Good Morning! <=2017

[WLLady]

Thats an awesome one al!!! I got one too....not half as nice as yours.
What a gorgeous day! Sure is dusty with all the planting going on around us. Nice to see it being done. I am just puttering around today...maybe d9 a bit of mulching and time to plant the clematis and redbuds.

[Killerbunny]

Congrats to the folks at Kingston/Odessa. Lovely birds, lots of pigeons. Nice to meet up with friends. Congrats to KyleS on his Black Wyandotte Bantam!

[Ontario Chick]

Good evening,
Spent a couple of days on my favorite balcony on Upper Rideau last week, watching two storms colliding over the lake, pretty spectacular, but not much rain.
Trying to catch up ever since, cucumbers planted, and pumpkins, also transplanted some white/ paper birch seedlings that seem to have started all by themselves in the mulch under the birch tree, if they all grow, I will be living in a birch forest.
Tomatos blooming, red currants covered in fruit until the birds find them anyway and I am happy to report that the red potato that started to sprout in January are growing despite the fact that when they were going in ground they had foot long shoots.

[hayladee]

Morning has come and gone and still tons to do out in the barn, new calf this morning was trying to get out with its nose between its toes...that doesn't work so called daughter Cathy and she changed head position and it slid out without a hard pull....good thing we helped though...its face was already starting to swell....alls good now, momma an baby doing fine.
I had a broody hen that just wouldn't change her mind and kept breaking eggs trying to stay on nest when others wanted to lay so I left her sit and put netting over her box till the rest found another lay spot. She hatched out 4 babies then decided she was done and got off the nest leaving 8 more almost hatched to die...grrrr! I was on a horse camping trip with a girlfriend...first time with the "Christmas" trailer, we went to Maryland to a horse campground for the memorial day weekend....AWESOME!! Anyway when I got home the eggs were cold and when I cracked one open to see if it was rotten...fully formed chick fully feathered just had to pull yolk in...dead of course, each of the rest of the eggs were the same, if I'd have been home and stuck then in the bator, think they would have finished hatching? it was a cold weekend for the end of May in Pa. Then the silly hen decided to scratch open the dirt I the corner of the run and something must have snuck in ....no babies anymore... Oh well, the 15 that I hatched beginning of April are doing well, mostly black americaunas, hoping for hens, cant tell yet though. Took 8 roos to market along with 3 buck rabbits....out of room and the grands keep mixing the bunnies together so got rid of the boys... not sure if any of the does are bred but they each have their own pen now just in case. Well better get out and check on that new momma/baby, later all, Hayladee

[Killerbunny]

Pouring rain here this am. Got soaked rescuing baby turkeys from #16 the "unfit Mother". Such fun and she was seriously p****d. Babies all back in the coop now with the rest of the broody girls. All wanted to be in one coop so I have 5 girls plus the kids in there. Hoping not too many get trampled. They can be such little Muppets at times.

[WLLady]

hi everyone!
well, having a rocky couple of days....just forgetting everything (like the covetted caffeine) at home....and busy.....and overwhelmed, and trying to do 2 people's jobs in part time hours. and trying to keep up with physio and stuff like that.
don't know where the weekend went! looks like i caught the cucumber beetles just in time, the plants seem to be recovering well. now the weeding begins. looks like for the first year in YEARS that we might actually get some cherries! not sure that we need plums quite yet again after the bumper crop 2 years ago, but looks like we better suck it up and make some plans for jam LOL. Love seeing all the pics of the new babies!!!! new calves all over the place, new fuzzybutts. i love this time of year. and the grass is still green (when it's not floating away) this year, rare for us being on sand. Need to get some birds out soon....
unfit mothers abound....my turkeys had a few issues, and ended up either breaking all their eggs, or shoving them out of the nest in favor for sitting on apples. go figure. they're still sitting. they are not getting any more eggs. the red slates are laying again, like crazy and have 14 ready to sit on. i'm not hatching any more turkeys. i already have more than enough hanging out...just want to select the few to stay and then i'll be selling the rest.
glad the weather is cooler than on the weekend....tried the pool out again. lots of work to do on swimming! a wee tad uncoordinated, but i didn't drown.....so that's a bonus. it's coming slowly. and i found out that all, every single last one, of my heat bulbs no longer work. fantastic. so now i get to choose, heat lamp bulbs or new brinsea brooder plates.....i don't like the plates for older birds because they sit on top of it but they are a much lower fire risk.....hm. decisions.

hope everyone has a wonderful day!

