A lesson in chickens

Hello, we have embarked on a new adventure!  We have revved up the incubator and are attempting to hatch our first batch of chickens!

Step 1 was to be sure our eggs are fertilized.  I have only seen Little Roo "get busy" once so we cracked open one of the eggs from yesterday that have not been refrigerated.  This is what I found:

Now look closely at the glare spot on the lower right side of the upper photo.  Now look at the same area on the lower egg with no flash.  You will see a white donut shape in the yoke.

See it?  Since it is a donut and not just a spot then we can assume this is a fertilized egg.  This is called the blastoderm and by the time an egg is layed it has already started dividing to form an embryo.  Interesting isn't it? 

Here is my incubator

And I put the 17 eggs collected over the last 3 days that have not been refrigerated.  Ideally the eggs are kept above 50 degrees for no more than a week for the best hatch rate. 

I have a nice combination of colors:  white, green and various brown.  Eggs hatch at 21 days (give or take a day or two).  Ideally the eggs should come from chickens that are over 12 months.  My girls are not a year yet.  But, we are excited to see how things work!  Keeping our fingers crossed!

The chickens that hatch from these eggs will be raised for meat.  We are not sure exactly what mix breed Little Roo is, I was told he should pass on the olive green egg gene but, no way to know for sure.  If we get a new roo this year when I get my little chickens then I will re-think what roos I want to keep. 

Kinda hard to see what is going on from the top "windows".  the yellow trays rock back and forth with the timer "turning" the eggs for proper chicken development.  At this point we need to keep the temperature at 99 - 99.5 degrees Fahrenheit, and above 45 % humidity.  Our Incubator is in Celsius so what should the setting be?  (jeopardy theme plays in the background) times up!

If you said 37.5ish then you would be correct!

I will keep you all up to date on how things are going.  I do have a candle light so I will be attempting to learn to candle the eggs as time goes by!

Re-evaluate

Ok, so we had our first Bunny Butcher.  Shane said he "dispatched the animals".  There were tears, I am not going to pretend it all went smooth.  We ended up using Brady's 22, I thought that would make things quicker and less chance of error.  It was horrible, the bunnies would sit and kick and kick although I knew they were dead it was still sad.  Sky cried, I cried and Shane was feeling a bit sick to his stomach.  We saved the fur and I am going to try and get what I need to process them.  The boys want gloves...we'll see what I can do.  I cleaned and quartered the 2 rabbits and cooked them up last night for dinner.  Shane had a hard time swallowing.  The meat was tougher then the ones we have bought at the butcher, not sure if that is because it was fresh and not frozen or breed or what.  Sky ate the most singing "bunny bunny butt" didn't take him long to get over the whole process. 

Are we going to continue with rabbit farming?  I am going to leave that up to the triple Zs.  It gets spendy feeding so many during the winter and Shane has to decide if he wants to keep going.  Even though we changed and went to all white rabbits, they are so darn cute!  Even Vic said after taking care of them for us when we were out of town for the holidays that he couldn't eat one of them.

So what I know for sure is we are going to expand our chickens.  Raise some for butcher and I want to add a couple new egg colors to my flock.  I got a really nice incubator for Christmas so I want to give it a try.  We are thinking about ordering some quail eggs and giving that another chance but I don't know for sure yet.

We have plans to hatch turkey eggs and if we get a new Tom then the current Tom will be dinner.  He is such a jerk!  And my turkey girls are so sweet.  Jenny will also be hitting the dinner table, she is pretty but very stand offish and I like to cuddle my girls.  I hope to get some eggs from Jenny come spring though.  I want to try cooking up one of the turkey eggs but after that we will be trying to hatch them to grow for meat.

Little Roo is showing interest in the girls but I want to be sure he is good to go before attempting to hatch any eggs we get since we are still not getting too many eggs each day.

So that is about all that has been going on since we got back from Spokane.  I have been so tired and I have to get the energy to get the house all cleaned up and laundry done and ready for the boys to go back to school.  It will be so nice to have a quiet house during the day again!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Out of the deep freeze

The weather has been crazy here!  We have had trouble with animal water systems freezing up and I have been sick so I have just cuddled up and rested.  Now I am feeling better and I have about a weeks worth of work to catch up on.

Made frog legs for the family tonight.  Shane didn't want to try.  Finally he did and said it wasn't too bad and even ate 2 sets of legs.  Sky liked them, but come on way shorter list to name the foods he won't eat!  Brady ate his, said they tasted more like fish. 

I have to share what happened this morning.  I woke up, saw that my alarm was about to go off so started to get up.  just as my feet hit the floor I heard something...I hurried downstairs to the kitchen and listened...there it is again!  I peek out the window and although pretty much black outside I see a small shadow at the corner of the chicken coop...there it is again!! I can't help but smile and feel happy.  Little Roo has found his voice.  He has a wonderful welcoming of the morning crow that just screams farm life!  Ok, he then crowed about 100 times during the time I was getting the boys breakfast ready but I am still happy.

Luckily our neighbor likes to hear the sound of the crowing in the morning too!

