Yes, crazy things like this get me excited. Then, I get on my favorite chicken forum and find a young person has posted that his father, in a bout of mid-life crisis mayhem, bought 5 chicks and brought them home. HA HA! If this is mid-life crisis, I say, "BRING IT ON!" I hope my hubby catches it too!
I have one incubator full of eggs hatching this week and the other one due in a week or so and more going in this week. I also got a batch from a hatchery (MM) of 32 chicks, who are now residing in my basement until the garage brooder is up and running and then they will move outside in a matter of a couple of weeks after that.
So, yes, I am crazy.
Ah, Spring is surely coming in. We are moving up in temps this week and the snow is melting, chicks are hatching, birds are singing, maple sap is running, Second starts track this week, Easter candy is on all the shelves at the stores, I can see little spears of green poking up ever so slightly in a couple of places. I am ready. Oops, maybe not completely, I need to inventory my seeds for the garden. It is almost time to start those, isn't it? About another week or two and it will be though. I will get there.
Maybe I will even get that cleaning fever? Hmm, that is a shaky one though. : )
Okay, so it is time to go crank up the housecleaning playlist on my iPod and get to it.
I hope people everywhere are enjoying the change in the weather!
Oops again,
I almost forgot to mention a milestone in my chicken raising...I got my first fart egg.
Yeah, you read it right, a FART egg. They are the little tiny eggs usually laid by pullets just starting out laying and they have no yolk. I got the first one yesterday and my kids and I had fun guessing if it had anything in it or not, and then we broke it to see. No yolk.CC
Any of these the Jersey Giants? I start incubating my geese eggs this week.
ReplyDeleteActually, if I have any JGs in there, I wouldn't know for sure. I have 3 Black pullets that just started laying, so they aren't really the eggs you would want for hatching if they were pure. However, I haven't gotten a chance to get my breeds separated yet to get pure eggs. My contractor friend and his crew were out here today and got the framing up for my chicken house that will have 9 breeding pens in it. Once I have them split up and have some clean eggs, I would be happy to send you some. Right now the only eggs of mine in the incubator or that I have hatched are mutts, or I assume so. I have 8 roosters running with all of my hens, so I can't guarantee clean eggs. I have a couple chicks that look like they could be Orpingtons, but until they grow enough for me to check all their features, I am going to call them crossbreeds. I had hoped to get the chicken house done last fall, but winter came early and didn't leave. I am disappointed that I won't have any of my own stock for my kids to have for showing, but I have others. I have bought quite a few eggs and have been hatching for about two months now, or should I say incubating. I need to build an incubator this spring/summer so that I can do more in a batch than I have room for. Right now I have 17 duck eggs in there. I have 11 Dark Cornish at 12 weeks, then about a dozen or more of my own crosses. I have people who want some green and blue egg layers, so I have been putting most of those in to hatch. I lost one that didn't thrive and had leg issues. I now have a Silkie from eggs I bought who is a runt and is not thriving. I don't think it is going to make it, but as long as it is still up and moving and eating and drinking, I will leave it.
ReplyDeleteSo, I have not forgotten you and the Giants, but things just haven't been going as I have planned this spring. The guys work fast when they get here, so hopefully I will have a chicken house to use very soon.
Take it easy, Bill.
I just got my first hatch... not a good percentage. Only five out fifteen made it out of the shell, though I hope a day or two more something will happen. I would very much like to get some JG off of you when you are ready. -Bill
ReplyDeleteI have some in the bator that I bought as a mix of eggs from a BYCer. They are due next week, I think. I have my new chicken house up, but we need to divide the pens up inside of it. I am sure I will have some last spring or early summer if you will still want some then? I am getting my flock tested and then will get them certified so I know all my stock is clean. I have had my ups and downs in hatching. I have ducks and chicks both coming out now. I am sure hoping that I get more of the ducks to come out, but I am starting to have my doubts. I had to pull some today. They are my neighbor's ducks though. I have turkeys in the other batch/bator. I think only one of those is developing. We will see.
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Bill, would you be interested in White Giants? I may have a couple of them that I stuck in to hatch before I got rid of the roos. I have two pullets that I may have collected eggs from and hatched. I stick a few from my flock in each batch. Chances are that they are mixed, but some can turn out to be pure, but they would just be a couple of them since I got rid of the White roos, they had wrong leg color. I will get more down the road, but for now I just have 2 pullets that I am going to cross with my Dark Cornish for meat birds.
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