Smart-ass Southern California Mom/Writer/Origami fumbler. These days loving our never dull, often absurd family life in the Northern Nevada Eastern Sierra mountains...with LOTS of chickens. Fluent in Snark.
New discovery--used holiday ribbon makes really COOL puffy Origami stars!
It's
so nice to be able to reuse something that normally just gets used once
and--most of the time still looking great--gets tossed. The ribbon is
strong enough to hold the star shape, is naturally sparkly-pretty and is
by far the best thing I've found to fold stars with yet. I've only
tried the wide stuff, not the narrow ribbon yet--it will likely work, I
just don't know if my fingers are nimble enough to FOLD the narrow
ribbon!
Today while driving home from the doctor's office, I spotted a small
green pickup truck headed towards me...with what looked like three large
penguin heads poking out over the top of the cab. I got a chuckle at
the optical illusion...until it drove by and I could see that it was,
indeed, three large, paper mache penguins riding serenely in the bed of
the truck, regally facing forward. I gotta start carrying a camera with
me for stuff like that, southern California is a lush weirdness habitat.
Poof, our White Crested Black Polish hen, has managed to start a fad amongst her sisters.
She
likes to perch each evening in the nectarine tree, in a spot where she
can see the sun go down, and watch the sunset. Afterwards she jumps
down and goes to roost in the coop, where she is SUPPOSED to. Soulful
little thing, for a chicken...
Unfortunately, several of the
OTHER hens have decided that this looks both keen and fun, and have
taken to perching in the same tree, only HIGHER and they don't get down
and go in like they are supposed to, little brats.
This results
in me shaking nectarine tree branches each night until it rains angry
hens and cussing Poof for starting such a dorky fad.
Also,
somehow a few of the chickens, some of which were not hatched by us and
came along AFTER we moved the coop door clear to the other end of the
run, inevitably will go to the OLD coop door and frantically run back
and forth, wanting to be let in there. It's like a racial memory
and kinda spooky, seeing as how we closed that door more than a year
ago and they have NEVER even seen it open. It's made of wood &
hardware cloth, just like the rest of the coop so it is not obviously a
door, either. And the NEW coop door is a steel mesh security door.
11th wedding anniversary today, yay! The traditional anniversary gift
list says that the 11th is 'Steel'. What the heck is up with that? Not
'Linens' or 'Glassware' or some other normal household thing. Steel?
Is this the bottle cap anniversary or something? What's next year--coke
for stoking the blast furnace?
Oh well, off to Magnolia Bird Farm for more dessicated bugs for Scout the mockingbird and Jake, the sparrow.
Also,
the Euflexa injection I got on Thursday is marvelous for my right knee,
two more injections to go with this round. Then on to more rehab and a
new knee brace for the thing. My right knee is being entirely too
needy right now...
Mary Travers died today. Mary was part of the 60's singing group,
'Peter, Paul & Mary'. Their album was the first one I remember
singing along with as a kid, it actually belonged to one of my older
sisters. We played it over and over...
Their music heavily
influenced my singing, although I knew I could never hope to have a
voice as pure and soaring as Mary's. My favorite part of her modern
performances of 'Puff The Magic Dragon' was when she changed the ending
chorus up a bit, making sure to call out, 'Present tense!' and instead
of singing, 'lived by the sea', made it 'lives by the sea'. Like Puff, Mary will never truly die.
Despite all indications that it would really, REALLY like to.
The
spider bite to my left index finger has provided, if nothing else,
educational opportunities combined with mystery--what color will it turn
next? What's that oozing from under my fingernail? Can it hurt MORE?
All these things have been mine this week, and more! Joy.
On
Friday the skin on the end of my finger had formed a hard, plastic-like
shell, so I soaked my finger in warm water for a bit and peeled it off.
Vast improvement, and I was relieved to see pink healthy tissue
beneath. Weird experience though. Now I just have to wait and see if
this thing is going to let me keep my fingernail...so far the answer is
leaning towards 'not on your life'.
