 Well, we experimented with letting the hens set on eggs and hatch them, and all in all we did pretty good. Hard to say exactly on some of them, think they had just as good of hatches as me, and maybe better for some. The geese for sure. But we also had some real issues pop up that we are going to have to deal with and prepare for next year.
First is where are we going to have the hens set on their eggs? We had the geese set in a corner of the coop and then a Narragansett tried to make her nest in the same spot. That resulted in the geese standing on her eggs during the night, and getting poop all over them. She never did set on any of the eggs. Not a good thing. In the peacock cage we had Edith make a nest on one side and the Narragansett make one on the other side. Eventually the Narr. Would move over to Edith’s nest and lay her eggs there, then she finally just tried to sit on the nest with her. In the end I pulled the Narragansett out of the cage and gave her 4 poults from the incubator. One Narragansett hen set on eggs out in the tall grass in the front yard and hatched 7, including 1 chicken. Finally, Redd made a nest out in the Black Berries and set on maybe a dozen eggs.
The next problem we had was keeping track of how many eggs were under each hen, and preventing others from getting in and laying additional ones. I tried to mark some of them, especially when I could watch them lay the eggs and wait for them to set on them. I didn’t so much have a problem with more than one hen laying in the same nest, in fact it helps build the number of eggs in the nest faster. The problem comes when one of the hens finally decides to set, how do you keep the others from continuing to lay there?
And the last major problem we had was what to do with the mother and babies after they hatch? The natural instinct is to take the babies into the brush or grass and hide. And I didn’t think the moms were up to that, and I didn’t trust them or the wild animals around here with that. So I put her in a cage, but the babies kept getting out. So I ended up letting her roam free. Cost me 2 of her babies some where. When the Narragansett hatched in the front yard, she started taking them to the woods, so I put her in the cage, where she still is. She started with 7, the dogs “played with one during the night and she had 6. Then the other night we lost 2 more. They looked like they were trampled in the cage. Think Nikita was loose that night and may have harassed mom in the cage, or something else came around and scared her. So she is down to 4, and one of them is a chicken, go figure. Redd hatched out at least 7 that I counted, but she also had that many dead babies under her, several looked like they were half out of the egg. Then the white rooster got in the yard and chased her all over, and I think she lost some of the babies. When I went out tonight and looked she only had 4. So now we have to decide what to do with her and the babies and how to protect them best we can. I’m thinking about letting the Narragansett out with her 4 babies, they are a little bigger now and they should be ok, and putting Redd in the cage until hers get bigger.
What I have learned this year is that you can only have one hen in a small cage, either in the peacock enclosure or in the small cage I built. They will share nests when one of them is setting and after the babies hatch one will bully the other. And they don’t like to be caged after they the babies hatch. The babies don’t stay near mom. And I still worry about the babies getting enough to eat and drink, and have no way of controlling or making sure they get the game starter they need. The other thing that concerns us is there is no way of really securing mom and her babies for the night. So what do we do?
Ideally each hen would have their own space. Don’t think that is going to happen. I also need to separate the different birds, so the geese, chickens, ducks and turkeys each get their own living space. So we make pens of some sort and put 1 Tom and 2 hens in each one. When one of them shows a willingness to set try to remover her and out her on eggs in another space. When the second hen begins to set I can remove the Tom. If the spaces are planned right, the hen can just stay there with her babies until they grow some. Just need to think about how big the enclosures or what ever need to be. Obviously need to be tall enough for the Tom to get on a hen and partially covered to protect from weather. Both Redd and the Narragansett set on eggs out in the open with minimal protection, through storms and rain and such, so it can be done, but prefer not to force the issue. Have to think about it.
Well, it’s been a while since I wrote, so let me update a few things. Redd is still sitting on the eggs in the bushes and last I checked she was doing good. She has too many eggs for me to count without making a big scene, so I’m just leaving them alone. The other two nests have been destroyed. Something started eating the eggs, and I took most of them out and put in the incubator.
The Narragansett sitting on eggs in the front yard managed to hatch about 7 of them. Bear got one of them, so there are only 6 left. She was leading them around the yard and into the woods and such, so we took them and put them in the large cage I built a couple of years ago. Put it out in the field.
