Baby bunnies (in a new nest box)

A few babies from the last litter got pulled out of the nest box by their mother (it happens to the strong ones if the lip of the box isn't high enough to scrape them off when the mother decides she is finished feeding them - she only does it once or twice a day)

So I designed a new nest box and Doug built it

It is very cold, so we hope that having the lid on the box, and the nice nest that Blondie has built will keep them warm enough.

Some of the babies will be white and some the same colour as the mother.

Day 7 of incubation

The eggs have been incubating for a week now.
We normally don’t candle our eggs at all, our theory being that although it is interesting to see what is going on, we will do more harm than good as we can’t actually DO anything at this point if they are not growing and it is possible to damage the shell or the growing embryo inside by handling them.

However we had a few hatches with poor rates so we are interested to see a bit more what is going on to try to work out the problem.

• Do the chicks start to grow then die - suggesting an infection.
• Do they not grow at all - suggesting poor fertility or possibly temperature problems.
• Do they grow fully then fail to hatch - suggesting humidity issues or possibly infection killing them late on.

You can see more of these things if you candle a few times rather than just break the unhatched ones at the end as we have done in the past (a scary job although we have never yet had a stinky exploding one).

Not grown at all (I don't think - though there is a darker and lighter section it is much less distinct than one ones that are definitely growing)

Grown then died (blood pools in to a ring)

Growing- you can see dot that is the embryo and just make out blood vessels

I also weighed the eggs to check we have the humidity about right. They should lose 10-13% of their weight over 18 days. I weighed them all, together with the tray they are in which creates a small inaccuracy.
They were 1477g at the start and 1415g today. If we extrapolate this means they should lose a bit over 10% in the 18 days. This is at 45% humidity and 37.5 °C.

Hopefully I haven't damaged any of the live ones. There were only 9 I was sure about, out of 24 eggs. There were a few more I wasn't sure about and 2 or 3 that looked like they had started and died.

These eggs were sent in the post so we would expect a less good hatch rate than normal. Some of them were 10 days old by the time they got to us (snow meant he couldn't post them straight away), which is older than we incubate normally.

I marked each egg with what I thought it's status was - I was hurrying to get it done and get the lid back on, so I didn't note the dates on the live ones (they all have the date they were laid pencilled on by the person we bought them from) but assuming they hatch we will see then.

Chicken processing day

We generally kill a chicken and perhaps a second one when we want to eat one, because we never have the stamina for more one each in a day - plucking is hard on the fingers.
I got a plucking machine for my birthday, we tried it out today and did 11 chickens (8 hens and 3 cockerels) in just the morning. So pleased! That leaves 9 hens and the cockerel (called Warren).
It does take some time to set up, so you would want to be doing a few at least to make it worth that effort.

The chicken gets scalded  before going in to the plucker. We did them at 65C for about 30 seconds. You test they are done by pulling a wing feather and when it comes out easily they are ready. You can scald for hand plucking also but the wet feathers weld on to your hands so we just pluck them dry.

Then maybe a minute in the plucker and they are ready.

All ready for gutting

Some of the chickens we hatched last year seemed to be stunted. These were hatched at the same time.

Experimenting with making stock from the heads and feet.

In the afternoon, I made sausages and Doug put together a rabbit nest box... Productive day!

Gross picture of rabbit abscess (only read if you can handle it!)

This post is a bit gross so you may well want to skip it. But I want it in my 'diary'!

I have read that rabbits quite commonly get abscesses, but we have never had one before.

I noticed a big lump on Koala's face (he is one of the new rabbits). It is a solid lump here between my fingers (blue because I sprayed antibiotic on it)

Closer up. I am on a meat rabbit forum and the advice was that I had to lance it and let the puss out because otherwise it bursting might cause worse damage - and the poor guy was uncomfortable too, though still eating and drinking fine.

As per advice on the internet, I had to slice into it with a razer blade because rabbit puss is very gloopy and thick - they lack an enzyme that most other animals have that breaks it down apparently.
This is part of the way through the process of getting rid of it.
GROSS!!!

This left a huge hole in the poor fellows face. I put antibiotic spray (oxytetracycline) in it and will do so every day for a week.

Wish poor Koala a speedy recovery, rabbits are quite delicate and this has been quite traumatic for him, so we shall see...

Eggs on to incubate

They are Lace Orpington that we bought over the internet. Orpingtons are meant to be a good dual purpose bird, a little bit more towards the meat than the eggs.

Unfortunately they took a little bit longer to get here than they should due to storms. They were very well packed in lots of hay so hopefully temperature ok.

21 day wait to see what happens...

Beautiful day in the mountains

Walking the dog up the piste before the lifts open. Beautiful

The ski area is very busy at the moment as it is school holidays so we went for a ski walk at Payolle

First lamb

Missy has had her lamb and all the others are looking BIG. Sensible to not have had it a few days ago when it was super cold.