...they're cool dudes who chill in beautiful webs and keep my garden healthy and pest-free.
I'm
currently making one exception--the one who bit me on the end of my
left hand index finger yesterday. I never saw him, but I know he
resided in my curly willow plant, which I had to duck under a bit to get
to the chicken coop (it went nuts while I was away on vacation and
needs a trim). As I did, I felt some leaves brush across the top of my
head, leaving behind some dead leaves. I pulled them out of my hair--I
think that's when he got me.
I now have a painful, swollen, red,
ANGRY-looking fingertip, which requires draining every 30 minutes.
While I don't THINK it'll get worse, it's gross enough as-is. I'm on a
self-imposed regimen of Prednisone, ibuprofen and antibiotics, along
with alternating hot-cold soaks. N. was at first intrigued, then
disgusted as she was reminded how a spider bite works on
flesh--basically dissolving it into liquid so the spider can easily suck
it out for it's meal.
I'm...I'm not going to think about that aspect anymore tonight, myself.
So now Scout is 4 weeks old! She is getting along nicely, only favors
the healing leg a bit and is getting to be a stronger flier. She is
growing flight feathers at a nice clip and eats like a horse.
What
a difference a month makes! She actually has a tail now and is good
& healthy. She instinctively does that mockingbird wing-spread
thing to hunt for bugs on the ground. She enjoys things like mealworms
(and any other bug), nectarines, grapes, lettuce and tiny bits of people
food.
Recently I've been having some fun doing some little papercraft figures--different from origami. These are models that you print out on heavy cardstock, then cut out and assemble. There is a wealth of fun, creative and often complex and elegant free papercraft model printouts on the web.
Here are some Nani birds, the three 'bots from Silent Running and other assorted fun things.
Scout, hanging out nearby, was NOT impressed.
One thing I did not know--mockingbirds have long,
whisker-like 'feelers' at the corner of their beaks on each side, you
can see them in these pictures. I think they are sensing equipment just
like whiskers on a cat. Interesting!
And doing a damned fine job of it, too! Last night she spent a good
hour zooming around the living room, expertly and delicately flying up
to tiny bugs on the ceiling that only SHE could see and snatching them
up. Then she would fly back down to me, chirp 'Breep!' and proudly show them to me
before gobbling them up. Heh. We praised her, of course. Every so
often she'd miss, which would be accompanied by a loud, irritated
'Peep!' and a disgruntled return to the top of her cage before reorienting and finally capturing the bug.
She's
definitely getter stronger and better at flying, which is a good thing.
She is still a baby though, insisting on being fed every so often. We
had her cage out back the other day and N. caught a june bug, which was
promptly slipped into her cage.
It was like Christmas for
mockingbirds! She lit up and started to madly chase it around, looking
to impale it on her pointy little rapier-like beak. Sadly, it got away
with a lucky fumble through the bars. But there's always next time!
Marek's Disease has struck our flock of chickens and devastated them.
We've lost 7 hens since March, 5 of whom died in the last 4 weeks--one
each week except this week, when we lost two, Bridgette and Loretta.
All of the 7 were young, adult hens under the age of three who were
perfectly healthy otherwise. Sadly, Bridgette was one of the ex-battery
hens that we had adopted, hoping to give her a better life.
Loretta died in my arms about 5 hours ago.
Marek's
is a horrible disease, viral in nature and ultra-common with no
treatment or cure. It tends to strike chickens from the age of chicks
up to about 4 years, and it's so prevalent that they say if you've got
chickens, you've got Marek's in your flock. Birds go from 'fine' to
dead in 3-4 days. Older birds are usually immune to it, having had time
to build up an immunity. I figure it came in this year in the Spring
crop of wild birds, which hang around the back yard. Nothing can be
done to keep them out. There is a vaccine available online, but you
have to order it timed to coincide with your hatch because it doesn't
last for more than a few days and must be administered immediately. And
the lack of avian vets around here, especially for chickens, means that
no vets have it on hand, either.
