Snowy Sunday

 Dartha is such a snow dog, while Comet and Willow come in quickly after a break outdoors, Dartha loves to sit in the snow.

More scenes from a Snowy Sunday. Chickens eating treats and getting a bit of snow build up, wild birds big and small looking for seeds and grain and Linnea the cat enjoying a cozy spot indoors. 

Early To Rise

 It's not that I mind getting up so early, usually around 5:00am, I am more of a morning person. What I mind is all the rushing. There is so much to do in the morning before heading to the paid job. As long is it's not a dreadfully cold morning the trek to the coop in the dark is not horrid, it's quite peaceful in fact. But there is no time, the days I take a little extra time are the days I'm almost late for work. This morning a couple early birds had already laid their eggs, this splash colored pullet seemed very curious about the eggs I pulled out from under her, I wonder if one of these, likely the blue egg, was her very first egg. There wasn't any time to ponder it with her.

My trusty headlamp leads the way as I fill water and food dishes. Even though I open the coop up before I go to work the birds typically don't come out until it gets light out. 

5:30 AM

Later in the day when I get home there is another round of chores before making dinner for the humans and all too soon it's dark again, time to put the farm to bed. Looking forward summer and the longer days. 

5:30 PM

These Turkeys Are Chicken!

 During and after the snow I was roof raking the coop and run. The wild turkeys were nearby hoping for some grain. All of a sudden Rufus the cat ran by, this must have startled the turkeys because with a loud whoosh they all flew up into the trees in the chicken/duck yard! 

Some of the wild turkeys .

Rufus who really just wanted me to go let him indoors.

Scared turkeys in the trees.

Me-continues to roof rake, it has to be done!

Are the ducks fed up with winter?

 Most of the time our 9 ducks don't mind winter, even a foot of new snow doesn't phase them. The chickens on the other hand will not step out of the covered run until I make them paths through the snow. Today though the ducks didn't want anything to do with staying out in the new snow that had fallen overnight. The ducks are getting up their in age with most being 4-5 years old while a couple are still around 3 1/2. Having said that the duck flock is still very healthy, despite being older and hopefully will get back to laying eggs in the spring. Our duck flock consists of mostly Khaki Campbells and also 1 Black Swedish duck, 2 Rouen ducks and a mix or two. This video is from coop opening time this morning. The ducks happily exited the coop area, saw all the newly fallen snow and ....well changed their mind about winter this day! 

The State Of The Flock- January 2021

 Our flock of chickens and ducks is in good shape as we head into 2021. The chickens are currently ages 8 months-5 years. The ducks are ages 3-5 years. The pullets have started laying over the winter and we're getting some wonderfully diverse egg colors. The birds in general all seem very healthy and well. They are coping with the cold winter just fine. It's kind of surprising how many older birds we still have, it will be interesting to see if the oldsters are still laying this spring and summer. 

Eggs in so many colors, white, blues, greens, cream and so many shades of brown. 

Speckles is one of our oldest birds. She's a Speckled Sussex hen.

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We have 9 ducks and here most of them are in a row! One of the young hens, Puppy, or Captain Puppy, seems to be giving the ducks a good talking to. Puppy is a Buff Laced Polish hen, She got her name because she always follows me around and gets underfoot, like a puppy. 

Paths in the snow help the birds make the best of the winter, the chickens don't like walking on pure white snow. 

There's room under the covered run to be out of the coop but still in the dry.

The ducks don't mind snow at all!

The coop and run keep the birds cozy no matter the weather.

Work Before Work- Needing to get the farm work done before the paid work starts each day.

 Some days it's very hard to get the farm chores done before my paid work as a para-educator begins. Our school begins early, I need to be at school by 7:10 which means I aim to leave the house for the 20 minute commute by 6:45.  This time of the year it's still dark when I'm doing those morning farm chores on work days. Add in snow and extreme cold and it can be very, very hard to accomplish. Today was a day that I would have considered calling out for a day off but I knew the other two people who I work with the most in a special education classroom would be out today and getting substitutes in these days of Covid....rare. 