The Narragansett hen in the peacock cage was laying eggs and pushing Edith off the nest. Well and first there were 2 nests, as I’d planned. But then she started jumping nests and pushing Edith off, and leaving eggs uncovered. So I took her out one night and gave her 4 chicks that had just hatched. At first I put her in the cage with the other hen, but they fought, too. So I let her out. I was checking to see if she would abandon the babies, since they were kind of foster kids. She took off for a few minutes and then came back. So I just let her run with her babies. I tried to pen her in, but the wires let the babies thru but not mom. And these babies have no intention of sticking near to mom. Tried putting her in the chicken yard, but she managed to get out. So just left well enough alone. She started with 4 chicks and is now down to just 2. Not sure what happened to the others, think they wandered away to check things out, and they got separated.
Edith had 5 eggs under her and one of them hatched this weekend. So she has 1 chick, and 4 eggs. Not sure how long to wait on the other eggs, and I’m not sure if they will hatch either. And I’m not sure what to do with them, because the peacocks don’t seem to like the babies, and don’t think that she could protect the babies from the peacocks. I’m thinking about taking the chick and putting it with the ones from the incubator and seeing if the eggs are dead. Archie and Edith need to stay in the peacock cage. The big chickens will not accept them, especially the roosters. So they are destined to be confined with the peacocks. Not sure why the peacocks have accepted them other than they grew up together.
And these are the problems we’ve had with getting hens to sit on eggs. Had it with the geese to an extent. First, where do you put the hen to sit on the eggs so the others won’t bother her or try to lay eggs in her nest or force her off the eggs? And it isn’t that easy do control. I didn’t try moving a hen this year, but last year it was all but impossible to move them. One of the things I did was allow them to sit on the eggs in the trees or in the front yard. It also helps that we have dogs we can let run every night. Until we get them trained better just leaving them with the birds all the time is out of the question.
So even after you get them to sit on the eggs, the next question is what do you do with them after they hatch? Where do you put mom and babies so that she can raise them? The other requirements are that the babies get feed and water. That isn’t the same as getting it for mom. And if you are setting out chick starter for the babies, you have to keep everyone else out of it. Not concerned if mom eats it, she probably needs it after setting for so long. For the geese, we just left them in the coop. But the geese are bigger and a lot more aggressive and I worried less about others bullying them. For the turkeys, the one in the front yard I let wander until she started going into the woods a lot. Guess I should have expected that, and it is natural, but we just are not prepared to allow her to just wander around in the woods. Getting fences around the perimeter should help in that. But still, mom can fly over just about any fence I put up. The problem comes when the babies can’t follow, or don’t follow.
So end result is I have one hen caged, and she has 6 chicks. One keeps getting out and I have to put it back. Not sure where it gets out either. She lost 1 chick, to the pups. I have the other hen running free, and she has 2 of 4 chicks left.
This year I have tried to use the “Dry Incubation” method, but the hatch rates have been really bad. Not sure what the problems are. I do know that I have issues with temperature control. To start with, I’m not sure I trust my thermometers. They are digital and seems to be a difference in them some times. Not sure how much of it is that temps vary by height in the still air incubators. But then again I haven’t had really great hatch rates from the forced air incubator either. Not sure how to calibrate the thermometers, or if I should have a thermometer in each incubator or just use one and move it from one to the next. Also, next year plan to use incubator #2 as the hatcher. It has a plastic tray on the bottom and about twice as much head room for the chicks. So will be better. Also, Next year I plan to put eggs in the incubators twice a week instead of just once. I have noticed that the eggs that are hatching the most are those put in the incubator within a day or two of being laid. So I’ll try that. They other thing I could do is find a better way to store the eggs between the time they are laid and the time they go in the incubator. Some place cooler than the house. My closet has the incubators in it, so that isn’t good. Not sure if Gavin’s closet would be any cooler. I’d like to put them under the house if I could figure out a way to accomplish that.
There are a few eggs in the incubator need to throw out, and then 2 more incubators full of eggs. Then that will be the end of the hatching season for this year.
In the garden, things are doing good. A week or so ago I planted a lot of corn. Sweet corn in the garden and field corn out by the birds. The field corn isn’t fenced in so not sure how well it will do, but figured it was worth trying. I’ll let it dry and then use it to feed to the birds. May have to pick it to protect from the deer and the raccoons and finish drying it inside, but we’ll see. Yesterday I planted watermelon and pumpkins. Need to plant more cantaloupes and such. Have lots of tomatoes planted, and herbs. Lots of basil, 2 different types; oregano; tarragon and rose mary. Saw some spicy basil and Thai basil at Wal-Mart the other day that I think I’d like to try. I also put out a cabbage plants I’d started, and some plants I had at school. Also have several beds of potatoes. Squash is also doing good. Have several Zucchini and at least one Acorn squash.
