two tiny little pullet eggs in the coop.

tiny first eggs

Two little cross breed pullets had laid their first eggs. These girls are only 16 weeks old. You can see how tiny their eggs are. They will get larger in a few weeks.

Their mammas were the barred rock banties hens I bought last year and their daddy was a mean Buff Orpington rooster. When he became even more human aggressive than he had been, I had mean rooster soup.

 These two girls are very sweet and calm natured. When I get the new  chicken house and pens built I think I will breed them to my Easter Egger boys and see what we get.

Harvest Monday

Duck egg at 6 days of incubation

Welcome to Harvest Monday, sponsored by Daphne's Dandelions, this is a great blog hop to share you garden with others from around the world.

This week has been all about eggs. I have some duck and chicken eggs in the incubator and Friday was day 6 for them. The duck eggs are big and white and easy to see into when you candle them. Here you can see the red blob that is the embryo, with the spiderweb of veins that supports it.

Chicken and duck eggs from 2/22/13

I have several breeds and mixed breeds of chickens which are beginning to lay now. The big white eggs are from the Muscovy ducks and the slightly smaller ones are from the Welsh Harlequin. The green and blue ones from the Easter Egger chickens, the brown ones from my Buff Orpingtons, Welsummer and Welsummer crosses.

eggs from 2/23/13

On Saturday my third Easter Egger started laying, a tiny bluish egg, there in the center. The Muscovy girl seems to have rolled her egg through the mud.

eggs from 2/24/13

Today another new girl started laying; a mix between a Cochin and a Rhode Island Red. That tiny egg at the top center is her first one. I am really excited to have such fun eggs! I'll be selling chicks pretty soon and I'll have eggs to sell at the farmer's market this summer.

Snow!

The weather has been really crazy this week. It snowed on Wednesday. Then yesterday it was so warm I was working outside in a t-shirt and this morning it snowed again!

As you can see not much going on in the garden outside right now!

Harvest Monday

Green Eggs!

Welcome to Harvest Monday! This is a great blog hop sponsored by Daphne's Dandelions, stop by and visit with gardeners from around the world!

I have been gone for awhile because of an issue with my IP and my Google accounts. I couldn't access any of my G. accounts for a long time and couldn't even make a comment on anyone's blogs! I am so glad that I was able to get things resolved with the help of a friendly fellow over on the Google Help Forums.

Now I have some easter egger chickens that lay green and blue eggs. My first one has been laying a couple of weeks, that's her egg on the left. And today another girl started laying, that's her egg on the right. There's a third pullet that should start laying soon and then some more that aren't old enough yet. I'm hoping someone will lay a really blue egg, but not holding my breath.

Got Eggs?

 In the carton here, the white eggs are from my Welsh Harlequin duck, the small pinkish one is from one of the Buff Orpingtons that survived the dog attack last fall. It's amazing she lived; the dog's tooth got her right at the back of her comb, straight into her head. She's blind in one eye and acts a bit goofy but otherwise has made a complete recovery. The light brown eggs are from her sis and the darkest ones from my Welsummer pullet. And of course the green ones from the easter eggers.

Tomato seedlings under lights

I've been trying to get some things planted outside and in. I was so busy over the fall that I didn't get a lot of my usual stuff planted, like peas. I could plant some now, but won't get that many before it is too hot and dry for them, so think I'll just wait and put them in this fall. I do have a small patch of lettuce to pick from and a bigger patch planted. And I've started the tomatoes and peppers under lights in the house.

New Chicken House

I've started a new chicken house, this one will be 12x24 feet. This one is pole barn style and here I've gotten the first two posts set. The ground here is solid caliche clay, which is like trying to dig through concrete, plus a lot of rocks. It has been slow going to dig the holes, but once all of the posts are set it will get easier and faster. (The old tires are part of an erosion control retaining wall I'm building in the wash below this flat piece of ground.)

free wood

This week I also managed some free wood. While some is very short lengths, some is of great usable sizes and kinds.


It'll be a bit before I can get caught up on my harvest tallies, but I have harvested quite a few pounds of duck and chicken meat over the winter also.

