Three More!

Last night, we found one chick hatched and fluffy. 

Here's the discarded shell:

We saw two or three more eggs with pip marks. You might be able to see them in the above photo. 

This morning we discovered two had come out and two more were halfway out of the shells. 

It was hard to tell if any others were starting or not. Hopefully we hatch more than 5/41. 😅

Crackin

 

Don't Blow Away

The wind was crazy! The poor little kids got blown around a bit. They quickly learned that Mom makes a good windblock. 

Lockdown!

Day 18 of egg incubation= lockdown. No one goes in or out until the eggs hatch in 3 to 5 days. 

We took the egg turner out on Thursday and jacked up the humidity. Hopefully we get a good hatch rate! The first day they are due to hatch is today. Just like people, the due date is just an estimate. Some chicks could take a little bit longer, so we'll keep the incubator going for at least 5 days past their due date. After that point the remaining unhatched eggs are considered duds.

Note- the humidity is so low on the hygrometer because we had the top off to take out the turner. It's now in the 60% range.

Comfortable

Svetlana and her babies have been turned loose with the rest of the herd. We let them out for a sunny afternoon and it went so well we decided to just let them be together. It continues to go very well!

It is so fun to look out the window and see the three little babies prancing around the goat pen. Two of them are more adventurous than the other (the one with weak legs). They discovered the wood pile today.

It's not uncommon for the three of them to be hovering around their mother. They like to stand on top of the hay that she's eating, haha.

Jip leaves them alone. I think he knows that if he messes with them, mama is going to come for him! 

I think Jip has been integrated into the goat herd. Even Gerda, the one Jip chases the most, has been seen in his company from time to time.

Candling Eggs

Day 14 of egg incubation equals candling time again! 

We already candled the eggs on day 7 to check for signs of life. There were a few eggs that we weren't sure about, so we left those in the incubator. Both of us were looking forward to seeing how many of them were good! 

A lot of our eggs have dark shells, so it's kind of tricky to see what's going on inside. We discovered that G's phone camera can show a little bit more about what's going on inside. Here are a couple pictures we took while candling: 

Hard to see, but both of these have chicks growing inside! One week to go before they are due to hatch. 

We did find some duds. 

These eggs were removed from the incubator. We had eight more we weren't sure about, so we left those in. They are all on the right side of the incubator and the good ones are on the left. 

On day 18 we can candle again. After that, the incubator will be locked down until the eggs hatch. From what I've read, there isn't much of a benefit to candling on day 18. The chicks should be big enough you won't be able to see much of anything besides the air sac. However the air sac can shed some light on the humidity amount in the incubator. 

If the air sac is too small from too high humidity, the chick won't have enough air and can drown. If the air sac is too large from too low humidity, the chick can also die. We need a Goldilocks amount of humidity. Unfortunately that's not a simple answer. Because of different climates/the time of year, humidity levels can be all over the place.

Our incubator has an automatic humidity detector, but sometimes those are off on their measurements. Just in case, we have a second humidity detector we put towards the edge of the incubator. They're reading pretty close together. Judging by our air sacs, our humidity is a little high. This week, we're going to let it get pretty low to see if we can get the air sacs to an ideal volume before the 18th. We'll check their size on the 18th to determine how much water we need to add to the incubator before hatching.

Duck Pond

With the ducks locked in the pasture and unable to access their pond next to the garage (or their favorite feeding ground), G felt bad that they couldn't have any more fun. He made plans to set up their pond in the pasture. 

The problem is, he would need to run a hose across the goat/Jip pen in order to fill it up. The ducks are so dirty, we end up refreshing the water every couple of days. It would be a big hassle to have to stretch the hose out every time we want to fill the pond. G was going to just leave the hose lying across the pen, but I worried that Jip would use it as a toy and destroy it. 

In the end we scrapped the pond in the pasture idea and instead stretched a temporary fence from the corner of the garage to the wooden fence so the ducks and chickens can access their pond but still not get into the neighbor's yard. 

 Problem solved for now! 😁

Fulda Fun

This weekend we made our first trip to my parents' farm with J. 

He had a great time reading books with Gram and chatting with Boppa. He met Great Grandma and Great Grandpa. And he experienced his first picnic and sap boiling at Shady Acres. 

G and I brought crawfish boudin and alligator sausage from Louisiana to grill over the sap fire. My mom packed the rest of the picnic supplies. My brother made coffee over the fire. My nieces had their own little picnic table built by their dad (my brother-in-law, aka master of the sap). 

The girls had a blast playing in a dirt pile while the rest of us watched the maple sap boil. 

It would take too long to get the sap to boil all the way down into syrup, so they boil it down to a manageable level and then bring it home in pots to finish boiling it on the stove at home. Their total amount starting Sunday was around 30 to 40 gallons. This will only make a couple of pints. A lot of labor for a little bit of deliciousness!

