So far, not one of them has grumbled about living in a sheep trailer.
That's the good news. The bad news is the chicken eggs I incubated didn't hatch. Not a one. I had two Buff Orpington cockerels and gave one away. He must have been doing the work of two. I know my current cockerel is treading his hens, so maybe he's just sub-fertile. In which case, he will be sub-merged in the crockpot, in wine and herbs. I'll candle the eggs this afternoon to decide his fate. If there are embryos inside, then I know the fault is mine, and cockerel can stay.
There's a small tabletop incubator filled with a second hatch of turkey eggs due in two weeks' time. The sheep trailer will get a lot of use this month.
UPDATE: Huge apologies to my cockerel. The chicken eggs have begun to hatch. I must have miscalculated days. So it's beef for dinner, not chicken.
UPDATE TWO: Nope, I was right the first time - my cockerel is subfertile and only two eggs out of twenty were fertile, and only one hatched. Mike did remind me he's at least 5 years old. If the chick is a cockerel, he can replace dad.
14 comments:
'sub-fertile.... sub-merged in wine'
love your writing!! :-)
I just googled candling to see if I could get a quick answer to what an embryo looks like inside of an egg. But honestly, I feel like I was looking at the same three eggs over and over. Candling seems like one of those things that would make me question my eyesight.
Christine - It's SO much easier on an actual egg. Infertile and the egg is clear, fertile and there's a dark blob in it. You do have to squint a bit is all.
Congratulations on your growing flocks! Please send news/post photo of Ms. Equine Kitty. I've been wondering about how she likes her new digs. Oh, BTW, I debated about feeding Airedale Princess the leftover egg wash from our dinner last night then remembered your last post. She licked the dish SPOTLESS clean. Greetings from rainy, gorgeous Southcentral Alaska! I'm so glad you, Mike and sundry are adjusting well.
I'd be interested to hear how many of the turkey poults live into adolescence. Last year we purchased 7 day-old poults and only 4 survived to adulthood (two we ate and two we kept as breeding pair). This is apparently common with 'hand raised' turkeys. They are much more finicky than chicks. This year, one of my hens hatched 4 poults herself and they all are going strong! I hope you have a positive experience with your brood! Please provide updates!
Anon - I will post updates. This is my first time hatching turkeys and although the chicks look robust coming out of the egg, as you say making it to adolescence is the true sign of success. In my experience with other poultry, hand raised birds are never as successful as parent-raised. There's so much less incidence of disease. I planned to vaccinate but was advised not to with turkeys. I might, for comparison, vaccinate the lot due to hatch shortly.
That's the great thing for me about keeping a blog - people with experience come out of the ether to help and offer advice, and of course support! Hope your own poults and hen continue to do well.
Wait- I somehow missed all the romance part with your turkeys and now you've got babies?! Or are the turkey chicks from other turkeys (i.e.- not your own turkeys)?
It sounds like The Handmaid's Tale over there with all your life and death and fertility issues.
Incidentally, if you're bored (ha!) and feel like doing some fun experiments with your chickens, try turning them into dinosaurs:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/scientists-strap-fake-dinosaur-tail-on-chickens-to-discover-how-trex-walked-video-9117384.html
Seester - Don't you remember free margarita night at Señor Tadpole's? My eight babies are the result. Chicken cockerel has turned out to be subfertile due to age and only one baby hatched so there's the death/ infertility portion of today's programme. You know I love the link - bringing together science and dressing up my animals?!? I could knit them pullovers with weighted tails attached, and knit spikes going up the backbone, and and and.....
Sorry about the dearth of chicks but at least you're allowed to eat eggs again. ??? Our neighbor cockerel is named Stewpot for, I suspect, the very reason your sub-prime yielding guy is. Although he has friends: Cogburn crows usually between 4pm and 7pm, hence the name. Little Buddy joins Stewpot on some days but not all. I say wine, herbs, onion and garlic in that stewpot!
Janice - So was it the ingenuity or the low standards that inspired you to feed eggs to Princess? Either way I glad she approved. Miss Kitty is doing fine. She has managed to con many neighbours into bringing her carrots and apples on a daily basis, so the diet's not going well. We ride twice a week, and I'm about to start lungeing her to help us both lose some weight and get fit. I will post more pictures of Kitty, if you promise to send me more pics of Alaska (envy, drool...). Hope you get some sun soon.
Also love the sub-fertile = submerged!! I laughed out loud! Glad the chicks are enjoying the trailer.
About the turkey chicks...Quite a few years ago, I had the chance to visit Joel Salatin's farm in Virginia. He said that they too had mortality problems with turkey chicks, but once they put the turkey chicks with the chicken chicks, it decreased. Something about turkeys being stupid and the chicken chicks showing them how its done.
KellyC - What a privilege to visit Joel Salatin's Farm! And big thanks for sharing the info. As it happens, my turkey chicks are sharing their trailer with 5 silkie bantam chicks and my one chicken chick. Maybe our mortality rate will be better with little chicken tutors? Maybe that's where the idea that turkeys are stupid comes from.
Chicken chicks are hearty and pretty smart, pheasant chicks are by miles the dumbest of the poultry family. Ian and Mike have a photo collection of stupid ways pheasant chicks kill themselves. This morning one died having got its own head stuck inside the feeder. Anything has to be smarter than that!
Oh the guile... I'm not surprised that she's charmed the new neighbors! I think if we ever met she and I would be fast friends. Will email Alaska photos soon. Remember you have a host if you and Mike ever get this way. Ralph (husband) keeps a keg in his office in the hangar...
I can just hear the dialogue in this mind-reading rooster's head... "Great! She'll keep me! Wait, no, she's going to eat me. Wait! No! Keep me! No, Eat me. Oh, for the love of Mary, lady, make up your mind!!"
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