12/31/09
I was browsing through a chicken breed website when I saw a picture of a Barnevelder hen. Bronze looked just like her... yellow legs, green neck, everything! I compared a picture of her to what I thought she was, a Partridge Rock. The Partridge Rock had white legs and a brown body all over. It is so exciting to have a different breed!!
Yay! The hens are starting to lay again!!! Lately, every morning the roosters have been having a crow-down. First, one will crow, then the others will begin for about ten+ minutes. Pepper has the nicest crow, Sterling the cutest, Cayenne the overdoer, and Dino who sounds like a mourning dove.
10/13/2010
We woke this morning to find that something had opened our young chickens' coop. Bach, our White-Crested black Polish pullet, Bear, our Bantam Blue Cochin cockerel, Silver, our OEB mix cockerel, and Biscuit, our only male guinea, were missing. After intense searching in our neighbor's thicket-filled backyard, we found the remains of Bear, Silver and only some of Biscuit's feathers. We were 99.9% sure our culprit was a fox but it turned out to be a bobcat. Bach could have been taken by an owl or the bobcat. They were such wonderful, beautiful, sweet birds. We will miss them so much.
6/27/2011
For one l-o-n-g year, I'd been waiting for/prompting/seperating a hen to go broody. Finally, I made an incubator, but during the second week, the temperature went crazily high. Those eggs were due to hatch June1-4. No chicks hatched. Then, twenty-five days ago, God allowed Princess to go broody June 2nd and then Spicey one to two days later!! Spice hatched two adorable, fluffy, yellow chicks, today! I also made a second larger incubator, watched its temperature and humidity for one to one and one-half weeks. There are now fifteen eggs that are due to hatch July 13, if God wills it!!
6/28/2011
I'm using the first incubator for our corn snake eggs and it has worked wonderfully . I've never had so many snakes hatch at once in so short a time. Between June 23 and today, I now have 28 hatchlings! They are gorgeous! Corn snake eggs generally take 69-80 days to hatch at room temperature. Ours started hatching at day 77 for our first clutch and day 73/4 for our second and third clutch. If its God's will, another ten will be hatching in August. I am so thankful for all of these little blessings!!(minus the lightbulb, which I took out)
7/16/2011
Yay! Our first chicks from the incubator hatched July 13! They are so cute. Cricket pipped on July 12 and rested for several hours. I asked God to wake me when s/he started zipping. I suddenly woke up at 2am and noticed that the chick was 1/3 - 1/2 way zipped. Excitedly, I took out my camera and started videotaping the exciting event. Finally, at just near four, the little chick gave one last push and was out! I named him/her Cricket. Later that morning, around 10 am, another chick hatched. Cricket is Gold and Merrigold's offspring and Custard is C. Mustard and Honey's offspring. Praise the Lord!
8/28/2011
After a very long time of looking and praying for a buck, we found the perfect one!! We wanted a goat which would pass down great udders, was registered, and had clean lines. Many times it seemed we would never find the perfect buck. Little Joe is so handsome and is the sweetest buck you ever met. He is chocolate brown with little white splotches on his right side. Thank you, God, for providing the goat You knew was best for us!!
7/ 9/ 2012
Yay! We've got four broody hen mothers! Honeysuckle hatched two chicks which we named Peeps & Tweety. Spice hatched six guineas. They have been named Polka Dash, Dot, Dat, Dash-Dash-Dot, and Dot-Dot-Dash. Honey hatched four banty chicks, which we named Butter, Butterball, Buttercream, and Butterskotch. Sunflower hatched five chicks which haven't been named yet. I love having broody hens and chicks. I think it is so precious watching the hens guard, feed, and care for their chicks. Plus, the chicks are so much more feisty! At two-and a half weeks old, they are already flying and dashing about, not to mention they seem to grow their feathers more quickly.
7/16/2012
I decided to let Spice & her keets out of their 5 x 5 run today. This evening when I went to check on them, I found out that one was missing. I figured she had just lost one but then I saw unusual prints. They weren't as big as our dog's (who is wonderful with our critters) and they weren't as small as our cats' . I was wondering if they were fox, coyote, or bobcat, so I motioned for my brother to look. I had noticed three points somewhat like you'd find with a fox and showed them to him. He thought I was pointing to three long lines that were part of what I'd seen. Once I saw that, I immediately thought HAWK!! For at least two years in a row, Cooper's Hawks have been nesting nearby. Their youngin's are flying around and super (at least they sound that way- LOL) hungry. I love birds of prey, but they're just that; preying birds. If only they wouldn't touch my critters. *sigh* It's so hard losing a critter to a predator, ya know?
