Garden Update

Considering that our gardens weren't able to be watered for 16 days, we got scant rain in that time and it's been a heatwave kinda summer so far...they're doing amazing! Yes we had some crops die and some that were planted soon before the well  problem never took off but a lot of the garden produce coped with no water quite well. It was very hard to see the gardens getting drier and drier and I don't know they could have taken much more. Today we have the well water back and I gave things a good watering. Tomorrow some rain is in the forecast I think the gardens have had a good save there, water just in time.

Harvest totals so far:
Strawberries- 6 pounds, eaten fresh and made into jams.
Rhubarb- 5 plus pounds made into pies.
Kale- several good bunches used in stir fry and soup etc. Some also given to lizards, rabbits and poultry.
Collards- a couple big bunches used in cooking and fed to bearded dragons, rabbits, birds.
Cherries- About 3 pounds mostly eaten fresh.
Blueberries, About 2 pounds so far eaten fresh and some planned for pancakes.
Tomatoes-1 whopper eaten fresh

Snow White Is Now A Mama Hen!

Snow White, our broody cochin sitting on eggs is officially a Mama! Her "due date" day 21 is not until Wednesday but her chicks must have been in a rush.One little chick hatched on day 18 and two more in the night between day 18 and day 19.  These are not bantams, those do typically come a little early but it has been hot, hot, hot with many days in the mid 90's. I've a feeling the heat sped up their development. Snow White has three more eggs under her. I'm not sure that anything will come of those but we'll just have to wait and see. If they go past day 21 I'll give them a good look, listen etc and then decide what to do next. If Snow White decides not to sit anymore  before then I'll investigate and decide if the incubator has to be brought out. For now we're enjoying the three little chicks. They are Mo the rooster (Silver Spangled Appenzeller Spitzenhauben) crossed with cream legbars- 2 eggs and Easter Egger-1 egg. There's another EE egg still under Snow White as well as a couple brown eggs from random hens, one might be the Turken but I'm not sure they will hatch.

Snow White And Her Eggs- day 9/10

Snow White, our broody white cochin hen is doing a great job with her clutch of eggs. She is brooding indoors in a large cage. Snow White is looking much healthier than when we first brought her indoors to brood. She was getting overheated outdoors and not taking proper care of herself, her comb was pale and she looked to be losing weight. Today is approx. day 9/10 for her eggs so I decided to candle them. I was able to candle 8 of her 10 eggs while Snow White was up and eating. Of those 10 I found 4 definite chicks developing, 3 definite not fertilized just regular eggs, 1 probably not developing but since I wasn't 100 % sure I left it and 2 eggs that I didn't get a chance to check before Miss broody wanted to sit on her nest again.

Since 3 eggs were definite for not fertilized I was able to remove them, I opened those eggs and yes indeed just normal unfertilized eggs. It will be more comfortable for Snow White now that she has a few less eggs to cover. I set 10 since I know we are only having limited fertilization in the large fowl flock. 

I marked the eggs that I was able to check. Hopefully I can get to the final 2 eggs later today or tomorrow. It's a good idea to discard eggs that aren't developing, especially in hot weather, since they can become rotten and not only smell but add bacteria to the nest.

Here is the happy mama hen and her clutch of eggs just about at the halfway point!

Protecting Popcorn, Garden Visitors and a Handful of Cherries

Trying to get some weeding done before the heat and humidity sets in. We've been getting temperatures in the mid 90's and close to 100% humidity. In the lower garden I had a little red eft newt watching me pull weeds.

In the top garden Little Roodle, a silkie chick (suspected rooster) always visits me when i'm working there. He found that he could slip through the fenced from the chicken yard to the top garden when he was very small and somehow he's still doing it even though he's larger. I'm not sure how he does it but he's in the top garden every day.

I have to protect my popcorn crop from Little Roodle and a few of the hens who are able to fly over the fence. We try to plant everything the chickens and ducks like in the lower garden which the birds don't know about. I can't plant the popcorn in the top garden even though certain birds can access that garden because we have sweet corn in the lower garden and Bobby doesn't want them to cross- pollinate. I'll have to change this temporary solution to something taller soon the popcorn has reached the top of these cages.

Our two cherry trees have been producing it's hard to get the ripe cherries before wild birds and sometimes chickens get them. I snagged a few almost ready cherries to ripen indoors so we get to eat a few. We had a larger cherry harvest last year, this year some of the cherries died off early for some reason. There are still some cherries on the larger tree, these came from the smaller cherry tree. The cherries on the larger tree are still green.

Can't see the solution for the trees....

