Ducklings on the Way

Muscovy duck at 19 days incubation

I candled some of the eggs in the incubator last night. There are 6 Muscovy eggs left from Karen's flock. Here you can see a little head and bill. They are at 19 days, so just about half way.

So far the 6 remaining eggs all look pretty good so my fingers are crossed they all make it.

When you set eggs to incubate not every single egg will always be fertile. Then there always seem to be some that we call early quitters. They start to develop but for some reason they quit. Sometimes I think it can be a genetic defect in the egg or sometimes it is something environmental or even the nutrition of the parents. (my reading indicates that vitamin E is especially important for hatch ability)

I also checked my purebred Ameraucana eggs, there are 8 of those left and they are due on Monday so hoping we'll have some cute babies real soon. 

A Little Progress

pallet wood

You know some days I just feel like I haven't gotten much accomplished. Unless I write things down. Then I can see that I did get something done, it just seems like it should have been twice as much in the time I had.

Well building projects around here start out with ripping pallets; this is part of about 6 I took apart first thing this morning.

front of breeding pen

I then seemed to have spent most of the day building this front of a breeding pen, complete with door frame. The door still needs wire, hinges & a latch.

Along with that I did eat breakfast, washed and hung up two loads of clothes.

eggs in the nest of the layer house

I also managed to do all my chicken chores and collect eggs. When I was done building I cut all the trash wood up and brought it in for the stove.


I did take some pictures of some of the birds today. I also checked and spritzed thirty odd chicken butts for lice. They have been a terrible problem here and while some birds never seem to have any, other birds seem to be covered. I'll do all the rest of the birds tomorrow evening.

mamma silkie and her foster babies

black copper marans hatched Nov 28th

Mamma silkie is taking good care of her babies.












The three Black Copper Marans chicks from November look like two boys and a girl.

Henrietta

Henrietta

Henrietta is a show quality Buff Orpington pullet.

Claire

Claire is 75% English imported Buff Orpington.

Claude

Claude is 100% English imported Buff Orpington. This trio belongs to my friend Cindy. I just get to keep and take care of these wonderful birds as her breeding partner. I have 4 of Henny's eggs in the incubator now and will continue to collect and hatch her eggs for awhile. We are waiting for Claire to lay her first egg. From the color of her comb and wattles, it ought to be pretty soon!

Claude with the wind blowing

Claude has been hanging out in the layer pen and looks like a jolly golden giant compared to the little Easter Egger girls.  Today when I was working on the breeding pen Claire and Henny snuck in there too. There was some fussing with some of the older layers, but nobody was really serious enough to take on this giant golden girls! But all the layers had to come in and investigate the part of the building they usually can't get to. They were all underfoot while I was trying to work!

Setting Eggs

Getting Ready to Incubate

Well I have been collecting eggs for a week so now they are going to go into the incubator.

On the left, 11 Muscovy duck eggs. In the middle carton towards the back are 4 eggs from a show quality standard bred Buff Orpington named Henrietta.The bluer eggs in that carton are from a purebred blue Ameraucana pullet bred to my pretty Easter Egger roo Earl. The greenish eggs are from Earl and his half sister. And finally on the right, 14 Black Copper Marans. In real life these are about half a shade darker, the flash washed them out a bit. If you have the egg color card from the Marans club, these are all about a #4. If you don't know, that is the lightest color they are supposed to have. They can get much much darker, but it takes a lot of breeding and culling to get there. These will be my first generation of my own breeding so I have a long way to go.

Oops forgot to mention those two little eggs in the middle carton, two silkies, just for fun. Twenty nine chicken eggs and 11 duck eggs. The chickens will be due February 27 but the Muscovy take 33-35 days so they won't hatch until around March 13.

Incubating Duck & Chicken Eggs

Muscovy duck egg at 9 days incubation

I love incubating and hatching eggs. It is so amazing to watch the babies grow in their shells. A lot of people do not know that you can see into the eggs.

The easiest ones to see into are white duck eggs because they are large and the shells are white. You set them over a strong light and as you can see in the photo you can see what is going on in there. Colored eggs are much harder, especially dark brown ones, because they obstruct the light more.

My friend Karen asked me to incubate some of her Muscovy duck eggs as her hens weren't setting the nest yet and there were a lot of eggs, maybe too many for them to cover easily when they do decide to sit on them and keep them warm.  Muscovy ducks lay very large eggs which take an average of 35 days to incubate. In contrast chicken eggs only take 21 days.

In the photo the darker circle in the center is the embryo, with it's spiderweb of veins. Look at the center of that circle and see the small darker spot, which is the eye and brain beginning to form. This egg has been in the incubator for 9 days.

A lot of things can happen to an egg that will prevent it from hatching. First of course it must be fertile, but not every fertile egg will begin to grow a chick and not every egg that begins to grow will complete it's growth and hatch. Some issues are genetic, just something wrong with the chick itself and some are environmental, like getting too hot or too cold. If the humidity is too high or too low, that can also cause problems. Not even mamma hens have a perfect hatch every time.

Move In Day!

coop door, just needs a latch

Well finally the top floor of the silkie/brooder coop is done enough to move in! After a lot of set backs I finally got a door made. It has a Lexan panel in it which I scrubbed on for a whole afternoon trying to get the remains of the paper covering off of it to no avail. I even tried some orange goo and a plastic scraper. So it will always look really dirty....

stairwell bumper

I added a bumper around the pop door opening so that litter would not be always falling down the hole when it's open.

I never got the side windows figured out, so just stapled some plastic over the openings and called it good.