Took 20 turkey eggs out of the chicken coop and put them in the incubator. The Narragansett kept laying and sitting on them for a while during the day, but then she would get off at night and the geese would sleep on them. And poop on them. There is a Narragansett sitting on eggs in the front yard, about 8 I think and they should be hatching in the next 10 days or so. Redd just started sitting on a nest of eggs in the chicken yard the other day, so figure they should hatch about 25-27 May. There are 2 other nests in the Black Berry bushes, one has about 6 eggs and the other more. Not sure if any one is going to sit on them or not, but plan to just leave them be and see what happens.
Edith in the Peacock cage is sitting on several eggs also. There was a Narragansett in there also and it was getting crazy. There was one nest in the small house in there and one next to it. At first they each stayed on their own nest, but then they started switching and sometimes no one was on one nest, so I took some of the eggs and tried to separate them. Didn’t work. So this weekend did some major re-arranging of birds. We took the cage apart that had the Barred Rock babies in it. They are getting so big can’t really be called babies anymore, so we call them “Broilers”. We set up a new 4 foot fence in a new area, and moved them to it. The coop went with them. The cage got moved to a new area. We took the Narragansett from the peacock cage and put 4 new hatched poults under her to see if she would adopt them. Well, tonight she was out of the box and had at least 2 under her. I got in the cage and lifted her wing to make sure they were there and ok. And that was enough.
Trusting the birds to be good moms and know what to do is just a little new and rough for me. Because some of them have shown they don’t even know how to stop laying and sit on the eggs. As for babies, right now we have 4 babies that hatched a week ago, and 13 that hatched Saturday. It is 4 of the 13 that went under mom, so we still have 13 babies in the brooder in the house.
In the smaller cage outside are the 3 ducks we bought and 2 chickens that hatched about that time. Figure they will grow up together. Got their pen all set up and ready last night and then we had a thunder storm about 3am this morning and had to go bring them in. It was their first night out, but not the first time they’ve been in the cage, but instead of being under the light and warm and dry, they were in the opposite end of the cage, in the rain, wet and cold. And ducks are worse than geese when it comes to making messes with the water. So I’ve decided that we are going to make a special pen for the geese and ducks around one of the low spots out in the field. I’ll dig it out and put what is left of the old large plastic pool in the bottom of it to help keep water in it. I’ll plant some cat tails I think. Anyway, that is where the ducks and geese are going to be, and Next year I’ll let them sit on their own eggs and raise their own babies, and what ever we get is what we get for babies. Not sure I want to brood them any more; Let mom do it.
So I including the 20 eggs I just put in the incubator, there is probably about 70 eggs or so in them. So far this year think I have been averaging about 50% hatch rate. Not good, and I’m working on that. But that would still mean I have about 30 poults coming, plus what ever we get from the 3-5 nest birds are sitting on. So I’m placing my first ad on Craig’s List to sell the poults I have now. I mean, that has always been the plan, to sell as many as I can, and keep about 15-20 to raise and sell. And if we can get the birds to care for them as they grow up, why not? The thing we hadn’t counted on is where to put mom and babies after they hatch. How do you keep the separate and safe, but still together, you know?
Friday. We all had off and so the weekend seems out of whack. I had my first job interview for a teaching position in the morning, was nice. In the afternoon we went out in the field and used our new post hole Auger digger to make holes for the cedar posts we bought. There were a lot of rocks in the first one and it kept binding and didn’t do well. Then we broke the shear pin and had to stop. So we went to town and got new, bigger pins. Not just the one we broke but both pins. We also got some landscaping timbers to put around trees and stuff in the front yard. The rest of the day was too cold to do very much, so we took the afternoon off and watched TV.
Saturday. We had waffles for breakfast. Hopefully we had what was our last frost of the year last night. I think it only got down to 37 or so, what the forecast said anyway, but they warned of patchy frost. And when I went out this morning to let birds out I checked, and sure enough, there was frost on some of the grass and the top of the little chick’s cage. We covered up the roses, and the pups pulled the covers off. Think we did more damage trying to protect them than would have happened if we just left them alone. Oh well, live and learn.