Our only course of action is to
watch the chickens like a hawk, and immediately isolate any that look
even REMOTELY ill. We have 13 young hens that are at risk from Marek's
right now, all the rest are at least 5 years old and so should be safe.
The younger they are, the more at risk they are. So far the babies
from last year and the baby chicks that are now 7 weeks old are fine,
but we are supposed to turn the 6 week olds out into the flock for good
in one week. I don't know how that's going to go, we're going to have
to play it by ear...
Things REALLY suck right now, I'm quite
frustrated and depressed. I've spent days combing the Internet and my
bird books for anything and everything I can read on Marek's, but it's
no use.
Scout, our injured baby mockingbird foundling, had her/his (who knows?)
blue painter's tape splint removed today. She's using the leg fairly
well, although it does stick out at a bit of an angle, at least it's not
at 90 degrees like it was. She's even using the foot & leg to
scratch her head and is flexing the toes a bit, something she was not
doing days ago.
She also likes to sit quietly and look out the
front window, singing little mockingbird songs under her breath to
herself...like impersonating the peeping of the baby chicks and Jake, my
sparrow.
Painter's tape works REALLY well for splints on birds,
especially babies, since it will stick to itself quite well but not to
tender skin or feathers. Cool!
The other day Sugar, our Buff Laced Polish hen, suddenly became the
target of Baby, our Kraienkoppe hen. Out of the blue, no reason that we
could figure. Baby is broody and spends most of her time on the nest,
but when she DID come off, she had a mission, it seems--to try and KILL
Sugar.
We grabbed Sugar and brought her into the house to
recover, but her face was so swollen that her eyes swelled shut and she
was effectively blind for an entire day. She looked like a prize
fighter, and the poor thing roamed around the house all day bumping into
things. We gently sponged away the dirt and goop from around her eyes
with a warm, wet cloth, then applied some cold compresses. Today she is
improved, one eye is mostly open and she can see out of it, the other
is about 1/3 open but the skin around it is still quite swollen. Her
targeting is off though, she tends to peck to the left of whatever she's
trying to eat.
Hopefully by tomorrow she'll be able to go back
outside, at which time I'll have to isolate Baby and break her of her
brood so she'll calm down. Doing that isn't easy or fun, she'll have to
go into the 'hen pen'--an isolation cage--by herself for days.
The first was when Millie, our 6 year, old diminutive Belgian d'Uccle
MilleFleur hen, who is a great grandmother...started crowing yesterday.
This heartily confused Phoenix and Scott, our two roosters, who
wondered where the Hell the new guy was, and started crowing back. It
confused me, too. I thought for sure that someone had dumped an
unwanted rooster over our fence. Why she started this nonsense at her
age is a mystery. I think just to mess with the roos.
The other
thing was the little fledgling mockingbird baby that was sitting next to
my back gate yesterday morning. Not only could it not fly, but it had a
broken leg--thanks to the length of thread wrapped around it's leg. It
is now safely esconced in a cage in my kitchen...the number of birds in
the house right now was at 'LOL' level, then went to 'OMG' and is now
officially at 'WTF'. It is eating well and has a blue painters tape
splint on it's leg, which hopefully will help it heal at least pointed
in the correct direction.
We are trying to settle on a name for this one, for however long we have it. Here it is:
Is
that NOT the cutest little fuzzy head ever? I have no idea if it is a
male or female, but it adapted to us pretty quickly and eats very well.
I figured it is about 1 1/2 to 2 weeks old. We handfeed it every hour
during the day up until about 9PM, it gets a mixture of all-purpose baby
bird food, human baby food of strained meat, same with a vegetable,
plain yogurt and a hard-boiled egg yolk. As soon as it's eating on it's
own, it will get something similar but a bit chunkier, plus live
mealworms.