[Killerbunny]

Not drowning is GOOD!

[windwalkingwolf]

Good morning all! I figured it was about time to post how incubation and hatching has gone so far this year. Last year by this time, I had finished 3 Little Giants full as well as buying 20 chicks and 7 goslings from Performance Poultry: but due to my incredible willpower this year (read: no time to clean 5 brooders), I only have one incubator hatch under my belt so far: 20 mostly mixed breed chicks, and 11 Magpie-maybe-mixed-with-Runner ducklings. Wanted to clean brooders today so decided to give them a good once-over. In the chicks, I have one pullet, three maybe pullets, and at least 16 cockerels Ducklings seem to be better odds: based on voice alone, at least 3 are female. But I'm not counting on their voices until they're actually old enough to quack, I'm just guessing that the loud yippy ones are girls. I really
should get some zip ties and mark them to test my theory. But anyway, back to incubating: I put in a couple China goose eggs, even though I had decided not to breed them anymore. I also put in 4 Embden eggs, not expecting much because they were just a year old end of May. First season geese generally have really crappy fertility, but I reasoned that since these girls actually started laying last Fall, that this was kind of their second season, and I was right of the first 4 eggs, two were fertile but one blood-ringed. I put in 9 more, 7 fertile but one blood-ringed so 6 good eggs plus the earlier one. Left the geese to do their thing: both girls were laying in the same nest, one went broody and is setting on (I think) 7 eggs, and as soon as she did, the other goose quit laying. Of course I snuck a peek 2 nights ago, and the three eggs I checked are developing! I have nothing but good things to say about the Embdens from Performance. 12/10,;the extra 2 points being for being fertile and broody so young.
Anyway, along with those goose eggs in the incubator, are a handful of turkey eggs from Killerbunny. I put a handful of my own in too ( the ones the pig didn't find), but they did bupkis. The Jens ignore Pierre, and just THROW themselves at Justin. Justin is an idiot. He violently drives jens away, because only humans are sexy
Also thrown in that incubator load were the remaining duck eggs from @Dominion Link that didn't fit the first time around, and I think there's 7 or 8 developing in there. Last, but definitely not least, I set a dozen chicken eggs that were not only OLD (4-6 weeks since laid), but also had ALL been thoroughly washed after lay, due to the disgusting mud and thawing manure conditions in the barn at the time. 6 started development, 4 are left. I kept them fat end down in my cellar stairwell, and forgot them for a month. So much for 'conventional' wisdom about fertile egg storage.
So, goose, duck, turkey and chicken eggs, and between them all, incubator is full. BUT. A muscovy goes broody. Very safe spot, but she free ranges once a day to eat and do her business. A week ago, after about S days sitting, She disappears down the gullet of a coyote. Nest of 14 big ass eggs, 12 of which are fertile, and no room under the only other broody muscovy. SO, now eggs in my incubator are two deep in places. They are NOT all going to hatch at the same time, and I'm going to have to do some creative juggling when the first round is nearing hatch. Muscovy eggs are tough, but I still don't want them covered in hatch goop if I can help it.
Meanwhile, I was supposed to incubate a dozen SS Hamburg eggs, and two dozen Jersey Giants. Anybody have a spare digital still-air Little Giant? No wait, don't answer that.

[WLLady]

i found a guinea egg in my garden yesterday. i haven't had guineas for 2 years.
says something about my garden cleanup abilities doesn't it? LOL. amazingly the egg was totally hollow....and not broken! (lucky me). only thing i can think is she must have buried it in the straw i was using as mulch, and now that most of that has rotted away now i finally see the nest.
go figure! www i have some room in a sportsman...LOL (evil i know)

[hayladee]

Love to hear I'm not the only one who is still trying NOT to incubate and is having a hard time of it....lol! Will hopefully have more time to post later today....have a sick calf to tend....having trouble with E coli this year....takes them out in 24 hours, ugh! off I go, later!