First Silkie Egg

First Silkie has laid an egg. I suspect it was the middle one of the white ones as she squats for the rooster (dark one on the left).

They are small chickens, so a diddy little egg.

She laid it in the mud at the edge of the run. I am hoping she will get the idea and lay the next one in the nest box. I added a few more fake eggs to give her the idea. One of them has been digging around in the nest boxes and throwing all the eggs out (there are 2 legbar in this run already laying) for a few days, so I have been wondering if one if them might be thinking about starting laying. So exciting!

First blue egg!

One of the cream legbars has FINALLY started laying. I am so eggsited!

Her friend has also started laying her pretty brown eggs. Both first eggs are small but with a little time thry will be laying normal size ones… Mr legbar also in this picture. I’m hoping when I breed him and the one layong brown eggs that the offspring should have green eggs…

Extreme chicken protection needed

We have been having terrible problems with birds eating the chickens (sparrow hawks and kites) and their eggs too (crows).

They have also turned their area in to a muddy waste land. 

The plan now is to instal some cages. This will be on top of the electric fence already round the area, so they won’t need to be fox proof. 

This will have the added advantage of keeping the different breeds separate, which will make the chicks easier to sell (I went mad hatching different breeds and can’t settle on a favourite!). I’ll try to get the rest of the fenced area back to grass and then they can have some time roaming free and eating grass, hopefully without overloading and killing it…

I’ve actually sold this guy and his 3 wives because they aren’t used to living in this smaller area and although the cockerel is happy not to be attached by Lucky all the time, I think ones that grew up in a smaller area, and more used to me will be happier, so I am keeping some of their eggs to hatch more…

Lucky checking out the new accommodation… I have some worry it will blow away, maybe he does too…

There is a chance I got a bit carried away cutting some branches off the trees in the encosure to make room for the 2nd cage…  Should be doing the house instead! but poor chickens need their safe home…

Chicken hatches chicks

We always have a couple of chickens go broody in Spring, unfortunately they are not always successful. Mostly I think because the area they are in is quite damp. This one picked a dry spot in the sun. I had to put a cage over her though otherwise the other chickens keep pushing her off the nest and eggs get broken - another reason for the general lack of success…

I have seen six, which is probably all of them, but not 100% sure yet. Well done chicken!

Now we have the challenging job of moving her and them somewhere a bit safer. She is in a quite small cage and in places they can pop under the side - because the ground is uneven, they are then too stupid to get back under as they forget where they came out and try to head straight for her. She isn’t impressed with the idea of being picked up, so still trying to come up with a cunning plan…

Silkie eggs have hatched

A few days before they hatch, the chick pips internally - pecks through the internal membrane in to the air cell in the egg. This one is about 8 days of incubation and the air cell (bright bit at the top) is still quite small, by the time the egg hatches it will be 1/3 of the egg approx.

The chick then spends some time absorbing remaining fluid from the egg white before externally pipping (pecking through the shell). It then rests some more during which time it absorbs the yolk, which will sustain it for first few days of life until it learns to eat and drink.

At this point (since before the internal pip) it is positioned with its head under its wing, it straightens out and ‘unzips’ by pecking round the shell. All this pecking is done with a special egg tooth.

When it is free it dries out and fluffs up to something you wouldn’t believe had fitted in the egg only moments ago! 

The whole process from internal pip takes around 3 days. Amazing!

Hatch-a-holic

I can’t stop hatching birds. It is so great ;)

But then raising them until they can live outside is a stinky business ;)

Plus then later I need to ‘do something’ with the males, I like eating them, but killing them is hard, you spend ages trying to keep them alive, grow to love them, then have to kill them.

There are 20 runner ducks (from our own eggs)

12 silkie eggs (mini fluffly broody chickens) and 16 cream legbar eggs (autosexing blue egg laying chickens). But as I mentioned before eggs that have been through the upheaval of postage don’t hatch very well :(

Time for the chicken harvest

 We haven’t done them all yet, but nine cockerels done today (I had the day off as it is am English bank holiday)

Always a bit sad, but has to be done as… well we want to eat them!

There are probably 3 or 4 cockerels still to go and then we need to sell some females as there are more than we will keep…

Lots of chicks

 I haven’t managed to count them and I haven’t removed and counted the unhatched eggs yet, but there are 30 to 35 of them all running around in a small brooder. I need to find something bigger quickly!

I wasn’t planning on hatching so many at once, as in some ways smaller numbers are easier to look after (less poo all at once!). But we have decided to put them in a separate covered cage when they get a bit bigger so it is better if they are all the same age rather than done in several hatches.