Sora and Bridgette are doing well out with the flock. The first day was
full of much posturing and chest bumping with the established hens, and
some downright neck grabbing by the top hens, who felt they needed to
REALLY drive their point home. We intervened, gently...pushing them
apart and petting and praising them for NOT fighting. This seemed to
work for the most part and today all was peaceful.
But poor Sora
and Bridgette have NO idea how to roost on perches, and need to be
placed there in the evening. They HAVE learned where the coop (and the
food) is, so they can get in and out of it with ease. Today was sun and
dust bath heaven. No eggs from either one yet, though they have peeked
in the nest boxes.
Bridgette is growing new feathers at great
speed, and is getting more talkative. Today she saw a cat on the fence
and threw a cackling fit that several other hens took up. Sora is much
more quiet and laid back, a true California girl. Both girls are very
attached to each other and stick together constantly. They have learned
that when we appear it means good things like food & pets, so they
come running. Sora loves to be picked up and petted, but Bridgette not
so much--she'll come running up to us, but due to her prickly state is
NOT all that hot on being touched. We expected this, so we'll just give
her time to get those new feathers out. She'll be a beauty once she
does!
This all happened quite
suddenly the other day, when I came across a funny YouTube video to
share with her about a rooster. She loves stuff like this, so we looked
at a few others as well.
This one, 'A Battery Hen's Hope' is
what got to all of us--it's heartbreaking and touching all at the same
time, and represents just one bird out of thousands:
After
N. saw it, and I had to explain to her the concept of battery cages in
egg farms and how and why animals are housed that way, she was OUTRAGED,
and rightly so.
Having to explain the worst parts of society and
humankind as a whole is one of the worst things you will ever have to
do as a parent, by the way. Forget about the 'birds & bees' talk.
Watching her faith in humanity and 'doing the right thing' die in
your childs' eyes as you explain corporate cruelty is heartrending.
The fact that this type of 'animals are disposable' thinking is
commonplace and accepted is even harder.
So OK, the kid now wants
to stage a rescue and save ALL of the battery hens on Earth. I explain
to her that unfortunately this just isn't possible, but people DO
try...then she realizes that she has seen ex-battery hens at the feed
store!
C'mon mom, off to the feed store! Never mind that it's 8:30 at night and the feed store is closed.
Well, we have to go to the feed store the next day anyway to get chicken feed, so I agree to look at the ex-battery hens then.
Ha. 'Look'. Right...
So here they are, our two adoptees:
Bridgette, a sweet, curious, talkative Red Star who has suffered the loss of most of her feathers and has been de-beaked:
and Sora, a camera-shy White Leghorn who has been at the feed store long enough to grow some of her feathers back:
Neither
of them had ANY idea what table scraps were, but are quite docile and
quiet. Bridgette has quite a bit of trouble eating with part of her
beak gone, but I'm hoping it'll grow back eventually. Both of them
spent last night and today in the house, we're medicating and worming
them right away since I'm pretty sure that egg farms don't care a whole
lot about keeping individual birds healthy long-term.
It's been decided: The large reddish chick is Voodoo, the darker brown
one is Moxie, the smaller one with the fluffier cheeks and
downward-pointed tail is Bug, and the bantam is Flash.
Flash is
pretty darned uppity and may be a roo, while Bug is very calm and sweet,
she wants to be held a lot. Voodoo is all Bear, and Moxie fits her
name perfectly--very daring!
...thanks to my vet of 10 years. She had a straightforward oral fungus
growth in her mouth, which his office seemingly deliberately
undermedicated--we'd run out of the medication in 3 days (normal course
of treatment for something like this is 7-14 days), they'd make us come
BACK in for another office visit + more medication. Rinse, repeat,
repeat... Five visits & charges in less than 10 days. The last
bottle of medication he cut her dose by 3/4 and we STILL ran out in 6
days, so she never had a chance. It's all about money, I guess.
They've succeeded in draining my bank account AND killing their patient.
Maggie suffered horribly with this crap and died of starvation, despite me handfeeding her night and day.
