Morehens Disease, But With Dignity...And Rationalization

Our Chickam eggs are in the incubator, and due to hatch May 31st, +/- a day or so. Tonight I'll candle the eggs to see how many embryos we have...or ANY, given the 5 hour power outage we had two days into incubation (because it just isn't Chickam without some kind of damned drama).

But to our suprise, one of our local feed stores got in a batch of heritage breeds...most of which are are on the Endangered List. Yes, some American chicken breeds are in danger of extinction, check out this dismayingly long list: Livestock Conservancy Conservation Priority List.

 

So I'm rationalizing today's chick purchase as 'doing our part to save the breed'.

It's not because they are SO cute and fluffy. It's not.

Well, okay, maybe.

 

Anyway, here's today's Morehens Disease outbreak. The feed store had helpful one-page info  sheets. These chicks hatched 5/14, so are 5 days old today (no names yet, I'll update when we name them). And yes, the prices wouldn't normally be this outrageous. Production breed chicks go for $2 to $4 each...but thanks to these being special breeds...and $10 a dozen egg prices driving the demand for backyard chickens...oh, well. Hopefully all these are hens.

 

I may run a livestream on these guys starting tomorrow (the 20th)...and as two of our larger breed hens have gone broody, they might get a mama starting on the 24th, the plan being to add our hatched chicks to the group under her on the 31st. I've never tried that before, so if things go south with her rejecting the new chicks, mama would get bounced back out to the barnyard.

 

Supernova, a drama llama Mottled Java, Critically Endangered:

 

Mayhem (the larger chick) and Havoc (the smaller one), Russian Orloffs, Threatented: We got two, because Orloffs are seriously awesome! The smaller one is struggling a bit, so is getting round the clock assistance in the form of icky Nutri-Drench drops (what the heck do I need with sleep, anyway?):

  

 

Moose, a Salmon Faverolle, Watch:

Favs are also famously awesome clowns--even more so than any other chicken. Check this out: Peaches Is Loud 

 

 

 

Favs are feather footed, fluffy headed...and have 5 toes. They look like an AI generated chicken with all those toes, and ours hasn't yet quite worked out what to do with hers.

And because we can't lay off the ridiculously fat, fluffy eating machine breeds, THREE Orpingtons.

Rainbow, a Blue English Orpington:

 

Zigzag, a Jubilee Orpington:

 

Doughnut, a Chocolate Orpington:

Hard to see in the pics, but if you look them up online, they honest to Pete are the color of milk chocolate!

That's it.

For now.

But next week the feed store is getting some Prairie Bluebells. 

Update, 5/26

...and I have pretty much zero self-control.

So today the kid and I picked up a gray Prairie Bluebell chick, her name is Enzyme! They lay blue eggs! This one yelled a LOT during picture time, and is giving me some quality stink eye. But she does have lovely gray eyes, BTW:

 

 And a Bielefelder chick, named Huntress. She came with the leg band--a good thing because she looks a lot like the Orloffs:

 

 

Both of these girls are a new breed to us, and neither is an endangered breed. I was after a brown Prairie Bluebell, because I love that Creole coloring--but all they had was gray. But the Bielefelder has that Creole coloring, so I got it after all!

 

See how I rationalized that second chick?
 

We Are 'Go' For Our 15th Year Of Chickam !

28 C-Seeds have been placed in the ReptiPro...now to wait for three weeks!

 

All of the equipment has been calibrated and is working great!

The red things on the left are a toy called 'water weasels', each one has a thermometer probe in it--one goes to the Spot Check, the other to a new Thermoworks Chef's Alarm. Yes, the Chef's Alarm unit is technically for the BBQ...but hey, it works. It does temperature and humidity, you can set a high/low range on it and it'll alert you to any deviations. As for the use of the water weasels--it's a hack:  the water weasel simulates an egg, and inserting the temp probe gives you the most accurate idea of how the weather is inside an egg! This is vital, because there is a very narrow temperature range required by eggs in order for them to hatch. Too hot or too cold, and no chicks.

The last two years we've had such a miserable hatch, plus chick deaths, that I made some changes this year...and having four thermometers and two hygrometers is one of them!

The shot glass in the bottom holds water, you need 55% humidity in the incubator. The square white thing on the second shelf is the sensor for the Govee thermometer/hygrometer, it synchs with my phone and charts the temperature/humidity every 15 minutes, with the Govee you can set a high/low range and it'll alert you to any excursions outside that range so you can adjust your incubator.

On the top right is a new thermometer/hygrometer--between the Govee and this one, I know the humidity on each shelf.

I'll candle the eggs in 10 days to see how many embryos we have.

Meanwhile, they'll get turned 5 times a day!

What's This?

Hey look, it's 28 Chickam eggs!
They go into the ReptiPro in about 6 hours!

This will be our 15th year of doing Chickam, yay! 
Because we are gluttons for punishment and powerless to resist cute fluffies...

All but three of these eggs are from our flock--sadly, when I candled the eggs tonight, 10 of the 12 eggs we got locally were badly cracked from repeated pecking (it seems our friend has an egg eater in his flock!)

#1-3 are the eggs from our friend. I know who laid some of our eggs: #4 Brick (bantam Cochin mix), 5 Slick Charlie (Partridge Rock), 6 Spork (Barred Rock), 7 Sesame (Smokey Pearl), 9 Cheerio (Cochin/Americaunas/Red Star mix).

There are 4 bantam eggs (#15-18, which will no doubt hatch first), the rest are a mix across our flock. I believe #19-20 are from Frittata (Danish Brown Leghorn), Pearl (Sussex mix) or Boombox (White Leghorn).

