Introducing the Fab Four, at 2 1/2 weeks old.
Blondie. I'm pretty sure that Blondie is a pullet--and a diva.
Number Two. Well, the name just says it all, doesn't it. :-)
Kenny. John the dog ran around the room with Kenny in his mouth for several minutes but surprisingly his scars are only psychological.
Rudolph. Named for the little dot on the end of his beak, I'm pretty sure that Rudy is a boy. He's already the biggest and boldest among our little flock.
These are the "culls" that didn't make the breeder's cut--but they look adorable to me. :-) There are seven little black chicks. I think we're going to keep two or three and find homes for the rest.
In a technical feat of truly astounding proportions, I have built and installed my own fan for our Little Giant incubator. These things are $40 in the store. I built this one out of a $1.99 computer fan and an old cell phone charger I found under my desk. It was, of course, amazingly simple. I cut the wires and attached them in various configurations until it worked. ;-)
Well, our first chick didn't make it. His legs were small and deformed and he seemed to have respiratory problems as well. He had a great personality, though, and was the friendliest of the three by far. We dubbed him Forrest, after Forrest Gump and the little splints I tried unsuccessfully to attach to his little legs. We didn't know him for very long but we will definitely remember him.
We do, however, have an overwhelming amount of cuteness to console ourselves with. The yellow chick (right) is now officially Blondie. The blue and yellow chick (left), who was born second, has become Number Two a la Austin Powers.
So, 14 LF Araucana eggs made it to lockdown in cartons. On Saturday (Day 20) I had three little pips.
Yesterday (Day 21) the first egg zipped very quickly and popped his top. Then he just sat there in the bottom of the egg all day. When I finally intervened and pulled the egg out, he rolled right out and his little legs and feet were all curled up under him. The legs are a little less curled today but his toes are very small and curled up like little fists.
Yesterday afternoon the second egg zipped and the chick popped out very quickly. I went to the bathroom as he was zipping and came back and he was sitting next to his egg. That little guy seems fine.
This morning (Day 22) the third little guy zipped his egg very quickly . . . and then nothing. All day I watched him. Eventually I realized he'd worked his head down under the zip line and was stuck, so I popped his top for him. He still couldn't get his head out and I realized his membrane had started to dry and he was stuck to it, so I put a wet towel next to him. After an hour or so I gave up and de-shelled him--but left the membrane intact and just wet it gently with water. He was able to shake it off pretty quickly and now seems to be doing well.
No sign of movement yet from the remaining eggs, but I started to notice an odor when I checked on the eggs (the incubator is in one of my kitchen cabinets for extra insulation). So I had to open the incubator and check the eggs. One of the egg cartons was soaked through from the towel, so I had to move the eggs anyway. One was obviously bad so I tossed it. Now I'm just waiting to hear more little peeps.
Even worse . . . there's a chicken on my neighbor's roof. I may have to disavow all knowledge. I certainly have no authority. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but somehow Amelia, Pat, and Bertha heard a rumor about my free-ranging plans and decided to take matters into their own hands a little sooner than I had intended. I came home to find they had--quite literally--flown the coop and were grazing in the yard. When I approached, Amelia took flight. And wow, can she fly. Over the fence, over the house, and now seems to have taken up permanent residence in the front yard. Or rather, my neighbor's front yard and the roof of her house . . .
Luckily she's taking it very well. The nieghbor, that is--although Amelia also seems quite happy with the status quo. :-\
It seemed like we went from 0 to 60 in a couple of seconds. We had three birds in the playhouse coop, new eggs in the incubator, and one lone little egg still kicking from the last batch. After much debate (which involved at one point considering the "bra incubator" option) I moved the last egg to the old-fashioned Chick-bator for the final days of chickie "lockdown" and we crossed our fingers.
Unfortunately, it was not to be. I think the Chick-bator was just too unstable for the little guy and he didn't make it. We have not given up hope, though. Bertha, Amelia, and Pat are hanging out in the coop and our LG incubator is still full of eggs. ;-)
After researching various options--and fantasizing about building my own coop--I decided to "build" a coop in the spirit of my original goal with this project. So we're recycling! :-) I stalked freecycle and craigslist for a free structure and ended up with this:
It's a plastic Little Tykes style playhouse, which came to us in pieces. After reassembling the parts, I realized there was only a half-door, so I covered the top of the door opening with a heavy duty rubber welcome mat that happened to be handy. I stapled chicken wire over the widows and added hook and eye closures on each one and the door as well.
This morning I moved our new trio--Amelia, Bertha, and Pat--into their new house. I'm on the lookout for a small shelf for them to nest in, but for the meantime I've put a banker's box in there. They seem to be enjoying themselves so far.
I also need to add in a perch and a light, but I think this is a good start . . .
These birds have personality, intelligence, shock value, blue eggs, are beautiful, weird and, wow, can they fly.