Spent the day out in the field putting posts in the ground. Started with the hole where we broke the auger, did them by hand with a crow bar, and it went pretty fast. There were some huge rocks and glad we didn’t try the auger again. All total we dug 3 holes by hand. The corner post and 2 bracing posts. The rest of the posts were pretty rock free and the auger worked great. Dug the holes in just a few minutes, then we put rocks and dirt in and packed them down. Figure in a day or so when they have a chance to dry some they should be pretty solid. The ground was still kind of wet. A few days ago, or last weekend we had torrential rains and everything was flooded. So it is starting to dry out some. All total we put in 12 posts and laid out the field fencing for 2 sides. The other 2 sides will be 2 inch chicken wire that is 4 feet high. It is in the shed, and we’ll have to decide how soon to put it up. We got wire to do the bracing posts. I’m not sure yet what I’m going to use for the cross member for bracing, but it can wait just a little. Also started pulling the staples off the little coop so we can move it tomorrow to a new area, with more grass and such.
The first of our turkey poults for this year hatched today. Right now there are two in the hatcher and about seven more to go. And this is just the first week. I have been putting eggs in the incubator every week, so they will hatch every week. This is just the first batch. I haven’t opened the hatcher to take them out yet, but as soon as I do I’ll post some pictures.
What else? Came home one night and the geese were alone in the coop with their babies. So we took the baby ducks and the baby geese and put them out there. Mom and dad didn’t like the ducks, so we put them back in the house. But they accepted the geese, so now all 4 babies are with mom and dad, walking around the yard and such. So cool to see them all out there. Today two of the babies got in the one of the drinking pools. I think they are too young, but I’ll leave it up to them to decide.
Took the rototiller and tilled up the garden, hoping to get some stuff planted in it tomorrow. Have a bunch of plants on the deck that are started and ready to go. And it is still pretty early in the season. I’ll try to get some more pictures of things as I can and get them posted.
Been sunny out for 2 days now and the grass is getting dry, but the ground is still soggy. Been cleaning up around getting ready to put fences in around the field. It looks like the clover is growing good, but hard to say if it is actually the clover I planted or what. I have this Friday off and I’m hoping to get things ready for the fence. The new post hole auger takes 2 people, so I’ll have to wait until Saturday when Jeanne can help me, but I’m hoping to get things laid out and posts put up Saturday. Gotta get the fence up and get the birds out in the pasture.
I’m also hoping to get things planted in the garden. Have a lot of plants in containers out on the deck and they need to get in the ground as soon as I can work it. Got a good jump on the weeds by tilling up the garden area, and hoping I can keep ahead. Picked up several retread tires from the highway that are perfect for raised beds. Now we just need to get things organized.
And Edith appears to be still setting on the turkey eggs outside the little house, and the longer she sits there the stronger the urge will be for her to stay on that nest and not jump from nest to nest. Didn’t go inside and check on the turkey eggs in the box, so we’ll see how that goes. There are 2 turkey eggs in the chicken coop and I’m just leaving them there. See what happens when the numbers get bigger.
Put 28 turkey eggs in the incubator. Now I am really going to try to not collect eggs and let the hens set on them. There is a Narragansett hen in the front yard sitting on 8 eggs. Wish she had more but too late to do anything about it. In the peacock cage, there are 2 turkey hens, Brownie and a Narragansett, plus Edith. Well, there is a nest inside the little dog house thing and one on the outside. Both turkeys were laying eggs, sometimes in the nest outside, but sometimes the one inside. Edith was laying in the one inside. Sometimes a turkey would go inside the box and lay an egg, and in appears that at least one of Edith’s eggs were broken, I assume from being stepped on. So yesterday, Edith was on the nest inside and the Narragansett was on the outside one. It would appear she got off after laying an egg, because initially there were 6 eggs, but later in the day there were 8 eggs and no one was on it. So tonight I went out and Edith is on the 8 turkey eggs in the nest outside and the Narragansett hen was inside the box with 4 Edith eggs and 1 turkey egg. So I took the Edith eggs and brought them in the house, and left the single egg under the Narragansett. And it is all Edith can do to cover the 8 turkey eggs, but I’m leaving her there. I don’t really care who sits on which nest, as long as they don’t set on them and start he incubation process and then get off and let the eggs cool and die. So need to watch that. And I’m not sure how to separate them so they won’t be so tempted to swap nests.
Both goslings in the house are doing great. I attribute that mostly to the even temps under Emmy during incubation. The 2 chicks are also doing pretty good.