The well pump has been out for several days now. We are using too much purchased water to keep the farm animals watered and happy. They go through a lot of water, especially the ducks who play in it, spill it, get the water muddy and just plain enjoy water. A couple friends suggested we could use their water and cart some home or use their lake access to get water for the animals. The lake mention helped me to see that I have solutions! Close solutions! Into the woods and not very far solutions! The brook! How did I not think about the brook for animals water. It's a short walk into the woods, closer even than the lake. I wandered down to the brook with some buckets and after a couple trip had plenty of fresh cold water for the animals. I dumped a bucket of the clear brook water over my head as well to get cooled off. Trekking to the brook is no trouble but trekking back with heavy buckets of water in 96 degree humid weather is a bit harder. Getting cooled off before the hike back really helped. The new well pump should be installed soon and water from the brook is a great solution to get us through until then.

Into The Woods

Beautiful cool, clean water!

Happy Ducks, Happy Chickens, Great Solution.

Our 2018 chick brood and hatch is underway!

We're only setting one group of eggs from our flock this summer and now's the time! We've had no shortage of broody hens but only one will be hatching this year. Who will it be? Little black silkies, noooo.... they've already had 1-2 chances each. Bigfoot the black cochin- no she's already had a turn too. The candidates included most everyone else who is currently broody. Blue Belle, our blue cochin, Tiny our blue-cream silkie, Spotty our paint silkie hen, Pansy-our own home grown little mixed bantam, Goldilocks-our golden laced cochin, Miss White our white silkie girl, Snow White our white cochin...and probably a couple others. No shortage of broodies as I said!

The requirements- persistent broody who will stick with the eggs for the full time, hasn't had a turn brooding eggs yet and most importantly willing to sit on her eggs in the house. Yes I said IN THE HOUSE. Why, that's not natural, why can't she sit in the coop or in the fenced run and yard? Yard is a big no. It may be fenced but it's not safe for a hen to sit out all night! Most predators do come in the night time and broody hens are vulnerable. What about the coop. Again a big no. For us we have too many hens wanting to steal each other's eggs. It just gets confusing and complicated when they play musical nest boxes. Okay what about a cage in the coop- sometimes. That would be a case by case situation. It's a no for right now we're having a heat wave and a broody doesn't always take care of herself very well. Broody girls with eggs typically get up only once a day to eat, drink and do their business. They should not sit in a coop for 23 3/4 hours a day when the temperature is in the 90's every day.

We had a few trial girls come into the house to see what they thought. All were a big no thank you! Most of the broody hens eventually stopped brooding and with the few left I tried bringing them in the house as a break the broody cycle or sit on the eggs trial. I really didn't mind if they decided to sit or to quit being broody. I knew I wanted as many broodies broken by the time the heat wave really set in.

Finally two candidates were left and it appeared they were both going to choose to quit brooding rather than sit on eggs in the house.

The Final Candidates, Miss White and Snow White!

Hours passed and neither seemed very interested in the eggs.

Until finally someone was interested....

And five days later she still is!

Snow White's clutch is due on or around July 18th. She has a mixed assortment of 10 large fowl eggs (no bantam eggs this time). I would expect about 50% fertility since only one rooster keeps up with the large fowl flock. The silkie roos mingle with the large fowl girls on occasion but mostly they run with the bantam pack, same coop and yard but different cliques. We really want a Mo baby or two he's our large Spitzhauben rooster so I tried to choose eggs from his favorite girls or girls we hope for a chick from (Crested Cream Legbar, Easter Egger, Turken) some are just random for the surprise factor. We'll see what we get in a couple weeks' time!

Egg Bound Hen!

One of our Easter Egger hens was egg bound! Her egg was stuck and she couldn't expel it. I noticed this morning that this particular hen seemed a little off. I checked on her through the day and found her in the nest box frequently. At first I thought she had something different wrong and tried to give her some non dairy yogurt. Upon watching her and examining her I learned that she was in fact egg bound- her egg was stuck. I knew from past research that the first thing to try is a warm epsom salt bath so in the tub she went. I keep epsom salt on hand since it's a very useful first aid item for animals and humans. Thankfully that was all she needed, after about 15 minutes of soaking and a bit of poking and prodding from me to examine her she was able to expel the egg. It was a a large egg and more rounded than oblong. I opened the egg to see if there was anything odd about it but it was just a normal egg that was a bit too large and possibly positioned wrong. The hen was immediately feeling much better, if a bit dazed by the whole experience and was able to be returned to the flock. I might have kept her in the house overnight but this bird is one of our most nervous hens, probably the most flighty chicken we have and I knew that being in the house for the night would stress her.