Life...

Lovie's babies are starting to open their eyes and they are all so darn cute!  I could eat them up!! 

Rosey is another story.  All 5 babies made it but barely.  One black one was found in a tote next to the hutches yesterday afternoon because Rosey keeps hopping around the babies at which point they try to latch on and eat then, Rosey would hop away from the nest dragging babies all over the cage.  I am guessing then the little blind black one wondered out the front of the cage and fell off the ledge.  I re-packed additional hay into the cage and hopefully that will do the trick.  Rosey is being so protective when we try to check the babies she will charge at us.  I really wonder if she wouldn't be better off as rabbit stew.  She is so frustrating!!

Now here are more of our eggs.

 

Aren't they beautiful?!  The bottom group includes an eggland best egg so you can see that the eggs are smaller, although they are suppose to be large.  All 3 of these look different but not totally sure who layed them except the middle one on the bottom is Chirpie's.  The lightest colored one on the right was found in the chicken yard last night.  REALLY?  Hours and hours of building the coup, and the nesting boxes not to mention the hours spent cleaning them out so the bedding is nice and comfy for the girls and one of them opted to lay an egg in a hole they dug in the yard.  chickens...

Today I am going to cook the eggs for breakfast burgers and will take photos comparing the insides too. 

Hopefully we can move the turkeys into the chicken yard soon too.  It would be nice to give the turkey girls more space to run around.  They are getting so darn big!

Have a great day!

Farm additions

Rosey had 5 babies last night and she built a nice nest lining it with fur!  They are 3 reds and 2 blacks.  So let's see how she does.  When I went out to check on them she got very pissy when I tried to touch them.  All 5 had big round bellies so she fed them good this morning.  So far she is stepping up let's see how things go. 

Lovie is the best mommy!  Her 8 babies are so big.  The biggest is grey and he is HUGE!  Their eyes should be opening up any day now so that will be fun to play with them.  I know they are dinner but I am so excited to have them surviving finally I can't even think about that part of it...

Now for the chickens.  I am sure Chirpie has layed 2 of the 3 eggs collected but the 3rd egg is much smaller and the color is different but still brown so I am thinking it must be someone else but not sure who.  Most of our hens will lay brown eggs so unless caught in the act like Chirpie was not sure how to tell the others.

egg #2

Not sure if it is Chirpie again or another hen.  I was inside canning Kosher Dill Pickle slices all morning and no one else went out to check and see who was baulking so loud.  But we have a 2nd beautiful little brown egg again today.

We scrambled up the first egg from yesterday this morning.  Visually the egg is smaller than the large eggs I buy at the store.  The yoke was darker, orangey color and very round instead of flattened out on top like a store bought egg.  (I should have gotten a photo, maybe next time) We cooked it plain so we could taste just the egg and it was good.  A mellow flavor and a darker color when scrambled due to the darker yoke.  Although we had not added Oyster shell to the hen's diet the shell was a nice thickness.  Not as thick as the white Eggland's Best shells but thicker than the brown organic eggs I usually get at Costco.

I will pick up Oyster Shell in town this week and use that until we get a good egg production.  Then I will only use the our own egg shells to provide the girls with the extra calcium needed.  Many articles say their girls prefer the egg shells but I want to wait tell we have enough of our own shells since we do not know what the store bought egg history is.

The farm is coming together!  Yesterday I planted mint and peppermint in front of the house.  I am trying to create a tea garden so I can brew my own teas.  Ok that is way off in the future but it is a dream I have.

We have egg production!

Chirpie laid our first egg today!  Chirpie is a Road Island Red and we actually thought she was a he at first.  This morning she was in the coop making all kinds of noise.  I opened the side door by the nests and when see saw me she climbed into one of the nests.  I pet her for a couple minutes then closed the door.  I just went out to see if she was still in the nest and if she was ok and there in the next was a little brown egg!

 

Isn't she beautiful!  Standing next to her is Gogo, we are pretty sure he is a rooster but hasn't crowed yet.

the 4th...added photos

We had a good time for the 4th over here.  We first went to the beach and flew kites and the boys played in the water and Romeo LOVED all the new smells.  Then we brought the 4 legged boys home and picked up KFC and went to the park by the river to watch the fireworks. 

 

 

 

Only bad part was that the fireworks were going off all around us so if you were sitting you missed some of them because you couldn't turn around fast enough.  I still miss watching them from my living room, not going to lie, was nice on cold nights to not leave my house to see them but Aberdeen had as awesome a show as I ever saw in Spokane.  Best part was living out in the country we didn't have to deal with neighbors setting them off!

Shane wants to take the boat up the river next year so we can get a better view of all the fireworks.

Oh and they had the Lady Washington there too.  The town is very sentimental about that ship.

 

 

 

 

 

 

ok...

so... We lost 2 white babies sometime on Wednesday.  The 2 smallest ones.  We knew the runt was a long shot.  When I checked them yesterday evening one black one was very skinny so I brought him inside and got a couple ccs of formula in him to hopefully get him through the day until Lovie fed the babies again and it worked.  When I checked him this morning he is a big round belly.  This one is the smallest one still alive so he is obviously going to be pushed out by the much larger siblings so I will try to keep an extra eye on him to be sure he is getting a full belly each morning.  So we have 8 babies.  Rosie is due soon too.  hopefully she can do the mommy thing this time. 

On another note Christmas has attitude!  When I try to bet her she makes a new sound and tries to peck me!  She even was sticking her head through the fence to peck me!  Shane thinks she is a male.  In fact he thinks we have 2 males, they better watch their behavior because one will be dinner!  Really hoped to be lucky and end up with 2 girls and a boy, I just hope the 3rd one is a girl.

still have babies!

Lovie has been a wonderful mommy so far?  We checked and all 10 babies were still alive last night.  The runt is so small I worry about her but so far so good.  This is day 4.  We stuffed lots of hay around the nest to keep the babies from wondering around the cage and it has worked wonderful!  I don't want to get too excited because it is still early but keeping my fingers crossed!