The Incubator is back in action!

Yesterday I placed 42 eggs from the Plymouth Barred Rock into the incubator.  For Christmas Husband and I received some gift cards for Home Hardware.  So we decided to purchase an automatic egg turner that we have been thinking about since last year for our Hovabator Incubator.  It turns the eggs every 4 hours and frees us from a lot of stress of always turning the eggs.

So in 21 days we should have some new little black fuzzy chicks!  They will look like this....

Field Trip

This afternoon I travelled out to a farm close to my area of town to visit a lady whom I met via the Alberta Chickens Etc forum.  It was a great visit!  I got to see her various breeds of chicken, a variety of ducklings and chicks. goats, geese, llama, dogs, cats and exotic birds.  So much fun!

I learned a lot and got to ask questions of someone well acquianted with chicken breeds and hierarchy.  She suggested we nurse Cockzilla back to health (he was looking much better today by-the-way) let him completely grow his feathers back, then remove Lucky and reintroduce Cockzilla to the hens.  If all goes well then to cull Lucky out of the flock.  Her reasoning is that you don't want to get rid of a rooster with a good temperament and keep one that is a brute.  I feel much better now as both Husband and I really like Cockzilla and didn't want to have to kill him.

I also got my fill of goats (or almost).  Two of her goats are so friendly they just kept coming to me for head rubs and eventually just leaned their bodies against me.  The smell of their pens brought me back to my childhood spending time at the neighbour's goat pens.

Unfortunately her goose eggs did not hatch yet, so I had to come home empty handed.  I did see the large African Geese and was slightly startled as to how noisy they are.

The time went too fast.... three hours later I had to get home, though I could have stayed longer for more wonderful conversation with her and her husband.  It was so nice to actually speak to people who have such similar interests and opinions as I.  They also told me about a small group of hobby farmers that get together every so often and the next time they have a meeting they will invite me along.

We have created Life!

Husaband woke me up this morning to say three of the eggs in the incubator are hatching!  I had a look and can see little cracks where the chicks are pushing out.  He said he can hear cheaping coming from the incubator every once in a while too.

Three out of seventeen so far.  We really were not expecting any to hatch as we had no idea if any of the eggs were fertilized.

Acreage Happenings

Not too much to report....

We had some beautiful weather over the weekend.  Husband has been cutting down some trees and brush  around our property lines, so that he can eventually build a fence.

Cockzilla is still living in our garage and in the last 2.5 weeks he has grown his feathers back in.  We figure he can be released back to the 'girls' next week.  He's living in the brooding box and Husband put wheels underneath so that on sunny days we can roll him outside to soak up the sun.  He is actually very calm and seems to like it when we go out and talk to him.

The snow is FINALLY melting!  We still have about a foot in the yard, but it feels like spring is upon us.  The flowerbed in front of the house (south facing and against the house) has the daffodils up and ready to bloom soon, and the tulips are on their way up.  I've been debating whether or not I should get out the hummingbird feeder as they should be arriving soon.

I keep turning the eggs in the incubator, but a bad smell is coming up when I remove the lid.  Obviously an egg has gone bad. We candled the eggs again last night but it is difficult to a number of the egg's progress as the shells are too thick for the light to shine through.  We'll find out Sunday or Monday if any successfully hatch.

After months of the ducks barely laying eggs  (only one every day or two) I have finally been presented with two eggs each day, for the past two days.  The ducks are Khaki Campbells and the breed are prolific layers, so I have actually been a little worried.  With the warmer weather they have definately put on a bit of weight and are looking very healthy.  Once they begin laying regularly again, and can get out in the pond so Donald can 'do his thing', we will try incubating some duck eggs.