Nov & Dec Babies

The chicks hatched or bought in November and December are really growing fast out in the hoop coop. Unfortunately it was a great year for roosters, so many of these boys are destined for freezer camp. By the way that red feed tray is actually the top tray from an old tool box which I found in my junk pile.

Daffy

And today a promise of spring, a clump of daffodils in the front yard is blooming. Seems like we might have a short winter again this year.

Where Have I Been?

Easter Egger rooster

Where have I been? Well there has been an issue with my internet provider. They made changes to their email platform which caused an issue with my Google accounts. This meant that I have not been able to log into and do anything in Blogger or any of my other Google accounts. The issue is finally resolved and now I'm able to access everything once again.

In the meantime I was working my regular job and trying to keep up with things around home. I didn't get as much done in the garden as I had intended over the fall. I have been busy tending to my ducks and chickens. After the dog attack wiped out my layer flock I picked up a lot of young Easter Eggers. Hatcheries call them AmerIcauna. However, they are not a true breed and the spelling of the true breed of chicken is Ameraucauna. Those are a breed that lay blue eggs. The hatchery birds are usually Ameraucauna mixed with other breeds of chickens and they may lay any shade of blue or green egg, occasionally such a light brown it is almost pink.

Eggs from Feb 3

In the ones that I got there are 3 pullets  that are now 5 months old and one has been laying for about a week.

Some of the other girls are also laying now. At the top of the picture, the white egg is from my Welsh Harlequin duck, clockwise the next two are from the Buff Orpington pullets that survived the dog attack. The next three are from the Welsummer and Welsummer cross girls and then the cute little green egg from the Easter Egger.

December chicks

In December I hatched some chicks from shipped eggs and a few I had on hand from my layers after the dogs killed them. In this pick the one in the feed bowl is a blue Ameraucauna, pure bred. The little brown one with chipmunk stripes is a Welsummer. The larger black chicks are Black Copper Marans that were shipped to me from Texas. Due to horrible delays by the post office only 5 chicks out of 20 survived.

hoop coop

So I built a hoop coop, which could also become a greenhouse if I don't need it for chickens.

Chicks in the hoop coop

The black & white and gold & black chicks are from the layers that I lost. The white ones are definitely boys, to gold ones could be girls, but I'm not positive yet.

Fried Chicken

The boys are named Fried Chicken and Swims with Dumplings, they are mixed breed and I don't need them for breeding, so they will go to freezer camp when they are big enough. The girls can stick around as layers.

Black Copper Marans

Besides the shipped chicks, I also hatched out 2 Black Copper Marans chicks from shipped eggs, but I think they are both boys. I also purchased chicks from another breeder and drove nearly 5 hours to pick them up.

Out of 20 chicks it looks like I might have 4 girls. That's the way my chicken luck went all year.

I'll try and get some pictures of garden happenings this weekend, if it doesn't actually snow like they are saying it will.....

Harvest Monday

Squash!

Wow I can't believe I have miss a couple or three weeks here! Just my crazy life! I love Harvest Monday, hosted by Daphne's Dandelions, stop over there to hook up with loads of other gardeners from around the world.

The past couple of weeks I've been trying to get all the squash vines cleared out so I can get some more stuff planted. This is my little love seat covered in squash because I don't have any place to put it! All of these tromboncinos are from the two vines on the greenhouse; there were still a lot of small green ones that I didn't take a picture of. There are still a few more outside on the rabbit pen and the patio! The dark green squash are buttercups and the yellow ones are spaghetti. The average Tromboncino weighed around 10 pounds; the biggest one was almost 17! I think there is probably over a hundred pounds there, but I haven't had time to add up the tally sheet yet.

I have managed to get all the vines off the greenhouse and out of the back garden. Tomorrow when it warms up a bit I'll get the plastic up on the greenhouse frame. The bad news is that I think a skunk has moved in under the house through a hole on this side. I could hear something under the bathtub and when I was working outside I'd get a whiff of skunk once in awhile.

bell peppers

green chili

I also picked all the peppers ahead of our first frost and cleared out the bed. I have a bit of extra time off this week so hopefully will get some more crops planted; I am waaaay behind schedule!








In other news I lost one of my Welsummer cross pullets to an owl the other night, so had to spend some time stringing bird netting over the pen. So far so good. One of those young ones is getting a red comb, so should start laying soon.