Good job, guys.
Enjoy your correspondence from the licensing board.
Because that's how many WILD catlings I just found out have been living
under our house. Old enough to be weaned and mama long gone, but still
kittens. All three are grey tabbies with white socks, very pretty. But
skittish. I guess mama had managed to force her way through one of the
vent screens at the bottom of the house. And quietly! All this time
we never heard any mewing at all.
Right now I'm plying them with
food and sweet words, trying to get them to trust me long enough to get
them over to the pound. I'm sure all they need is a little TLC, someone
will adopt them, they're cute. :)
My father-in-law is in the hospital, again. This time he's in ICU,
unresponsive, after having been taken in because of high ammonia levels
in his blood. So his kidneys/liver are failing...also, they suspect he
suffered a stroke.
He was prepared after last month's hospital
stay, and his living will, DNR and other papers are all set up and
signed. I'm hoping I can sneak N. in to see him, as I think her talking
to him may do him some good...you never know.
Four chicks! I'm actually kinda surprised at this, since I had candled
the Polish eggs and they were universally duds. I'm going to have to
convince my roos boys that those are GIRLS. Same with the Silkie hens
though, poor babies.
So far we have 2 Bear/Phoenix chicks, 1
Skitters/Phoenix chick, and 1 blonde Baby(?)/Scott chick. The Bear and
Skitters babies show the Americaunas chipmunk stripe markings, and the
Skitters baby also has nice feathered feet. Both of the Bear chicks had
to be helped from their eggs a bit, a combination of HUGE chick and
tough egg membrane--Bear lays VERY strong eggs! Come to think of it, we
had to assist Bear during HER hatching, as well, she was so big.
They are all quite cute and fluffy, of course. :)
Also, it is 3:30AM and I am quite, quite, quite tired after midwifing baby chicks all day.
Wow, two days early! So far we have one egg pipping and peeping,
another is peeping and rocking back and forth. There are 12 eggs in the
incubators, links to the cam are here, click and scroll to the bottom
of the page for the links:
...is on! I gave the eggs in the incubator their final turn last night,
topped off the water, culled the undeveloped eggs and shifted the
remaining 12 eggs to one incubator--the one with the forced air fan.
All of the eggs are dark green and too dark to candle except two--a
light shelled egg and a light brown egg, both with definitely a chick
inside.
Meanwhile, the 5 remaining eggs out under the hens are
too dark to candle--except one, which looks to have a chick inside but
is also horribly cracked. I chose to leave it be under the hens to give
it a chance. Two eggs are under Moet, a buff Frizzle Cochin who has
raised chicks before and three are under Bear, our Easter Egger Head
Hen. Moet got the cracked one since she is smaller, lighter and more
gentle than Bear. When hatch day comes, we'll either put all of the
eggs under one hen or leave them be with Moet & Bear--but the
mama(s) & eggs will be transferred to a brooder box in the house for
the hatching. I'm hoping the hen's eggs hatch, as Moet REALLY
screeched at me and pecked me HARD (which she never does) when I checked
under her tonight. Hopefully that's a good sign that she knows they
are viable.
If any of the incubator eggs hatch, they will be
added to the mama hen's chicks, since hens can't count. The way to do
it safely is to slip them under her at night, while removing the
unhatched eggs at the same time.
Hatch day is in two days, on
Sunday. By tomorrow afternoon we should be seeing eggs rock and hearing
chicks peep if anything is going to happen. When that occurs, the
webcam will start!
Three weeks ago, the shower drain backed up and apparently the house
wanted nothing more than for J. to have to crawl under it and ram a pipe
snake through it's innards. Which he did.
So the following weekend,
the garbage disposer failed in a really stinky, gross way. OK, J.
changed it out...
LAST weekend, the hot water heater failed and started
barfing water all over the kitchen floor (yay for interior hot water
heaters!). OK, J. changed IT out.
