Larkwell Valley (2023)

[JacinLarkwell]

Schedule changed for my helper, so we'll be processing tomorrow morning. Plan is to do an araucana male and 2 sexlinks. That will free up 3 cages to nab the last sexlink, seperate the female silkie out from her brothers and have a place to move Cheese and the Cornish bantam in a couple days

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Who would be interested in a broody/egg count this weekend? It will probably be Sunday since I'll have to wait for night on a few of them

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I'll also probably try to move chicken Mare into the prefab my buff brahma bantam and Bunny have taken over. It's got 3 nest spots, so all ³ would have their own little area, and then even if they do get mixed up, odds are that all 3 will still get on a nest. Plus when I fix that door, then I can shut it and then not worry about anyone laying under them.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I was too ambitious in my processing plans. Super late start, so just 1 today.

Sexlink. Not dead in these pictures, just sunbathing and dozing

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Bird is done. Got the saddle and hackles I wanted, as well as some chest and tail feathers. Also took the breasts for tonight. Since he's almost over a year old, the rest wasn't worth taking in our opinion, so we gave him back to the flocks. Especially the broodies since they're not eating as well as the others are right now. Only exceptions were the ducks and the current chicks

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Spitzhauben took over Mare's nest last night. May have ended up breaking her. I slid the chilled eggs under Mare and she settled back on them, but they're nice a different nest now.

Duckie also is playing broody, but she only sat a few days last time.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Bald eagle found the carcass yesterday

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Both Cheese and the Cornish bantam lost their nests. None of the Cornish eggs developed (which is really weird, since I know both dudes are breeding and I've got eggs from the pen in my incubator as controls. She kept tossing eggs out though, so I think it was just happening too often.

2 of Cheese's developed, but one ended up getting cracked and the other didn't make it.

So I've got two options to foster chicks on hopefully as long as they stay brooding for another week (which they should, since they both still have things in their nest and still were supposed to sit for a week or so). I'll try to give any araucana that hatch to Cheese since she's a good mom to strong chicks when the raccoons and snakes don't chow down on them. Depending in how things go, I'll either give the Cornish the Cornish chicks that hatch, or give her mixes thar hatch from another nest and give the Cornish to Cheese as well. Just depends on how many hatch total and if any other nests start hatching at that time.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I cleaned out the doorways for the Two other prefabs, so all can actually be locked now I'll try to move Mare out to where the other 3 are nesting so I can just shut them all in that pen and I can actually collect eggs safely in the other pen again.

My Easter egger is gonna be royally mad when she can't lay her egg in that coop tomorrow. She's laid there since she started laying.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Someone in my mixed coop is laying lovely big white eggs. I'm thinking it's CU-co, the weird barred spitzhauben mix I have. Her mom lays medium (well, large according to the stores) white eggs

My onyxes lay a tan, and I'm pretty sure my Asian black does too