Peep update

We got all the chicks in the brooders now.

Here's the Farmer's Wife with our homemade brooders.

Five peeps in one.

Four peeps in the other. Yes, we lost the one we were worried about. Don't know why. Just Mother nature I guess. All the others seem healthy and really cute. They are all eating, drinking, and pooping. They grow fast, so it won't be too long before we move them out of the house. I want mostly hens, but I want one Rooster that I can pick up and pet and make him my buddy, cause Butch attacked me from behind again yesterday and I've had about enough. Just like Frank. Gramma can't go down to the barn without a stick. So I'm going to pick these little ones up and make them my friends. Maybe it will work, we'll see. Bye

Peep Report

Okay. Ten eggs in, ten chickens out. Yayyyy! Three eggs hatched yesterday and the other seven today.

These are the ones from yesterday in the brooder box.

I know it's hard to tell but there is seven in the incubator. We're kind of worried about one of them, but hopefully it will make it. They say you should expect no more than 50% to 75%  hatch, so we are awesome! Seven Marans and three Maran-Wellsummer crosses. Right now they all look the same. Should be interesting to see how they turn out. Cross your fingers and hope for hens. This is fun. Go figure.

Farm news

Well not much has been happening around here until yesterday morning. One of our eggs pipped. Can you see the crack?

This morning it cracked open.

Turns out there was a chicken inside.

We are pretty excited. As I write this, seven more eggs have pipped. This is much better than we hoped for. Now hopefully they will all hatch out by tomorrow and then we wait to see how many hens we get. I told Antoine (now known as Butch due to his comb loss) that if we didn't get fertile eggs he was done. So I guess he gets to stay. In other news I popped another coyote yesterday morning. One less chicken and pheasant killer. It seems that we still have quite a few around. Anyway when the other eggs hatch I'll post again, bye.

Snow, cattle, piggies

April 20th, right?

This is what we woke up to this morning. Luckily it was gone by noon. No more, PLEASE.

Went to the FD's today to pick up our stock trailer and help her with a couple of things. Walked out to the pasture to see her new Randall Cattle.

They are really pretty and very friendly. I don't think I like the horns though.

Our favorite pig Jowlie had five piglets recently. She has turned into a good Mama and still remembers me. Well, that was my day, how about yours?

Strange egg and Ethel

Yesterday we got this egg.

Interesting color scheme. Sort of like sponge painting or modern art.

Last night when I went to put the chickens to bed, one was missing. I searched around, but couldn't find her and it got dark. I searched all over this morning, including the the woods and swamp edges and found nothing. We are sad. Ethel was one of our first chickens and we will miss her. Fox, coyote or hawk or even the neighbors dog, we'll never know. Such is life on the farm.

Todays eggs

These are the eggs we got today.

The white one is a store egg for comparison.

You may remember my post in February about the giant egg, well this one is bigger. Going to be interesting to crack it open. Poor little chicken, that must have hurt.

Incubator

This is the incubator we bought. We are going to try and hatch some of our eggs.

So, ten eggs in and in 21 days we hope to have some chicks. This thing is supposed to turn the eggs automatically, but one side doesn't seem to be working too good, so I might have to do it by hand, we'll see.

The other day a huge tom turkey showed up. Biggest one I've seen here. Started to gobble and display, strutted around for a good 1/2 hour. Too bad my license isn't good until the end of May.

Two buddies sharing the new chair. It's actually big enough for both without growling and snapping on the little guys part. Later.