My Buff Orpington pullets have begun to lay cute little pullet eggs and two out of the three old banties are laying. The older Welsummers are not laying a lick, but they are pushing 5 years old. I did have to cull one; picked her up to look her over because she just didn't look that good and found a large hard mass in her abdomen. Autopsy showed a huge tumor, took up about a third of her body cavity, poor thing, no wonder she didn't look so hot. It became detached as I was pulling it out of the body cavity so I'm not sure where it originated from, the intestines or the ovary.

I have some eggs in the incubator due to hatch on Thursday; fingers crossed but most of them were shipped and got scrambled by the PO. Some I can't see into, so it's just a wait and see game right now.

Welsummer chicks, one month

I already have chicks in the living room, but hope to get them outside soon. The four Welsummer chicks hatched Oct 6. One boy and three girls. Not bad. That's the boy on the right. We'll see what he looks like when he grows up; he might be a breeder or he might be dinner!

And there were three baby bunnies in the nest box  when I checked this morning so yeah! Lots of good eating coming my way.

More chickies on the way!

Hatching Eggs

OOPS! boy I didn't realize it's been a couple of weeks! Life has been a bit crazy and time is just flying by! I can't figure out where Aug & Sep went, let alone what happened to Oct!

Well my first incubator hatch came off so successful that I decided to do some more eggs. I bought some that were shipped to me. Shipping lowers the hatch rate because the eggs tend to get scrambled by the PO, even when marked FRAGILE.  The pale green eggs were in a box, marked fragile and one corner of the box was crushed in. The eggs were well packed, each egg individually wrapped in bubble wrap, placed in a smaller box in the center of the big box with more packing between the two boxes. Even so the egg closest to the crushed corner was cracked. The orange blob is some crayon was I melted over the crack to help keep out bacteria, just in case the egg actually was able to grow. Those pale green eggs are from chickens called Easter Eggers, which is not a standardized breed of chicken, but crosses between Ameraucauna and other breeds. Also, Amercauna chickens that are not up to the Standard of Perfection and cannot be shown, are also referred to as Easter Eggers or EEs, even if they are purebred. (confused yet?)

Those dark brown eggs are from French Black Copper Marans, a breed that comes from Marans, France. The darkest of the eggs in this pic are the lightest allowed in the breed and I have seen pictures of some that were so dark they were pushing towards black. 

The 7 light brown eggs are from my banty hens and my big Buff Orpington rooster.  I put all these eggs in the incubator on Oct 25. Today is Day 9. I finally got a really bright LED flashlight to use for candling the eggs. Candling is where you shine a light through the egg so you can see what is going on inside of it. I am still learning to candle, so unless I am really sure the egg is a dud I leave it in the incubator. I'm afraid I will toss one that was actually still good in my inexperience.

scrambled egg

This one was definitely scrambled, that blood ring goes all the way around the egg, pulled 4 EE and 2 Marans that looked like this.

chick embryo

Excuse the fuzzy photos. The camera shutter takes forever because I'm doing this in a very dark room and the fuzzys come from breathing while the shutter is open. Maybe next time I will try to pull out the tripod.

See that red dot in the middle of this one? that's  the head of the embryo, the fainter squiggle below it is it's body. You can also see the network of veins that draw nutrients from the egg yolk to feed the developing chick. This little guy was jumping and swimming all over the place.

Most of the Marans eggs are too dark to candle, but at least one showed definite signs of life. Some of the EEs were also lively and all seven of the banty eggs were jumping for joy!

The eggs are due to hatch November 15. So yea, think we'll end up with chicks in the living room all winter....

Harvest Monday

Yellow Zuchinni

Welcome to Harvest Monday! This is a great blog hop hosted by Daphne's Dandelions. Go visiting with gardeners from around the world and see what they are harvesting from their backyards, balconies and community gardens!

My apologies to so many; life has been so very crazy and I haven't been able to visit with all of you like I want to. Hoping this week things slow down a little bit more.