Took mom’s turtle, Golden, to school today and he was a big hit. The kids loved him and got to play with him and hold him and everything. We took him outside at recess and let him walk in the grass. He didn’t hide at all in his shell. The fish at school are still doing good, too.
The weather has been rainy all weekend, big thunderstorms and flash floods. So the ground in soaked again. Will be the end of the week before I can get into the garden to plant things. Speaking of which, repotted a lot of the plants and they are on the deck. Think I have gotten a better start on the garden this year, just need to keep up with things. Starting to get plans and ideas about how to fix things around here, the trees and the yard and the field. This winter I’ll need to do some landscaping and work out the drainage so that these spring rains don’t affect us quite so much each year. Need to make paths to walk on and get in fences, make the paddocks for animals and such.
We had a nice weekend. Saturday the sun shined and we cleaned the living room and the plants. Tried to get rid of all the fine dust left from the chicks in the house. I got some of my seeds planted and the starts put into small pots, and the lights set up on the shelf. Planted the rose bushes in pots.
Then I went out in the garden and rototilled parts of it. Put in 3 of the frames for raised beds and tilled up several other areas. I didn’t actually plant anything yet, just got the ground ready. Also 2 or 3 of the Oregano plants from last year actually made it through the winter. I took the covers off them and they are looking pretty good. I am totally shocked that they survived the cold. I hadn’t even given it a thought that they would, but when I found them, I tried to protect them some. Of course by then, most of the bad parts of winter was over. And I think they are the kind of Oregano I labeled as “Other” Oregano. It just smells and tastes different, better. And so I’m hoping to get more of it this year. I also bought a Rosemary and Lavender plant at Wal-Mart. I have some I’m trying to grow from seed, but I wanted to be sure I had some. And I’m starting to run out of what I have in dried from last year.
I accidentally killed my Rosemary last fall. I trimmed it way back and figured it would grow back. But I have since learned from reading that Rosemary is one of those strange plants that does not grow new buds. You can trim off parts and it will keep growing from the terminal buds. But if you cut off all the terminal buds, it will not grow any new buds or shoots like regular plants will. What happens is the plant dies. I thought I was just trimming them back for winter and coming inside. Instead, I killed them.
We had gone to the MFA store here and bought about 5 pounds of clover seed. I think it is red clover, I’m just sure it isn’t Ladino clover. It came with some kind of coating on it, could be an inoculant or something to help with handling the seed, not sure. Anyway, got the seed and went out just before dark Saturday evening and scattered the seed by hand over the area we plan to fence off. It covered the area pretty well. I’ll just have to see how it grows and survives the summer drought. Saturday night we got some pretty good rain, and during the day Sunday. So I went out Sunday and checked on the seed. The seed was still visible some, but had been worked down into the ground pretty well. I had forgotten to save a few seeds to test sprout inside. So I gathered up a few and brought them inside.
And in the process of doing things and checking stuff, we found the first egg Edith laid in the peacock pen. So she has finally come of age! Will have to keep an eye on her and keep Hot Rod away from her. Not sure what we plan to do with the eggs, I’ll probably try to hatch them and sell the chicks. Not sure that we want to raise very many of these smaller birds. They may be small, but I’m telling you, both of them have some personality! We’ll see what happens.
So Sunday it Rained and we didn’t do much outside. Grilled a tri-tip steak again. Has become a habit, almost a tradition that I hope we continue for a long time. On Sundays, especially when it is nice weather outside, we grill out. We got this steak Friday night and marinated it until Sunday. Then we put it on the smoker and smoke it using pear wood for the smoke. Takes about 3 hours or so. Oh, and we watch the Nascar Races while it smokes. Something new I am learning to enjoy with my new wife. Jimmy Johnson, #48 is our favorite. So about two thirds of the way into the race, the power goes out. Came on and off for a while, but eventually stayed off for over 2 hours. Good thing we were grilling or dinner would have been a poor fare. Had steak and steak fries from the grill. And just as we were getting ready to eat, the power came back on. Nice, as it was getting dark also. We also changed our clocks ahead one hour to Day Light Savings Time. But guess that is a whole other story. Not sure how I feel about it. Monday it really sucked because we aren’t used to it yet, and we had to get up in the dark again. We did like the extra daylight hours when we got home. So we’ll see.