All of the equipment is running perfectly and ready to go!

Updated Chick Pics And Some New Faces!

Um...well...we did go to the feed store.  BUT...but just to get *ONE* chick, a Red Star.  Zip, who sadly passed last year, was a Red Star and we loved her, she was so comical and friendly.

But then when we got there they had a 'Buy 1 Get 1 Free' thing going, and...well...weather you call it 'Morehens Disease' or 'Chicken Math', the end result is always the same.  Go in for 1, come out with 4.

So here are the four new kids!  The two oldest first, they are about a week older than the chicks we hatched. First is Olivia, a very calm and sweet Australorp (a breed that's been on my Want List for years). InstaPet right out of the gate, she loves to sit on laps and be snuggled.

Next is Dottie, a Silver Laced Wyandotte. But since she loves to peck at fingers in the neverending hope they contain food, has been relabled as a Silver Laced WhydYaBiteMe.

The two younger chicks are about the same age as ours, maybe 2-3 days younger.  Here is Star, the Red Star breed I *originally* went in for.

Then there is Bodie, a Golden Sex Link chick.

As long as we were taking pictures, updates on the 5 we hatched! Going from first to hatch to last, Popcorn is first. Popcorn, as expected, is shaping up to resemble her mom, a Belgian d'Uccle. The vulture hocks on her legs are coming in nicely. Still the tiniest chick in the box.

TaterTot, who hatched out black with a brown head, seems to be molting out with tons of white coming in, with some brown. And vulture hocks! Pretty sure Milton, our tortoiseshell d'Uccle mix roo, is her daddy. Mama is Shake, our bantam MilleFleur Belgian d'Uccle.

Don't know yet what color(s) she'll eventually be, and from her facial expression neither does she!

Banjo the fluffy foot feathered fuzzball is next.  I strongly suspect Banjo of being a fella, going by the little red comb coming in and the 'calling for food' sound I keep hearing from the chick box. He just plain gets fluffier every day. Banjo may have Pie for a mom.

No slouch in the feather department either, but with the meatball body to match, is Strychnine!  That's a lotta chicken right there, she's a very heavy bird who likely has Crack for a mom and Cam for dad.

And yeah, I *do* get a juvenile giggle out of calling her a Crack baby.

Last is Groot!
Who was *very* excited and instantly did the Boneless Chicken thing and sat down when it was picture time.

Groot is definitely totally chill and goes with the flow of whatever is happening, when she isn't busy cluelessly stepping on her sister's heads.

All 9 chicks get along great, although they STILL refuse to try any new foods that aren't corn on the cob or live mealworms.  But hey, they are chickens.  They will eventually!

New Additions To The Family...

Making a simple trip to the feed store can be dangerous.

Pictured here are three of the newest additions to the group of Garden Destructors we have living in the back yard:

These are two small--but incredibly heavy and solid--Dark India Cornish Rock Bantam hens that so far have the unflattering name of "The Tank Girls".  Cornish Rocks are the game hens you see mostly wrapped in plastic at the grocery store.  They are extremely sweet and have that so-ugly-you-love-it quality to their faces--they remind me of the extinct Dodo bird. They are wider than they are tall and have a definite waddle when they walk. They can't climb up the ladder to roost, so we'll need to build a lower perch for them. With their gravely voices, they don't cluck so much as burble.  Their feathers are small yet incredibly soft, and their feathering is tight with little to no fluff.  Think a shot put with feathers.

Here's the other new one--a young White Crested Black Bearded Polish hen, so hungry for attention that she runs up to us and jumps in our lap, or pecks your shoes to get you to pick her up. This behaviour led to the people at the feed store labeling her as not only a rooster, but 'mean' as well. This bird was obviously someone's lap pet before she came to us and doesn't have a mean bone in her body. Also with that huge poof of feathers on her head, she can't see worth a darn.

The new birds are settling in well, and our other birds are taking the new additions in stride. Of course, we have been doing some major league sucking up to the new and old birds with the help of a bag of mealworms--the equivilant of candy (or Crack!) to chickens.

We went to the Orange County Fair yesterday for the last time this year--it'll be gone soon. I'm trying to give our daughter N. classic childhood memories whenever possible and the county fair is an important part of that. Our daughter had a great time; played some games and won a large stuffed red dog (which was actually mostly a 'give' from the carny who ran the booth, she can sucker in adults and wrap them around her little finger like no one's business), rode several rides all by herself which she proudly told anyone about who would stand still long enough to listen, J. had a turkey leg and I had deep fried zucchini (strangely, it wasn't on a stick like everything else) which we shared with N. We stopped by the small animal barn and admired the many chickens and rabbits that were on display. I'm not a fan of the cloven hoofed animals-- when I was a kid we lived a few doors down from a LARGE smelly pen of goats and I still can't get past the smell.

At the end of the evening we loaded the stuffed animal prizes, leftover zucchini, the remains of a cinnamon roll and a black pearl that N. had gotten out an oyster she had chosen, into the car. We had ended up with one lone ride ticket at the end of it all--all of the rides take at least three tickets--which we left on one of the tables of a food booth for someone to find and use.

Today my main job is to search IKEA online to see if they have a decent twin bedstead for N.--she has outgrown her crib so it's 'Big Girl Bed' time--great excitement over that. So it's computer and soak my aching feet time.

Beyond that I'm incapable today. Besides, the Los Angeles county fair opens in a few weeks, can't miss that!