Nevermind

I guess we need to clip the chickens' wings. 🙄

Escape Artists

I'm sure when you read the title you guessed that this post would be about goats since they are notorious for escaping their pens. It's actually about our poultry! 

We had locked them up in the pasture in an attempt to keep them out of the neighbor's yard. As you can see from this picture, they weren't huge fans. They kept trying to go into the front yard where there is more ground cover and plenty of tasty things to eat. 

They had only been locked up like this for maybe an hour or two when I looked outside and saw two ducks on the other side of the fence. The neighbor's side. There must have been a small hole under the fence that let them squeeze through. 

I threw J in a carrier and headed outside to see if I could plug the holes. I had planned to use cement landscaping block (on hand for a future project), but that was too heavy to do safely while holding J. I settled on using pieces of wood from our firewood pile. Those fit perfectly in the gaps under the fence. 

You might think that it's tricky to make ducks and chickens go where you want them to. You would be correct. I did get them corralled back into the pasture area by slowly walking and pretending that I wasn't trying to herd them anywhere. 😅 

That kept them in for a while. 

When G got home and checked the animals, one duck snuck underneath the fence between her area and the goat/jip area. She couldn't figure out how to get back underneath so G had to catch her in the goat shed and put her back on her correct side.

More logs got shoved into that crack. Now I think our fence is FINALLY duck proof.

Last night we brought some "sorry our ducks pooped on your lawn and our chickens ate your perennials" gingersnaps over to our neighbor's house and told them to let us know if any of our poultry make their way over again. 

So far, so good!

 

Jip and the Goats

Jip loves to play with the goats. They tolerate him. One way he gets their attention is to lie on their food... He stood up the split second before I took this picture. 

Fritz will headbutt Jip if he gets too annoying, so will Svetlana. Gerda is too timid and she often ends up 'stuck' on the woodpile to get away from Jip. 

Sometimes he'll climb up and sit with her though!

Maybe once the little kids are out, Jip will have playmates. 

Castiron

Our castiron skills continue to improve. G has cooked eggs in it without them sticking. I made pancakes and Geman pizza in it the other day.

I was a little nervous about things sticking, but the trick is to make sure it's hot enough before putting anything inside. I've also found there's a point when the item is cooked (not sticking) and if you leave it in too long after that, then it burns/overcooks/sticks to the pan. 

PS - The potatoes in the above dish are some of the ones from a previous post with the super long sprouts. Still taste good!

Snow No More

We got some snow on Sunday, light fluffy stuff that fell in huge flakes. The birds had a heyday with it... our ducks waddled around snapping it up and the wild birds flitted around our deck. You might be able to see a few in the picture. 

And just like that, the snow melted. One minute there was snow, the next time I looked outside it was gone. 

More birds have returned. I saw three cranes yesterday (one landed in the pond and the other two flew overhead). The swans have made an appearance again. They never stay long. 

Our ducks have been wandering. They made it almost all the way down to the pond yesterday to enjoy the puddles from the melted snow. Unfortunately, they're also wandering over to the neighbor's house. We heard from them that our ducks have been pooping where the grandkids play and the chickens are eating the first flowers coming up. 😬 

G built a short chicken fence to continue the existing fence dividing our properties and so far it seems to have worked. Still, I keep a sharp eye on them. If they go around the fence, we're going to have to put them in the pasture. 

Baby Wearing

How do I get so much done in a day? Baby wearing. I have three types of carriers that I alternate wearing depending what I'm doing or hoping to achieve. 

This is the Boba wrap. I used this the second day we got home from the hospital. J fell right asleep! 

This is the Ergo carrier. Very sturdy, has pockets, good for out and about. It takes two people (one to hook the back), so I don't use it at home a lot. Instead I use the Baby Bjorn (second picture). Either way, J still conks out! 

Last style is the ring sling. It's super quick to get J in and out of and I love the color. Very portable. This one will be better once J has more head support. He likes to look around and this one doesn't have much behind the head.

Potatoes

Five months is a long time to be gone. Slowly but surely G and I are getting our house and homestead back in order. 

The potatoes we harvested back in November (or I should say my father-in-law harvested) are sprouting...

Did you notice a few have grown through my harvesting basket? 

Interestingly the variety of potatoes affected whether they sprouted or not. I think we had planted four varieties of potatoes. Of course they're all jumbled together in the bin, but from what I could see, the tallest sprouts are from the red potatoes. One variety didn't sprout at all! That might be Kennebec or Yukon Gold. I definitely want to plant more of those this year! 