Monday night we tilled up another section in the garden. Then we planted some of the lettuce plants and onion bulbs in it, along with some peas, beets and lettuce seeds. I didn’t have carrot seeds with me or would have planted some of them, too. We got another egg from Edith, but I dropped it and it broke. Emmy has 8 eggs in her nest and hope she starts to really sit on them soon. We got 5 other eggs from chickens, too. Moved a bale of straw into the coop and moved the Dog Igloo into the coop. Tried to get the pups to sleep in it, but don’t think that will work. Maybe the turkeys or something will use it for a nest box.
Moved 4 goose eggs to the hatcher, should hatch any day now.
Been a while since I wrote on here, so let me try to catch up.
One week ago. Took 3 of the chicks we hatched in January back to school a week ago. The kids loved them, they got to hold them and pet them. The ones that weren’t afraid of them any way. It was really an experience for them. Even some of the teachers and staff loved it, lol. Was interesting. Have 12 geese eggs in the incubator right now. The turkeys haven’t started laying yet, but hoping will have turkey eggs to incubate soon. Have 33 chickens we hatched in January, and all of the roosters are destined for the freezer or the canning jar in about 2 months.
Thursday night I took some of the chicks outside and put them in a pen outside our window. It was on the West side of the house and got the afternoon sun. I put a light in it and put up some blankets to form an area that was warmer. We put blankets over the sides and closed it in really well. I put half the chicks out there, the ones we think are roosters. They spent 2 nights out there and seemed to do alright. One of the problems was it didn’t get any sun until afternoon and another was only half the chicks were in it.
So today we moved the mini-coop from the garden out to the field beyond. I cleaned the area up and Jeanne helped me move the big pen and set it up. Then we moved the mini-coop and placed it next to the pen. I cut a new hole in the fence and stapled it to the side of the mini-coop. Because the problem we had last year was the chicks were either in the coop or in the pen. But now I can open the mini-coop and just leave it when we go to work, and the birds can come out when they want to.
I was hoping to get out in the garden and till up some of it so I can plant stuff soon. I have a few plants started in the house. The Broccoli and the lettuce didn’t sprout very well. The Thyme did really well, and I only got 2 Rose Mary plants. I still need to start more plants inside for the garden. I also need to get the seed for the field to grow clover.
I did a pre-screening interview for teaching positions with Springfield Public Schools, the other day and think I did pretty well. The next round on internal transfers begins 15 March, when positions get posted. They have to be up for 10 days, and then on 26 March, schools can begin interviewing. My name is in the hat for any positions I am qualified for, I don’t need to do anything. I just need to check out the positions and prepare for interviews. In the first round, there were 3 science positions. So either they are still open, or they got filled and now there are open positions where those people came from. So there are positions available, and chances are there could be additional ones also. One of them is with at risk kids. and I think I could enjoy working there, and have a real shot at making a positive difference in their lives. So now, just kind of wait and see what happens.
Oh, and in case you heard about our tornadoes. We did have one a few miles down the road from our place and one person died. Several mobile homes were destroyed, and Buffalo was with out power for 2 days. We never even lost power at our place. Got woke up by the rain and the wind, but no damage near us. The plastic lawn chair in the yard didn’t even get blown away.
Last week. We started putting the puppies in the chicken coop to sleep at night, and then they hang out in the chicken yard with them all day. Bear sleeps under the nest boxes and Nikita sleeps just inside the door. We have the light set to provide light until about 830pm each day, so we put them out in the coop a little after 8 each night. That gives the birds enough time to settle down for the night after we put them away, and then the pups go in and lay down for the night. Has worked pretty well so far. We are betting that by growing up with the birds, they will be less inclined to chase them or kill them. We know there could be accidents, and think we are prepared to accept those. We have been reading books on training dogs and ways to train Pyrenees especially, and how to work with birds. Did a lot of research on the tying the dead bird around their necks thing, and in my opinion it is the best way to go. And I’m trying to take a different view of training the dogs and how they see things and feel about stuff, and how they learn. So far the pups have been great. Mom has been the issue. Jeanne caught her chasing the birds one day, and she had Brownie pinned down and was playing with her. Bit all her tail feathers off, and lost some of her wing feathers, but there wasn’t a scratch on the bird. Now she just looks funny with no tail.