The expense is growing exponentially. It seems the house is waging a watery apocalyptic appliance Jihad against us.
So here is N.'s big California mission project, which she decided to build entirely of LEGOs.
The front and one side. The pigs have gotten into the garden, again!
The back & side, showing the courtyard...
Close up of the courtyard...
This was a fun project--with the added bonus of being able to take it apart and have LEGOs to play with afterward.
Originally
she wanted to place dinosaurs, robots and skeletons amongst the
peaceful mission folk and their animals. But I told her that for school
it has to be authentic--but once we bring it home, she can engage in
all the dino-robo-skeletor epic mission-demolishing battles she wants.
Last night we had a 4.7 hit about 16 miles away from us...close and shallow enough for us to get some REALLY good action out of it.
I
now know what it feels like to have your house BOUNCE. Three times.
While you are standing in it. The quake was close enough for us to
experience all of the subtleties of an earthquake: The sound of it
approaching--something like wind rushing through tall grass, the initial
rumbling and rolling, the sudden intensifying of the jolting that
transforms it from 'oh hey, an earthquake' to 'HEY, an earthquake!', the
undulation of walls, floors and furniture, and the Big Finish: BANG,
BANG, BANG! Ungodly noisy, it was. All of my windows clattered on that
one. And then the slow, continued rolling and shaking as it slowly
abated, over at least 30 seconds long.
Anyway, it was good
practice for us and the kid, who at first didn't notice it at all until
we called her over into the doorway. Our house now sports a few new
cracks, and a couple of the old ones have gotten bigger. Plus the phones
are down, both landline and cell. Nadine the crow did NOT like it at
all, and cawed at us like WE did it. Maggie, one of our hens who is
indoors right now recovering from an illness, ran and hid under my desk.
We
did feel two aftershocks soon afterwards, but nothing since. Turns out
the strength of the quake radiated nicely in our direction and it was a
shallow one, which also lends itself to being felt in every scrumptious
detail.
So we are now UP to 10 broody hens in the coop, and DOWN to 6 eggs under
them. They cracked another egg this morning, I think due to fighting
and shoving over who gets to set on them.
I'm thinking from now
on of isolating a hen or two with all of the eggs, and letting them set
in peace. I'm doubting that any of the current eggs under the hens
will hatch due to all of this. We'll see.
First was the other night while we were watching
TV. I was lucky enough to be walking by J. and saw his reaction to
N.'s sudden question: "Mom, what is 'flirting'?"
I think I actually saw the white of his eyes all the way around his eye! Priceless.
The
second one was when she and I were watching the shuttle astronauts
getting geared up for the launch. As their helpers were getting them
dressed and equipped, one of them placed an orange-stick-like object in a
small pocket on the outside of the astronaut's suit upper arm area.
Her: "What's that?"
I start to explain that it may be a glow-stick, shark repellent or dye marker for use if they go into the water. "Tha--"
I get no farther.
She
suddenly turns to me, face all lit up as a thought occurs to her and
the space program just gets 1,000 times more wonderful in her eyes.
"Is that an OTTER POP?!"
I laughed and said no, I doubted it. But damned if it didn't sound like a great idea. Otter Pops in space!
Some of the eggs are clear--the Polish ones--but others have embryos
starting, hurrah! And in BOTH incubators! Can the real culprit be as
simple as 'too many eggs in the incubators'? And if it really DOES end
up being a '12-20 at the MOST' deal for the incubators, why does Miller
Manufacturing say you can place 46 eggs per incubator? The humidity
& temps feel MUCH better, too.
Hmmm.... Now if we can only keep the eggs going and get them to hatch--!
As
for the broody hens outside...we now have EIGHT hens that have gone
broody, including Bear, our Head Hen. I think they've realized that we
are leaving eggs for them to hatch and they're all trying to horn in on
the action. Bear has succeeded in taking over one nest with three of
the eggs, while four other hens are setting two to a nest and have the
remaining 4 eggs split up between them. At least the paired off ladies
are being nice enough to share an egg apiece. I do think that when
hatch time comes, we'll either choose one hen (likely Bear) for mama and
give her all of the eggs, or just go with two of the ones who have
paired up. I hate to deprive the others of their eggs, but they have
already broken three of the initial eggs we set under them by fighting
over them, and I don't want to shift things around again just yet and
have it start up again.