Incubation

We have 41 eggs "cooking" in our incubator. Not all will be for us... my dad wants some and G's cousin wants some. Also, not every egg will hatch; a 75% hatch rate is typical. One website says it can be as low as 30% for beginners, 50% for intermediate experience, and 80% for experts. Not sure where I fall. 🤔 I incubated eggs with my dad as a kid (don't recall the hatch rate) and did it once with my class (0% hatch rate 😅 due to faulty temperature gauges), so I have some experience. Will it be enough for 75%??

We borrowed two incubators from my dad and plugged them in a day before setting the eggs. This was to make sure they could hold the steady temperature chicks need to grow.

Unfortunately, both did not meet the requirements. One looked like it would be okay but then it spiked a temperature way too hot; the other held a temperature lower than necessary. So we bought a new one. We went to three different stores before we found an incubator. I guess with the price of chicken eggs these days, everyone is hatching their own chicks! 

We didn't have room in our house for the incubator, and our garage is not insulated, so we set the incubator up in my in-law's heated garage so that it would be in a location with a constant temperature (their cars aren't going in and out much these days).

Next came choosing the eggs to incubate. My dad sent three dozen which meant that seven wouldn't go in. A chicken care book I read said to pick eggs that are less porous and round not pointy for best success. 

We candled the eggs to check for porosity and removed the most porous. Those eggs will loose moisture more rapidly. You want eggs to loose moisture, but at the same rate. 

After that we selected for roundness (makes it easier for the chick to hatch and something about the air pocket too). Our third selection was shell color. We want a variety of breeds, so we need a variety of shell colors. 

Finally, we put the eggs in, pointy side down. Our incubator has an egg rotator, so we don't need to do that by hand. 

It also has a slot to insert water to increase humidity. We want 30-40% in the beginning and will increase/decrease as we candle and check the air pocket size. At the end, it will be much higher, in the 60-80% range.

Gorgeous

The weather is glorious, so we brought Mama and babies outside to soak up the sun. 

G made a pen for them so they can be together and not bothered by the rest of our managerie. 

These two are still doing great. Girl on the left, boy on the right. 

The dark one (female) has stood up for short periods, but she's not in the clear yet. We keep helping her to nurse. 

Jip loves coming over to check them out. They are so tiny and wobbly! Tails wagging non-stop as they totter around. Their bleats sound like squeaky toys. 😆

We haven't named them yet. Each is a slightly different shade of brown. I joked about calling them dark roast, medium roast, and light roast. 

Triplets!

We had a big surprise last night after our post supper walk. We were about to go inside when we last minute decided to check on the animals in the shed. We walked inside and saw a few extra fluffy creatures in the center of the shed. It took me a couple seconds to figure out what they were. 

Svetlana had triplets! Which means that the dead kid a few weeks ago must've been from Gerda. It's funny because this whole time we've thought Svetlana still looked pregnant plus her udder was huge (i.e. waddling around the yard), but we were so set on the idea that Gerda never was bred (she never had a big udder). 

The kids were still wet from being born. Two were up on their feet and seemed sturdy. The driest one was on the ground and her back legs didn't seem to work. She couldn't stand up. They needed to nurse right away to get that calorie dense colostrum. All hands on deck! Except....

Because we had come straight from our walk J was with us. 

We called our neighbors who had done chores for us and asked if they'd lend a hand. She quickly volunteered to hold J while I got the babies to latch. G got to work hooking up a heat lamp and building them a 'jug', a separate area for just mom/babies for them to bond for a few days before going back with the herd. 

We put a board over the corner to give the kids a place to be protected and also to keep Svetlana away from the heat lamp. 

Jip fell in love at first sight with the babies. He didn't want to leave them and settled in for the night as close as he could get. 

G went out overnight every two hours or so to try to get the dark one up to nurse. The other two are perfectly fine and good at eating, but the dark one still has trouble standing. We used a small syringe to get some milk in her belly when she didn't want to suck. 

We'll see how she does! 

Jip the Homestead Dog

We got a new puppy! He was born December 20th, 2024, and is a Great Pyrenees crossed with a Norwegian Elkhound.

I love his little curly tail. So far he's been a very good dog and likes to sit when he comes over to us. 

He didn't love the car ride home... threw up in his carrier. So we gave him a bath in the garage. 

The goats were leery at first, but they acclimated quickly. 

Jip is smaller than them, which makes him less threatening than our previous dog. Plus he ignores them for the most part. His old home was full of cows and sheep and poultry, so our animals are old news to him. 

He and the cats don't get along super well. 

We'll see if that changes in time. G has begun training him already. We take a morning "walkabout" with Jip around the pasture fence/property so he knows what area is his to protect and watch over. He's already pretty good about coming when he's called. 

In other news, another one of our cats might be pregnant...

PS- If you're wondering what happened to our old dog Misty, we had to rehome her when we were in the NICU with Jaron. She got too lonely without much human interaction. She went to her a family with a bunch of kids who dote on her, on Christmas Day! From what we hear, all of them are having a great time together. ☺️