Stopped collecting the goose eggs. We have 7 in the incubator and 4 in the hatcher. Those 4 should start hatching Monday or Tuesday. Then 3 next week and 4 the weeks after that. There are 5 eggs in the nest in the coop now. She sits in them every night, but gets off them in the day time. That is the way geese do it. And so each evening, I have to go in and reach under her to get the chicken eggs, because she moved form the nest she built into the dog carrier I put out there and now the chickens all lay in her nest. We only got 2 eggs today, and 6 yesterday, 5 the day before. Not sure what the deal is. And we got our first egg from Edith today. Not sure what I’m going to do with it. I put it in the closet and will see if we get many more.
Bought 3 rose bushes and some herbs. Planted the roses in pots in the living room. Will grow them there for a while and then plant them in the yard when the weather has warmed up. Also started some seeds. I put some in the other day and they are in little pots now. Filled up the starter tray last night with cabbage, broccoli, beets, 2 kinds of lettuce, egg plants, cilantro, marigolds and some other flowers. Then today I cleaned all the plants under the stands in the house and got them organized. They were all covered with this fine, white dust film from having the baby chicks in the house. I also tilled up the garden some, set up 3 raised beds and burned most of the dead blackberry stalks and such. Jeanne helped me pick the plants out of the tilled areas. Didn’t plant anything outside yet. The peacocks came in the garden and “helped” me. The alternated between pecking at my fingers and the weeds I was pulling. Every now and then one of them would grab a weed and run with it. Other times they’d get my fingers. Not sure what it is about fingers, but they seem to love them.
The baby chicks are doing fine, and 33 is just about the limit of that small coop. The pen isn’t too big for them either. I need to take some of the new fencing out and fence off an area around the cage they can get to when we are home. They are still vulnerable to attack from the air by hawks or eagles or owls even. We also go some clover seed and I spread it in the field. We got 5 pounds at MFA today, and I broadcast it by hand just before dark to night. The seed looked like it was treated, or covered with something that should help it grow better, or maybe just make the seed bigger and easier to handle. At any rate, I waited until just before dark to lessen the chances of birds or something eating the seed. It is supposed to rain tonight, quite a bit, and so my the morning I hoping the seed will be worked at least to the ground layer and maybe less visible to animals. And the rain should help it to get started growing. We are expecting some warm weather the next week, with days in the 70’s and night in the upper 40’s to lower 50’s. 10th of March and not sure if we’ve seen our last frost or not. We got a good one Wednesday and Thursday night. Got down to 28 one night and 31 the other. Those were the first freeze we’ve had in a week or more. And no more are in the forecast right now.
This week the jobs get posted for internal transfers at work. And yes, I am very excited about it.
The Oscars have been acting like they are wanting to nest, or breed. They keep clearing out the gravel from around a rock I placed at the bottom for just such a reason. But the Pleco fish keep harassing them. Think the Pleco would eat the eggs given the chance and the Oscars couldn’t stop them. So I’m going to measure and see if I can get something to separate the tank and put the Plecos on one side the Oscars on the other. Haven’t decided what to do about pools outside this summer, but the plan is to turn the old pool into a fish pond and put the large Pleco in it. Think he’d be good in the tank the birds drink out of, just not sure what I’d do with him in the winter.
Well it has been another weekend and we feel like we have gotten a lot done. We got the pups and mom wormed this weekend. We used a goat wormer that is the same thing for dogs, just comes in a liquid and is cheaper than the dog stuff. You give them a dose each day for 3 days. Monday will be day three. Forgot to do Mom Saturday, so she gets it Monday and Tuesday. Today we saw, or Jeanne saw, a couple of worms in their poop. We thought they might have worms and weren’t sure if we would be able to see them. If I had a good microscope we’d look at them with it, and try to learn more about them. And maybe when I have my own classroom I can do that in the class. Probably on my won and not as class project. Have to check on that.
It wasn’t the best of weekends for weather, but it did warm up both days. Sunday was in the upper 50s and warmer than Saturday, but they wind was awful. We moved the small cage with the bottom up next to the house where the afternoon sun would shine on it and put up plywood around the edge to help protect from the wind. We took the chicks out about noon or so and brought them back in about 5pm.
Marshmallow has been acting strange the last few days. She rough houses with the pups too much when they are out, so we had to chain her up for a while. The pups would go out for hours and then peep or poop the second they came back in the house. Mom just wasn’t allowing them time to do their business. And she hasn’t been eating like she should. Today Jeanne saw her chasing a chicken, so we went out and had to chain her up again. Then we went looking for the chickens. Not sure if any of the pups were involved or not. We found all the peacocks up in a tree and several of the turkeys. All the chickens were hiding in the coop on the top roost. Found Edith hiding in the weeds on the far side of the newer trailer where she goes with the peacocks. Not sure where Archie was hiding, but we looked for him for a long time, and then he just showed up eating some of the bread we threw out to the birds.