October is a month of decisions. Should I leave the zuchinni another week so it can make a few more squash before frost or pull it out so I can plant the garlic on time. (In the end the garlic won)

My Buff Orpington pullets are beginning to lay, right on schedule. Which is a darn good thing because the banties have quit completely; no eggs all week until I got this first tiny pullet egg. The banty girls have a bit longer to finish their molt and if they don't pick back up, then it's chicken soup and pot pies!

chicks, one week old

And speaking of chickens, the chicks are one week old. I know it's hard to see here, but they are already growing tail and wing feathers. The ones in front are the Buff Orpington X banty that are sold. The four Welsummer chicks that I am keeping are in the back, brown stripes on their heads like chipmunks.

German Butterball potatoes

I dug the rest of the potatoes. The March planted ones were pathetic; won't be doing that again. Either plant in Jan or June. Think I'll order some soon, then divide the order and plant some of the same varieties at each time and see how they do. Wouldn't mind just planting early, but I don't have a cool enough place to keep them over the summer.

Bell Peppers

Got a nice bunch of bell peppers, tho a couple had sunscald where they flopped over and the peppers weren't covered. Note to self; stake/cage all the pepper plants!

Spaghetti and Tromboncino Squash

Picked some more spaghetti and tromboncino squash. Can't seem to sell any of the big ones at market, but the spaghettis go pretty quick.

I did eat one of the tromboncino the other day; just cut a piece off and cooked it in the microwave. Very much like a butternut, about the same color, a little stringier, more like a pumpkin. But if I can't sell them, I suppose the chickens and I will be eating them all winter, which is fine with me.

Harvest Monday

yellow zuchinni

Welcome to Harvest Monday, a great blog hop sponsored by Daphne, where gardeners all around the world show off their harvests, please consider joining in! The more the merrier!

This week is short of harvests, not because there weren't things to pick but because of lack of time to pick and process; This week the work schedule is a little lighter, so next Monday's post will hopefully be a bit heavier on the pics!



Besides this overgrown yellow zuchinni (it's supposed to be yellow, btw) I picked some tomatoes, herbs and such.

squash on the roof

I also climbed up on the roof, there are a bunch more squash growing up there! Mostly tromboncino and spaghetti.

veggie soup stock and peachy pear butter

I did a little canning, some veggie soup stock and some peach-pear butter. The white stuff on the jars is the calcium from our hard water. It wipes off pretty easily.

banty chicks

Of course the news of the week is that 17 out of 20 eggs hatched! 4 were Welsummers, which I'll keep and all 13 of the banty eggs hatched, which I"m selling. 6 are already spoken for and there is some interest in the other 7. Good thing because at the moment the poultry project is deeply in the red with the cost of original birds and feed. Right now the Welsummers have quit laying and my young Buff Orpinton pullets haven't started yet, tho I expect them to any day now.

I did butcher out one of the Muscovy drakes and dressed weight was 4 pounds, 3oz. I had to skin him tho because when I went to start plucking discovered that he wasn't actually done molting. So will wait until November to do the rest. I don't know what value to give this meat tho, no body here sells duck meat and the gourmet order online place is so outrageous, I don't want to use their price! (About $50 for two Muscovy breasts!) Can you buy duck where you live? What is the going price for whole birds?

Chicken TV

Chickies!

Well it has been a lot of fun watching the eggs hatch, I can see where this could become very addicting! I set 13 banty eggs, their daddy is my big Buff Orpington roo. I set 7 eggs from the Welsummers that I was given and 4 of them hatched. Actually I'm amazed I got them, these were the last eggs the girls laid before quitting for a full blown molt. And those chickens are 4+ years old; I wasn't sure they were fertile because the roo had not been doing the roo dance that I ever saw. (Unlike my other rooster who is after the girls all the time!)

So I have 17 new babies (I haven't given up hope on the last 3 eggs yet, but not holding my breath either). The chick dead center and the one to the immediate left of it are Welsummers. They have really cute faces, and stripes on their backs like chipmunks. I will be selling all the banty chicks and just keeping the Welsummers.

In other news I butchered out my first Muscovy drake. Should have waited awhile longer, he was still growing in feathers so I ended up skinning him because plucking some parts were impossible. I think I will wait until about the 1st of November to do the others; hopefully they will be done molting by then! I'm going to go cut some fresh herbs to stuff him with and pop him in the crockpot to roast for dinner. (My oven is still broken, need to remember to call the guy to come fix that. Maybe he can look at the ice maker on the fridge while he's here)