Into the incubators, actually. AND hens! Since we've got about 6 of
the girls who have gone broody (the coop is a Terror Zone for the other
chickens, who dash in, lay their eggs and LEAVE), I've set 5 eggs each
under Moet, who has raised chicks before and is an excellent mama and
Zevon/Splash--two sisters who are brooding together and get along well.
Splash and Zevon have peacefully divided up their 5 eggs--Splash has
three, Zevon has 2. Moet is a Frizzle buff Cochin, Zevon is a Frizzle
Cochin mix and Splash is a nice large, plump bantam of mixed heritage.
These eggs will be my test--if the hens can't hatch them either, I'll
know it's not my incubators or me who is at fault. I know a lot of our
girls are older, so it could be affecting the hatch--but then we've got a
lot of young girls, too. It's a mystery...
In
the two incubators, we've drastically cut the number of eggs and will
have only 20 eggs in each one. Each set of eggs is numbered 1-20 and
marked with an X on one side and an O on the other, in order to track
which ones have been turned. They'll get turned at least three times a
day. The new incubator has been upgraded with a forced-air fan to
better circulate the air around the eggs, the old incubator has a new
thermostat. I'm also going with leaving all the red ventilation plugs
in on both incubators in hopes of raising the humidity, which has been a
real bear to get and keep to where it is supposed to be.
We'll start the eggs at 6PM tonight, which should give us a hatch date of 5-23-09--the day before Memorial Day!
I think we're being skunked by both incubators. :( This morning at
9:30 is the official hatch time, but so far no movement or peeping out
of ANY of the eggs in either incubator.
We'll leave the eggs in for three days beyond the hatch, just in case, but I doubt if any are going to hatch at this rate.
This
is SO disappointing. I've now been turning eggs for the last 6 weeks,
three times a day and I don't mind saying I'm sick of it. But we'll try
again...once I've talked to Miller Manufacturing, the makers of the
incubators, and installed both the forced air fan and electronic
thermostat.
I'm also considering giving some of those broody girls out back some eggs to hatch, as a test.
I just candled about 1/3 of the eggs in each of the incubators--they are
at about 15 days. Some were clear, others showed developed but
possibly dead embryos, others had mysterious dark masses that may/may
not be chicks, while still others were too darned dark-shelled to see
through!
And just because Mother Nature does LOVE her little
jokes on me, I now have SIX broody banty hens out in the coop, all dying
to hatch eggs and obviously MUCH better at it than me.
Bleah, I've been hand-turning eggs for nearly 6 weeks now non-stop. SOMETHING BETTER HATCH.
The
incubators are once again full of eggs. I started them yesterday
morning at 9AM, so they are due to hatch on Friday, April 24th.
I think
I've solved the temperature and humidity issue, by dint of a two hour
scouring of the Internet. I finally found someone who was having the
same problem I was back in 2004, they had posted on some obscure forum
and gotten a response--someone suggested leaving in BOTH of the red
ventilation plugs throughout the incubation period, only removing one of
them the last three days of the hatch if needed. I had foolishly been
following the manufacturer's advice and removing one of the plugs at the
beginning!
This time, I experimented by running the incubators
for three days before I inserted the eggs. I left both plugs in and
tested those suckers for 36 hours--absolutely, dead on, STABLE! Not
even a hint of a flutter in that time, night or day! Yay, success!