On the advice of a long time breeder and master exhibitor I added plain old clay cat litter to the floor. The non clumping, no additive kind. I may add some shavings on top; not decided yet.

Mamma silkie & the two BCM chicks

So now mamma silkie and the chicks are outside in their new home.

Mom! Let me in!

Those chicks are real camera shy; I have to be quick to catch them before they run back under mamma!

Babies!

Broody silkie with a couple of babies

Well the broody coop isn't finished yet, but little mamma is just as happy in a crate in the house.

Only three chicks hatched, two Black Copper Marans and one Easter Egger. I am waiting to see if any more decide to pop out, but I'm not holding my breath. I'm afraid either my temperature or humidity were a bit off this time around.

I have a new thermometer /hygrometer unit on it's way. According to tracking it will probably arrive tomorrow, so hopefully the next hatch will be better.

In the pick the EE chick is on the right. The other Marans chick has already scooted under mamma for a warm up.

Slow Progress

pop door open

Well it was slow going today on the little silkie coop. I did manage to fix up the sliding pop door though.

pop door closed

door frame try out

I also got the door frame built and tried on for size. But then things got really bogged down. I wanted to use some small panes of glass that I had but of course they were just slightly too big. So a lot of time wasted finagilling what else to use and how to go about it. I'm still working on this problem.

I did manage to put some tar paper on the roof. And in other news, I did actually work in the garden today, but I forgot to take a pic. Of course all you would see would be white row covers. I planted some lettuce in one bed and some carrots in the other.

vermicompost

I also emptied part of my worm box of compost to spread on the seeds I planted. I thought about feeding some of the worms to the chickens but decided to wait until next time I clean out the box as I want to get the population up there before summer.

I also just took a few minutes and hung out with the birds.

Mr. No Name

Precious

Mr. Snowman

Smokey

Since the coop did not get finished and the eggs are due to start hatching tomorrow, I brought the broody girl in to a crate so I can give her the chicks as soon as they hatch. She did not like the box I gave her for a nest but as soon as I put a couple of eggs on the crate floor she promptly sat on them. 

The Roof Goes on the Silkie Coop

rafters installed

Well as predicted I didn't get much of anything done on the little silkie coop during the week; just not enough day light after work.

Here's where I left off, with the rafters on, during the week I managed to put up the trim around the back vent and install one bird block.

Today I added the rest of the bird blocks and started on the roof.

roof decking going on

roof in progress

Like the rest of the coop the roof is not really square or quite flat. But with two or three layers of tar paper it ought to be weatherproof until I can get some sort of shingles or roofing on it.

hole in the floor

I also cut the hole in the floor for a sliding pop door to the bottom section of the coop.

Tomorrow I'll add several layers of tar paper to the roof, figure out how to make the supports for the sliding door and finish constructing that. Then I just need a door on the front and it will be done enough for the broody mamma to take up residence. If it doesn't all happen before dark, then broody mamma will spend a few days in the house while coop construction is completed, because the eggs are supposed to hatch on Monday!

And I still haven't spent a dime on this coop!

Silkie Coop-hitting the home stretch

east wall , trim try on for size

Well another day working on the coop. I really feel like I didn't get that much done today, but that's because a lot of what I did was fiddly bits like trim work.

Stapled wire on the east wall, cut and fit the trim boards to go over them, then took them off to paint them.

mmmm there is something wrong with this picture

Did any of you notice that something might be wrong with the inside of the back wall in this picture from yesterday?

that's better!

I was up in the coop getting ready to put all the trim boards in when I realized "DUH!! you forgot to cut out for the vent on the inside!!!" So I popped off the back paneling and fixed that.  While I was putting it back on decided it need a coat of paint. The wood is so old and dried out it's getting crumbly. So two coats of off white interior paint. Then the trim, which I painted with the same blue paint as the back wall downstairs.

East wall with trim

Some other fiddly bits are that I added 1/4" hardware cloth over the window openings. Cut and painted the trim boards to go around the vent. Need to decide what I"m doing around the inside of the window openings. Put the trim boards back on the east side when the paint was dry.  Just before dark I got the center rafter put on but by then it was getting too dark to take a picture.

I don't think it's going to be chicken ready by this weekend. In which case I may try bringing broody mamma into the little crate in the house so I can give her the chicks when they hatch. Then move them all into the coop as soon as it's done.

Back to the day job tomorrow, so probably not much progress to be made the next few days, we shall see.

Another Day's Work On The Silkie Coop

back/north wall

Well I spent another whole day working on this little coop. Here is the back wall all done up and painted. I love this yellow ochre color, it is bright and cheery without being a garish primary color. I picked up about five or six gallons of mistints at Ace a couple of months ago to use on the new chicken house. Just couldn't pass up $5 a gallon for exterior paint!

west wall started

You can see in the next picture that I painted the inside of the back wall blue. This was some leftover interior paint from my paint cupboard. I think it will be alright in this area since it won't get a lot of rain or sun under there. And I started the west wall.

West wall finished

Here is the west wall finished. I have to make a window to go in the opening. I have decided if I run out of time I will just put up the wire and cover with plastic and finish the windows after the rest is done.

west wall with first coat

I am out of Kilz but found some off white interior paint in the cupboard to use as a primer coat

west wall painted

then it got a coat of the yellow ochre. And you can see here that I found a piece of paneling out in the shed. It's probably about 25 yrs old, leftover from re-doing a room in the house.

The inside

I also finished and painted the east wall. I found a piece of shower board hiding in the spare room to use as the floor.

Last year some friends brought me some bits of scrap and trim and there was enough of this baseboard molding to go all the way around!

Come back tomorrow to see what color I painted it!