I planted some seeds and the lettuce and several herbs are showing thru. The broccoli hasn’t sprouted yet. I didn’t have any cabbage seeds, so had to get some of them. I also need to plant a few Marigolds. We are planning to grow some of them for the school kids so they can take them home to mom, and I need to figure out how long it takes to get them a good size to send home.
Have 8 geese eggs in incubator, and candled them a few times and looks like they are doing great. I have 3 more, and hope to get the 4th one tonight or in the morning and put those in also. Not sure exactly what I'll do with the goslings, but will figure that out later. May try my hand at sexing them and think about keeping another female.
Wednesday afternoon I have a pre-screening interview for teaching positions this fall. So I’ve been working on my resume, redoing it and stressing over that. Think I have it to an acceptable level. And with everything others have done for me to get to this point, guess I have to get the actual teaching job on my own. Just a little nervous. So spent most of today looking at things and reviewing them, and imagining my own classroom, things that could come up and how I’ll handle them, or answer questions during the interview.
Today is Wednesday, 22 February 2012, and it has been about 10 days since I put the first goose eggs in the incubator. I have been turning them several times each day, and in the evening opening up the incubator for 15 minutes to let it cool down some, then spraying them down to simulate mom coming back from swimming. There are now 8 eggs in the incubator and 2 on the shelf next to it. I’ll wait a few more days to put them in. I’ve been putting them in about once each week. So tonight I got my candling light out and candled the eggs. What I found was pretty promising. It is only 10 days into a probable 30 day incubation, there isn’t a lot of growth to be detected. But it looks like there is development inside, you can see a darker shape inside. At least there is a significant difference between the ones that have been in for 10 days and those that have been in for only 3 days. In another week or so I’ll candle them again and see what changes here are. And judging by the number of feathers missing and the scrapes on Emmy’s head, I’m pretty sure he’s been getting the job done.
Which is more than I can say for the turkeys. We have two Toms, and not sure either of them has a clue. And I’m not sure if they have even determined which one of them is the Alpha Tom. Twice now I have seen one of them just standing on a hen, just standing there. I really have to wonder if he knows what he’s supposed to do. Usually the Tom started to lower his tail right away and trying to mount her. But he doesn’t and often the other Tom will come and push him off. That or they begin to fight while one is still on the Hen’s back. So I’m not sure what to do about this, but it isn’t promising. I’m thinking about dividing them into two groups. One of the Toms has a notch in his tail like Stripes had. I’ll probably put him with 4 hens and the other Tom with 3 hens. Have to decide where to put them and which hens to put with who. Thinking about building a new pen for the turkeys, and dividing the flock would be the answer because I was really concerned about building a pen big enough for 9 turkeys. I have a lot of building materials we’ve collected, just wasn’t sure what I wanted the final product to look like. Now I’ve figured that out. I’ll separate the Toms, 1 in the pen, 1 out. Then I need to divide the hens between them. May put 3 Narry hens in the pen and 2 out, and then I’ll have to decide if Brownie goes in or out, and Red goes with the opposite group.
As for the puppies, we just have the two of them left, (Polar) Bear and Nikita. Both of them are getting huge, almost too big to pick up. We had a few unfortunate incidents with mom in the house, so she is back outside as an outside dog again. That is where we want them all to be anyway, to help protect the animals. And it hasn’t been too cold out really. She has a nice dog house full of straw that she sleeps in when its too bad. Usually she is on the back deck or the front porch other wise. So we take the pups out in the evening when we get home, and let them run around with mom. And man, she plays rough with them. Nikita gets the worst of it, it seems. For all the tenderness that goes on between them, I really don’t think mom is being mean or cruel to them. She will run around and tumble with them, she’ll bite on them and play fight with them until Nikita fights back and really snarls back at mom. Not sure why Nikita seems to get it more. I have seen her go after Bear also, grab the fur on his back and just almost toss him over backwards. So we are keeping an eye on her and trying to learn what we can about moms teaching their pups about life and how to defend themselves and the flocks they look after.
I’ll try to get some pictures on here this weekend.
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