Getting the work done before the other work begins.

So I rushed the chores, which one shouldn't do when it is snowing and there are icy patches under the snow. Yes I hit a patch of ice hidden by the new snow and took a tumble onto one side, ouch. No time to worry about it. Animals were all fed and I almost made it to work on time. Many were late this day due to bad roads. I think we should have had a 2 hour delay but I don't get to decide these things! 

Morning farm chores in the snowy darkness.

I do miss the days of homeschooling, so much more time to care for animals and plants and young helpers too! Still working on finding the right schedules and routines as a full time working outside the home/farm wife and mom. Too bad this day I couldn't stay home with a cozy cat or two!

KitKat

Rufus

Hatching chicks

Once I was required to start working from home due to the Covid-19, I thought to myself, might as well do something fun. Something to pass the time and also that my family and my students could enjoy and follow along. I decided to hatch a few chicks. Since it was so early in the laying season, and the majority of our flock is older, I tested fertility before setting some eggs. When I was using the eggs anyway I checked for the bullseye mark on the yolk. I found that we had about 50% fertility, give or take. Knowing that fertility was a bit low and that we have a rather low end incubator I decided to set 20 eggs hoping for 6 or so.

The eggs I most wanted to hatch were the white Polish eggs to see what Dipsy or Po's chicks would look like! Dipsy and Po are Tolbunt (like calico) Polish chickens and they have great personalities. 

Unfortunately the incubator, a Little Giant still air model malfunctioned! Some of the foam next to the heating element began to melt! We had never even used this incubator. We loaned it once but they only did one hatch  and returned it in good shape.

This was a scary and unexpected situation! I quickly arranged to purchase and bring home a different incubator, choosing to go with a completely different make and model. I was very thankful to happen upon the Nurture Right 360, that was on sale for $119.00. This incubator looked much easier to use. We got the Nurture Right 360 home and transferred the 20 eggs. 

Something caused me to feel strongly that I should add 2 more eggs. Whether it be just from seeing the two empty spaces in the new incubator or worry that with the Little Giant incubator overheating it could further lower our egg fertility/hatchability percent. So I added two more eggs, one white Polish egg and one blue Easter Egger egg.

One more great thing about the new incubator, it could fit right in the brooder cage to keep safe from curious cats! Though they did get in to check it out when I opened to add water. 

Then the real waiting began, 21 days to hatch a chicken egg seems so long even though it's short. We candled the eggs at 10 days and found many had not started to develop at all, they were just eggs. Gave it a little longer but at 14 days it was clear that most of the eggs were clear. There were some eggs, the green and the blue, which I couldn't see into well enough to know so I left those ones. One white egg we could see into and knew there was a chick deeloping!

Just an egg.

Not just an egg!

Finally 20 days had passed and we had just a few eggs left in the incubator. Only one of which we knew to have a chick in it. Late in the night between day 20 and day 21 I awoke to a loud peeping within the house and yes checking with a flashlight in the dark the one white egg had hatched!

This one chick soon perked up and became quite bored and lonely as day 21 began and went on. Humans and cats of the house entertained the lone chick as much as possible but little chick became bored/lonely whenever nobody was paying attention to its plight, all alone and stuck in an incubator. 

Finally late in the afternoon of day 21 another chick started to emerge, this time from a blue egg.

At last Chick 1 has a friend, chick 2!

We waited a few more days with chicks on one side of the brooder and incubator on the other but no more chicks hatched. Later upon examining the remaining eggs...they were just eggs, nothing more. I know we had somewhat low fertility but I have to assume the faulty incubator caused the eggs never to develop. If they were overheated in those couple hours they were in the first incubator they must have been caused to be infertile/unhatchable. Thank goodness I added those two extra eggs, a white egg and a blue egg! Two adorable little chicks came from those last two eggs.