I also bought a new and bigger incubator (it was a return so special price else I would have got the smaller one). I sold one of the two we had, so we still have two and there are duck eggs in the other one at the moment (they went in on the 6th so should hatch the 4th of May)

The hatch rate on our eggs was good, but on the ones we got by post, not so good - all that shaking around isn’t good for them, also I wonder if the chickens they came from were older than ours which reduces viability a bit...

The ones we got by post are special because you can tell male and female apart as soon as they hatch.

This is a male (paler, less distinct ‘humbug’ appearance and pale dot on head)

This one is female

All the black and yellow ones (some with a little ginger) come from our chickens.

Might be get more ducks?

A couple of weeks ago, we put a few runner duck eggs under Olga, but she seems too heavy for them and they have been breaking, looks like none will make it to hatch unfortunately. So we got some more, and now a chicken is sitting on some with a few in the incubator too.

We’ve never tried incubating duck eggs before and it is meant to be more difficult than chickens. Hopefully a few will make it at least. Runner ducks are an egg breed but we hope the spare males will be a nice size for two!

The chicken decided to go broody in the box where most of the chickens want to lay. Historically this has caused issues when we want them to brood the eggs as they get pushed off them and some get pushed out the nest and broken and bad things like that. They also don’t take well to being moved we have found, so I have put a cage round her with food and water and moved the nest box along for the others. She has 8 eggs in there, go chicken!

All looks a bit heath robinson, but hopefully it will work for them all!

There are 8 in the incubator too. I’m hand turning for the first 10 days as I have read it has better results (the eggs move continually when automatically turned, and sporadically for hand turned may be the difference - or it may be myth!)

Lucky the cockerel and his romantic ways

None of our other cockerels have done this. This guy is son of the one we had before, but was hatched at a friends. Their cockerel does this and he learnt it.

He is picking up a grub and putting it down again while making a funny call which means ‘come here ladies for this tasty snack’. Eventually one of them takes him up on the offer. Cute huh?

Incubating eggs

 Olga is sitting on some runner duck eggs. I am hoping she can hatch at least one female that we can keep.

I have just put 54 eggs in to the incubator (I’ll add 2 more tomorrow morning so it is full).

There are 24 bielefelder that I ordered from someone by post. The others are from our chickens.

The bielefelder are what is called auto sexing which means you can tell when the chicks hatch the males from the females. You also get ones called ‘sex linked’ which are certain cross breeds where you can tell the chicks apart at hatch, but if you breed the young ones it doesn’t carry on.

When I was ordering the eggs I was really tempted by various ones with coloured eggs (dark brown, blue, green etc - really fun but not very useful!) I restrained myself though. Maybe next year!

For the eggs that came through the cell I looked at each one to see how healthy the air cell looked. It is meant to sit in the fat end of the egg, but when they get all shaken around in transit they can come detached. Only one seemed to have an air cell that had split in 2 (bad!), though there were some I just couldn’t make out at all. This one is nicely in the right place. It will grow as the eggs develop (because some water evaporates from the egg) and eventually the chick will pip in to the air cell (internal pip) and then through the shell (external pip). 

So many eggs! The incubator has an auto turner, but I won’t turn it on until 2 days in because of the shipped eggs. They sat for 24 hours (fat end up) before going in the incubator, and this extra time before starting turning will hopefully allow them to settle a bit more...

I weigh a sample set. This is the left hand basket. I will use this to help ensure the humidity is right. I want them to lose about 13% of their weight during incubation and I will weigh them every few days to make sure we are on track for that...

New Vegetable Beds

It may be madness as I can barely keep on top of the veg/fruit garden as it is, but we have decided to put some more beds on a bit Doug just dug out of the brambles. It gets good sun all day and is by a hose outlet, we hope to grow some things the chickens can eat as well as some for us...

After some nightmare weeding of bramble stumps and nettles all over the shop

I’m trying cardboard as a way to suppress the weeds with lots of horse poo on top (that grows it’s own weeks, but at least they are not nettles or brambles...)

Needs many more barrow fulls. The horses give us a barrow load a day, so plenty more where that came from!!

I’m thinking of planting squash and courgette in this bed , potato in one of the other ones and then some comfrey and other things that the chickens will like in the final bed that isn’t started yet...

New cockerel

A friend hatched some of our eggs under one of her chickens last year. Only one survived in the end as something picked them off one by one. It turned out to be a cockerel, so as they already have a cockerel they couldn’t keep it, he is called Lucky and has joined our flock. 