Massacre at Triple Z

I picked up my beautiful Quail yesterday.  7 hour round trip in gas and the cost of the birds.  I was so excited.  I had them in my office until I could get them outside once this cold snap was over.  Everything was going fine until I left to take the boys to school.  After dropping them off I went to get some stuff to make me feel better, I feel like crap!  And after getting a bunch of fresh fruits and veggis I get a call from Shane.  Romeo went into my office and killed all 8 of my new Quail. 

Shane is pissed to say the least.  I can not believe this!  I kept finding Romeo in my office sleeping all night and I would pull him out and close the door but some how he was able to open the door.  Shane found the carnage all over the place when he woke up this morning.  I guess it was a dumb idea.  I won't get anymore and Romeo's future is questionable at this point. 

Now I have to start cleaning up all the feathers all over my office.  I just feel HORRIBLE!

By the way while trying to catch the turkeys one of the hens got away.  so I only came home with 1 tom and 1 hen.  They are doing fine this morning though.

Typical Tuesday on the farm...

So my day started off normal, up just before 6, get the boys up, dressed, fed and to school.  We had to be at school early because Sky is working patrol this week.  I ran to Staples to ship back Brady's DS that is still not working then to the Toyota dealer for an oil change...normal everyday things.

Then...

Stopped at the feed store and got a bale of straw to put down in the chicken run to try and keep the girls from getting too muddy.  Once I got home with the help of all 20 girls we spread the straw around...Little Roo supervised the work but didn't help out much.  Noticed something had broken the plastic roof  panel of the chicken coop so Shane ran to town for a new piece of metal roofing while I started cleaning rabbit hutches.  Tomorrow I am adding Quail to the farm so I had to clean the end rabbit hutch out for them to make their home in.  When Shane got back we fixed the roof and installed a light in the chicken coop. Since there is no longer a clear plastic panel the girls are not getting any light in the coop so this will make it better for them.  We are setting it up on a timer so they will still have nice dark nights for sleeping. 

Next I pulled a tarp over part of the chicken coop in hopes that when it rains again there will be a dry area.  With the broken roof panel the inside of the coop got wet so I shoveled out all the wet bedding and replaced it with nice fresh clean and dry wood shavings.  Freshened up the nesting boxes and the turkey coop, since we are due to get 3 new turkeys tomorrow, filled all food and water dishes...found a broken nozzle on the rabbits water system, didn't have a new nozzle handy but luckily Vic happened by and found me a twig just the right size to plug the opening.  This is the reason for the muddy mess around the rabbit hutches so with the leak temporarily fixed I shoveled the muddy poo away from the front of the hutches so the boys can't complain when they go out to do their chores.

Now I have to figure out dinner, shower, get dressed, get the boys to swim classes then I have my PTO meeting.  Once home take care of homework, dishes, make sure everyone has clean cloths for tomorrow and off to bed.

That is my Tuesday.

Live and learn...

So we just got back from Spokane last night.  Had a nice time with the family but I was so happy when I turned off the highway onto our driveway.  I saw the porch light flicker through the trees and I swear my heart skipped a beat.  All the girls were already in bed so I waited tell this morning to go see them.  All are happy and healthy although it rained all day today and they were all inside to stay dry.

So what did I learn?  I learned that life is always changing.  I know that Nick is now grown and has his own family and I will never be as close to him now as I once was.  I miss him so much and yet I love it here and don't want to go back to Spokane.  I wish my family would just move here.  Then I could have it all.  Reality is though the last few years I lived in Spokane I hardly saw Nick or Pam.  Mostly just communicated by email with both. 

I guess me living far away won't make me feel sad that they don't have time in their lives for me anymore.  After all I am the one who left so I can't feel that I was the one being rejected anymore. 

My mom told me on Friday that she just wants to live 2 more years.  That way she will have her 50th wedding anniversary.  Then she is ready to go.  I get so sad even thinking about that.  She may be ready to go but I am not ready for her to go.  I have a fear that when she is gone then Pam and I will not see each other again.  When I lose my mom I will lose everything. 

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  Sky kept asking people what they were most thankful for...I guess I am most thankful for all the memories from when I was younger and had my whole family around me.  At the time I hated all those family Thanksgiving dinners with all the aunts, uncles and cousins but now, I do miss them.

Please just leave us alone...

This is a message for Brian.  I am assuming since you are keeping tabs on our other web activity that you are also reading this blog.  Please just leave us alone.  You were like family to Shane and we did everything we could to try and help you over the years.  Please just leave us alone now.

You need help.  We are not your enemy.  We just want to have our quiet life and for it to not include you or your family.  Ron was a wonderful man and I am only glad that he isn't here to see how low you have sunk.  I am so sorry that it had to come to this.  I don't want to have to keep calling the authorities because of your violations of the no contact order. 

I have no ill will towards you Brian, but, you do need to leave us alone.  I hope you can pull your life together.  Maybe go back to school?  You need to take responsibility for your actions and stop blaming everyone else.  Time to be a man Brian.  Time to re-build your life, if not for you then for your daughter.  Give her the opportunity to be proud of you when she grows up.

I wish you the best.

Lisa