Alan Stanford, writing about the Araucana
Um, yeah. I found that out last night when I brought home our three new birds. No, I haven't given up on hatching--our lone little egg is still kicking away in the incubator as I type and has now been joined by seven other little hopefuls. In the meantime, though, we were offered and I accepted three Araucana from Jen, the lady who provided our first set of eggs. Our readers may recall this is set from which I dropped the lone surviving egg and killed it. (There was blood. It was awful.)
So now we've come full circle with more eggs from that original flock and three actual birds . . .
The larger girl is 14 months and was being picked on so Jen separated her from the flock. Since chickens are social animals and don't do well alone, she came with two three month old birds. One is definitely a girl. The other we're just calling Pat. When I brought them home, the other three month old made a break for it into the wild blue yonder (of the kitchen) so she's now Amelia. The 14 month old who was being bullied by the mean kids is Bertha. :-)
Last night they were being stalked by dogs, cats, and two year olds and weren't too happy about it. They were also very, very hungry. As soon as I figured the last part out, they were much happier. :-)
The 10 Little Indians that I set on October 28 were scrambled by the post office. Not one grew, which was very disappointing. I did not, however, give up. At this point, though, I think perseverance has crossed the line into obsession, which is what kept me from posting. :-) I ordered another set of eggs on Ebay. The new Little Indians (again, there were 10) went into the incubator on Friday, the 13th, which is a lucky date for me. My daughter was conceived on a Friday, the 13th, after all.
And now for the good news and the bad news:
This egg is still kicking--literally--but it's the only one. I am, however, thrilled. :-)
The new eggs (10 of them!) arrived this morning and are now in the incubator. Along with a hydrometer and not one, not two, but three thermometers. In order to increase the humidity, I've also included a wet rag. I've seen people use sponges but I discovered this afternoon when I was prepping the incubator that I don't actually have any sponges. Hopefully the damp rag will work just as well. I'll keep a close eye on the humidity and if it isn't holding I'll make an emergency grocery store run tomorrow.
As you can see, they're a lovely mix of greens and blue greens. The one in the lower left hand corner is particularly lovely. Hopefully the chicks that hatch out of them will be equally beautiful. ;-)
There is a very graphic image at the end of this post. It is not for the faint of heart. The good news is that we were very close. The bad news is that we were very close. Two of the chicks from this last hatch were completely formed. One actually pecked through the inner membrane of his egg. All seven of the final eggs had feathers, feet, beaks.
It was very sad to open these eggs and see how close we had come. I can't help but wonder if these two last two little guys would have made it if I would have cracked their eggs on Wednesday or Thursday. This exercise was necessary, though. It seems like humidity was our problem. Since I had filled all of the reservoirs built into the incubator, my next step will be to add a sponge (or three) at our next lockdown. I will also be purchasing a new temp and humidity gauge.
Our 6 new eggs should be on their way . . . My goal is that they not end up like this little guy:
Third time was not a charm. The eggs should have hatched on Wednesday. Wednesday came and went without even a peep. Thursday, too. I'm pretty sure this is the point at which a normal person would give up. I, of course, have already ordered my next set of eggs--from yet another source. Never say die, that's me. My next dilemma? The unhatched eggs. I've been quite blase about my "crack" parties with our duds, but some of these eggs were moving a week ago today. They should have something inside that fairly resembles a bird and I'm just a little tiny bit freaked out. Here's the thing, though . . . I want to succeed. And as Einstein once said, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. I need to learn from this failed hatch so I need to figure out what went wrong. That means opening those eggs. And dealing with whatever disgusting baby chicken zombie is in there waiting for me. Seriously, though, I expect my problem may have been excessive humidity. I was so worried they would dry out that I may have drowned the little guys in their shells. :-( Opening them up to confirm that is going to not be fun. I will, however, take pictures to share my pain.
Welcome to (hopefully) our last crack party. Out of the original 14 eggs, 7 were definitely not going anywhere. So last night when we officially entered "lockdown" I decided to remove them from the incubator. According to our friends at BYC, non-fertile eggs or fertile eggs that have stopped developing can sometimes explode in the incubator. Although I hadn't seen any signs of that, I went ahead and removed them and this morning I took them outside to do a little postmortem.
As before the majority of the eggs were non-starters. In other words, I have spent the last 18 days pretty much making really nasty scrambled eggs. This should be looking familiar by now:
What was different this time is that we had a couple of "quitters," too. There were three eggs that obviously had something growing inside. I didn't look too closely (because I am of a sensitive nature, of course) but they didn't seem to be too far along. I'd say they probably stopped growing in the second week. Among these were the two that had clear "blood rings" last week.