I’m thinking if changing the breed we have to one where you can tell the sex of the chicks from hatching, but in the mean time it is great that we will be able to hatch some chicks in Spring!

He’s a fine looking fellow

Snowy Animals

 It snowed a few days ago. Fortunately we had just got hay for the cows and horses so everyone has a full belly or warming hay. The sheep even accepted a little, generally if they have any grass at all they reject hay...

It’s melting off a lot now, but much colder than it has been here for years. The last two winters were very warm and even the few before that, though we had snow it didn’t freeze so hard.

The ducks don’t seem to mind the cold and go swimming as soon as I break the ice on their water. Nutters!

The chickens aren’t too bothered either. Apparently if it gets really really cold they can get frost bite on their combs, but not seen any sign of that

Buttercup always used to feel the cold, but the remaining ones don’t so much

The horses have their run in and plenty of hay as well as wooly winter coats

The sheep have plenty of wool, they only accept hay when they can’t get at the grass at all.

Chicken Massacre

Some horrible beast (fox? pine marten?) got in to the chickens and killed 17 chickens and 2 ducks. It left behind 9 chicken corpses, some without heads. The rest and the ducks disappeared without trace.

They were mostly ones we raised this year (some were to be sold and some eaten by us) but we also lost the cockerel and 3 of the laying hens. All the remaining 7 are female, but none are now laying, 4 of them are young and haven’t started yet, and the 3 that were laying are too traumatised. The 1 remaining female duck has also stopped laying. We are going to need to buy eggs! 

It is very sad, and such a terrible waste, whatever it was didn’t even eat that many of them 😢

The electric fence had blown over in the night in the storms and the shock power was very low which is presumably how it happened. We have cranked the power up (by depowering some other fences) and not (yet) had a repeat visit. Fingers crossed...

These are the survivors (plus another ginger one). Not quite decided what to do yet, but we need a new cockerel. May buy one or buy some eggs to hatch in the Spring.

Chicken ‘harvest’

 I enjoy hatching and raising them, I enjoy eating them, I don’t enjoy the part that comes between so much... but it has to be done...

I have done 9 and there will be a similar number more to do in about a month - though something has been slowly picking them off so it could be a few fewer. I saw a sparrow hawk get one, so I suspect it is that.

They are not as plump in the breast as chicken you get in the shop, this is due to the breed, but they are a lot more delicious. The meat is good and the stock from the bones also.

I made pâté from the livers. Doesn’t look great, but tastes good.

Little chickies moving in with the big chickies

We have 8 full size chickens, 16 medium size chickens and 16 little chickens.

The smallest ones are in a run on the grass. The medium size ones have just moved in to the chicken run. They have a mini run in a run so they can get away from the big chickens.

Trying to persuade them to stay under the trees so the kites don’t get them, but they want to explore silly things! We will eat some and sell some...

Chicks first time outside

A benefit of hatching the chicks a bit later in Spring than normal is that they can go outside early on, meaning a little less poo stinking up the house.

They look a little nervous at first, but soon get in to it.

More chicks

This is the 2nd batch. The first lot went off to Doug and Susan at Les Hauts Pâturages and are apparently thriving.

18 out of 20 developed, all hatched (with a little help from me), one died of unknown causes (it was a litte weak and wonky) and one died because it’s mates pecked at where the yolk absorbed (this happens during hatching) and I ended up . because it was suffering and unlikely to make it. So in the end 16 little chickies.

Day 5 of egg incubation

The chicken eggs have been incubating for 5 days now. The sample set of 5 eggs weighed 291g at the beginning and now weigh 279. A loss of 12g as water evaporates from the eggs. Over 20 days they should lose between 32 and 37g (11-13%) but at the current rate they will lose 48g. If they don’t lose enough weight the chick drowns as it hatches, if they lose too much the chick is shrink wrapped in the membrane inside the shell and can’t hatch! 

I have added some water to up the humidity and slow the rate of loss...  On the outside the eggs look just the same as when they started, but inside you can see a little blob less than a cm across with veins coming out of it. The little blob moves a bit, it has started growing a heart, a spine, a nervous system, eyes, ears, nose, legs, wings and a tongue. It was during day 5 that reproductive organs and differentiation between the sexes started. It will soon start on beak, feathers and claws. A few haven’t grown - there can be a number of reasons, the egg isn’t fertilised, the genetics just aren’t viable, there is something wrong with the egg itself...

You can see the little blob and veins.