So
now the eggs are on their way, 31 in each of the two incubators. They
are sitting, side by side, on my kitchen island. The new incubator:
And the old one:
Included
inside are 13 Serama eggs, tiny little things about the size of a
quarter. The chicks are the size of a 9 volt battery, the adults the
size of a can of Coke. :) A very kind friend on a farming forum, who
breeds Seramas sent them to me via mail. Chickam will be up and running
as soon as we see eggs rocking or hear chicks peeping inside the eggs.
They'd better hatch, as my daughter is using them for her Science Fair
project--!
So the hatch was a 100% failure, boo. :( We are going to try again,
after conferring with other chicken people. The incubator will be
outfitted with a new electronic thermostat and a forced-air fan unit,
and relocated back in the kitchen. I find it hard to believe that
moving the thing about 8 feet would make such a total difference,
but...well...we DID get some chicks hatch last year when we did that!
Still time to hatch chicks for the kids' Science Fair project, so all is good, still.
...with no movement or sounds from the eggs yet. We're uncertain if all
will hatch, some will, or none will. Candling the dark-shelled eggs is
impossible, we can't see through the shells even using our brightest
light. With the hatch due Monday morning, seeing the eggs rocking and
hearing the chicks inside peeping tomorrow will be our only clue as to
if we have any viable eggs or not.
Chickam is pointed at the nest
boxes out in the coop for now, and will stay there until we have
movement and peeping from the eggs. So if you see the eggs on camera,
it means the hatch is a 'go'. The thermostat on the incubator proved
VERY unreliable this time around, fluctuating wildly between 102 and 98
degrees...with the optimum temp of 99.5 degrees being very hard to
maintain. Even with checking it often, we can't be sure if hours passed
during the day when we were gone, or night while we were sleeping with
the temp at a chick-killing too high or too low.
At any rate, the
eggs will remain in the incubator until Thursday the 26th, in order to
catch any late bloomers. If none hatch, we'll try again. J. says he
wants to take the old incubator and try to install a better, more
reliable thermostat in it so we'll try with that one.
Here are this years' 50 contenders for 'Who Will Hatch First'!
The
blue thing is a Water Weasel, which holds the probe for the digital
thermometer--it acts as an artificial egg and is a way for us to gauge
the temp INSIDE the eggs, which makes for a much more accurate reading.
The thing with the digital readout on the right is a hygrometer, which
measures humidity--it has to be at a certain levels at various times
during the hatch. It has a thermometer, too, but it isn't as accurate
as the digital one with the probe. The eggs are numbered so that you
can cheer on your favorite!
The eggs are due to hatch on March
23rd, but Chickam will start the day before, on March 22nd in order to
catch any early hatches. You can see and hear it live soon here--two
spots in case one or the other goes down:
With
moderated chat but we advise adult supervision since we can't control
what other people say, but we will be answering questions here: http://www.justin.tv/chickam2008
How do hens manage this without all these gadgets?!
The chickens are getting right
properly twitterpated and are in high barnyard dramaqueen overdrive,
running around this way and that, having little chicken-y romances.
It's cute. :)
So this week we'll start up Chickam (with sound!)
again, beginning with the cam pointed at the nest boxes, so ya might
catch eggs being laid. Also, check out the new, high-tech nest boxes.
:) The hens lay mostly in the morning, about 8AM to 2PM, peaking around
10AM PST. Some of it might be like watching paint dry, but seeing a
hen lay an egg is interesting. The youngsters from last year's Chickam
(Honkey, Scrambles and Potato) are adults now, and are laying eggs too.
I
plan on setting up the incubators later this week, and starting the
eggs on February 27--hatch date should be 21 days later, on March
20th--the first day of Spring! The incubator cam will be turned on the
day before hatch, March 20th. At that point you should be able to see
the eggs wobble and hear the chicks inside peeping. After the hatch,
the cam will be moved to the brooder box so y'all can see and hear baby
chicks running around like ninnyhammers. It's cool, watching eggs hatch
is fascinating! :)
I'll post links to the cams when they are up and running!
Fun Fact: While a hen goes and SITS on a nest in order to lay an egg, while she is actually LAYING the egg she stands up!