So there are 7 eggs left and we're officially on "lockdown" now for the last three days of incubation. I candled last night before closing them in and didn't see any movement--but there isn't a lot of room in there to move so I'm trying to remain hopeful. Wednesday is our 21st day but I've told myself I'll give them until Friday before freaking out. Which means pretty much Tuesday noon. :-)
I'm very proud of myself! I lasted a whole 4.5 days before candling this batch of eggs for the first time. I was rewarded with obvious veining on at least five eggs! :-) I am, of course, very, very happy.
What's even better is that there is at least one egg with veining in each of the three groups that I divided the eggs into. We have 14 eggs total, five of which are from 9/26 (and these should be 100% pure bred). The other nine are from 9/27 and were accidentally mixed up with eggs from a mixed pen. I separated these into two groups visually--four of the eggs seemed a little smaller and the shells not as opaque.
I'm seeing definite veining in one of the 9/26 eggs and two from each of the other groups. Now I would ideally like to hold out until Thursday or Friday to candle them again. It will take all of my willpower. ;-)
You know where we've ended up (egg obsessed and chick-less) but how did we get here? This post was inspired by Michelle, who asked for recommendations on how to find a farmer to buy her own fresh, local foods from. My advice? Start at RealMilk.com.
Just like the commercial hatcheries are turning out weaker, genetically homogenized poultry, commercial diaries depend on weaker, genetically homogenized cattle. The same business logic is being used in both industries. The animals are bred to produce the greatest amount of their commodity (eggs or milk) in the easiest and most cost-effective way possible.
Farmers who sell "real" milk--or who operate farm shares providing access to it--are outside of the commercial network. Not only do they farm in different ways, but they breed their animals very differently, too. Over the last couple of decades the divide between commercial cows (Holsteins) and traditional breeds has become obvious. In addition to overall poor health, commercial cows are also starting to suffer from increasing infertility, which I see as a huge genetic red flag in any species.
When commercial dairies use sickly cows--and lots of them--they have to assume that their products are contaminated. This makes life easier for them because it means they don't have to be careful--they're going to sterilize everything anyway (even the milk) so why bother? Here's the problem with pasteurizing dairy products. . . it kills all of the natural probiotics and enzymes that make them so good for you to begin with. That stuff that you pay extra to have put back into your yogurt at the grocery store.
Farmers who use healthy cattle don't assume that their products are contaminated--they actually test both the animals and the milk they produce. They also pay attention to their animals and institute policies and procedures that keep their products from being contaminated. That's the kind of farmer I want to buy my food from.
Coincidentally, many of these farmers are Amish. While modern organic farmers like PolyFace Farms are becoming more popular, the best source for experienced farmers who understand how to farm in a truly organic and sustainable manner are the people who have been doing so for hundreds of years.
So my advice to anyone who wants to improve their diet is to start with the networks set up to find non-commercial milk sources. They will help you locate farmers using traditional farming methods and the traditional, fresh foods that they produce. One word of warning, though: fresh, non-commercial foods are inconsistent. If you've only ever had grocery store fare, you may be in for a bit of a culture shock. Farm fresh eggs come in all sizes and colors; meats may be cut irregularly; and your milk will have a faint taste of whatever field the cows grazed on that week. :-)
It's official. I candled the Round Two eggs again last night and saw nothing so this morning I took them outside and did our now-traditional cracking of the bad eggs. Same broken yolks but at least this time they had the decency to stink a little.
Around noon we received our new clutch of victims--um, I mean, eggs. These are regular size birds as opposed to the bantams we've been working with in our first two attempts. The eggs are also a little more green than blue. Here's a comparison shot between the second round eggs (pre-crack party) and one of the new set:
Also, word of my egg-hatching ineptitude seems to have spread throughout the poultry community. Our new egg connection has sent us 14 of these big boys (or girls, hopefully). I've used this as an excuse to buy a larger incubator. More pictures to follow. ;-)
Hard is good . . . or at least that's what I'm telling myself. It's important to me that my daughter grows up to be the kind of person who takes the road less traveled--or blazes her own path--and that's not easy. I never want her to make important decisions in her life based on which path is the easiest. I certainly haven't.
Compared to some of the big decisions that have defined my life food seems pretty insignificant, but I'm beginning to believe more and more that it's a crucial component in what's gone "wrong" with our western lifestyle. Since I've been trying to address this issue, the sheer magnitude of the problem has become nearly overwhelming. I'm not a gourmet chef and my cooking skills are rudimentary at best. Over the last five years or so I've gone from ordering a value meal in the drive thru (supersize me) to staring down a plate of organic beef and trying to figure out how to turn it into a meal my two year old will eat. (That was tonight, by the way, and I was successful!)
So this is all a very long, draw out way to say that I don't think Round Two of our egg experiment is going to be successful, but I'm not giving up. Having access to real food and understanding where real food comes from--and it isn't a paper bag covered in golden arches--is Really Important. And things that are Really Important are worth doing, even if they're hard.
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