Pipd's Peeps!

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Well, I took just a few pictures this morning. With the snow and cold, since the girls are not inclined to walk out in it, I've been leaving the door to the deck open during my chores so that I don't have to fight with it while carrying waterers in and out. Well, apparently 2 weeks being snowed in has the girls stir crazy, so a few of them decided to come out and explore. And then, Lydda came FLYING out from the coop, apparently not noticing that it was still snowy out there, and stranded herself in the snow.

"Well, are you gonna help me or what?!"

But, not to fear, Rowena is here!

She got a wild feather up her butt and trudged right into the snow after Lydda! Rowena to the rescue?

With her little fuzzy feet, she shoveled her way right on through the snow!

...And left a trail through the snow in her wake!

Lydda still wouldn't move, however, so I finally had to rescue her. A few minutes later, the hens were all back in the coop, giving me a resounding "Nope." about trying that again. (Err, don't mind our mess... Everything's frozen solid and I haven't been able to clean up properly... )

Meanwhile, over at the duck coop, Malcolm and Trudi were being very patient about waiting for their water dish while I took pictures. Very patient...

...But quickly losing patience!

Malcolm is so hard to take seriously when he looks so much like a rubber ducky.

"Excuse me, human, but where's our water?" I love this one, with Trudi peeking out in the background.

"Where's the water, human?!"

And this last one is kind of an outtake. You never know when the urge may strike you to preen your belly.

Sigh... This is my last day before the semester starts, so I'm just sitting here working on my nerves. This is going to be a tough semester, so I'm definitely nervous! I can do this... right?

 

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First week of classes is done! We've quickly realized that the scheduling for this semester is, well, wonky, so I may end up having to drop a class anyway. I hate to do it when I am so close to being finished... But in effect, it will only postpone graduation for a few additional months because I can take this class in the summer, so I suppose it's not too bad? I haven't decided fully yet, but have until tomorrow to do so without repercussion.

In other news, sadly, Poppy slipped away in her sleep last night. I truly thought she had been doing better in her sling, but yesterday her comb had gotten dusky and she had begun having these odd neck spasms. Poor Elda is all alone again. Hopefully it won't be too much longer before it's warm enough for her to spend some time outside with the flock. Until then, I'm sure she'll be extra needy. Maybe she can spend some time with Crash like the last time she was in.

We had a meltoff and warm up this week, which was pleasant--until yesterday when the temp dropped and everything turned icy! More snow blew in, just a dusting, but enough that the girls don't want to go out again. Oh, well. Anyway, when the sun hit the ice just right this morning, there was a beautiful few moments of the trees glittering in the light, something that I attempted to capture with a few pictures, but they truly didn't do it any justice.

Pretty as it may be... I'm with Keiko. Wake us up when it's springtime!

 

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Speaking of springtime, since I want to have chicks hatch on spring break (which starts March 4 for me), I have separated Reuben and Winter from the flock as of last night so that I can be relatively sure they will not father any chicks. I want to set eggs around February 10 or 11 to have them hatch the weekend leading into spring break, and the hens can remain fertilized by a rooster for a few WEEKS after he's been removed, so there needs to be quite a bit of time without a rooster. I'm going with 3 weeks to be safe, and then one week with the rooster I actually want to father the chicks, so 4 weeks total away from Reuby and Winty. Nadine is the only hen I have plans for hatching from who is actually laying at this point (Reinette, Perdita, Marka, and the Dark Dorkings are also laying, but I don't have any plans for hatching from any of them this year), so most likely my first hatch of the year will be her crossed to Murphy. I may end up separating her and a few buddies out instead of the roosters, because Reuby is my best bet at warning the girls for hawks, so he needs to be with the flock if they get to be out in their big yard or free-range at all.

Oh, and I also found out that Reuben does NOT want to be separated away from the hens with Winter along side him. I had to not only separate him from the hens, but also from Winty, because he was chasing poor Wint around relentlessly when I first separated them out! I guess he was frustrated?

Anyway, just a few short weeks and I'll have the incubator out and running again! Yay!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Getting the incubator out to clean up, calibrate, and get set up this weekend! I have 4 eggs from Nadine crossed to Murphy set aside so far, and I'm expecting one tomorrow and possibly one Monday. I think I will set them tomorrow after she (hopefully) lays a 5th egg, and if she lays a 6th one on Monday as well, I'll go ahead and toss it in then!

Nadine did sneak out about two weeks ago and most likely was bred by Reuben, so I have had her with Murph almost daily this past week and a half with the hopes that he would be the only one fertilizing her eggs. However, there is a chance that a Silkie mix could show up as a result of her excursion, so I guess this hatch could have some surprises! Keeping my fingers crossed for mostly pure Marans, though!

Also thinking about joining the Easter HAL, since more of my girls are picking up laying. Not sure if I want chicks hatching in April, though... We'll see.

 

[Cluckcluck1215]

Getting the incubator out to clean up, calibrate, and get set up this weekend! I have 4 eggs from Nadine crossed to Murphy set aside so far, and I'm expecting one tomorrow and possibly one Monday. I think I will set them tomorrow after she (hopefully) lays a 5th egg, and if she lays a 6th one on Monday as well, I'll go ahead and toss it in then!

Nadine did sneak out about two weeks ago and most likely was bred by Reuben, so I have had her with Murph almost daily this past week and a half with the hopes that he would be the only one fertilizing her eggs. However, there is a chance that a Silkie mix could show up as a result of her excursion, so I guess this hatch could have some surprises! Keeping my fingers crossed for mostly pure Marans, though!

Also thinking about joining the Easter HAL, since more of my girls are picking up laying. Not sure if I want chicks hatching in April, though... We'll see.

That's awesome!

I'm trying to convince my mom to let me try and hatch Ayam Cemani's or maybe Millie Fleur D'Uccles this year

 

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Oooh, good luck! I've never owned either of those, but I just love little d'Uccles! They're so cute!





Lookie what I did since my last post! All calibrated and should be ready to go tomorrow!!

This picture turned out weird with how the lighting was, but here are the eggs I have so far. The two with question marks are because they're so dark, I couldn't find their air cells!

 

[Cluckcluck1215]

That's awesome!

I'm going to keep track of this thread.
I love watching people hatching chicks, it's amazing

 

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Eggs are cooking!! As expected, she laid a fifth egg this morning, so there are five (so far)! Marked with French numbers because, I mean, they are Marans.

 

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Well, Nadine must have been on to my plan and laid her egg early today. She always lays an egg first thing in the morning one day, then mid-afternoon the next day, then takes a break the third day before starting her pattern over again. Yesterday was her morning egg, so today should have been her afternoon egg. That would have been perfect because her afternoon laying time would have normally been after I got home from class today. Instead, I went out to check when I got home and she had already laid it, and it's cold like it's been there for a while. I think it's frozen at this point, which means that there's almost no chance it will hatch from what I'm reading. Darn! The shell is not split or cracked from freezing, though, so I'm going to let it thaw to room temp and set it anyway. I mean, there is a teeny-tiny chance we may have a small miracle with it. Fingers crossed, anyway!




EDIT: Okay, egg number 6 is in! That gave me the chance to top off the water channel in the incubator and take a look at the eggs again because I forgot to record 'pointy' vs 'round' for the Chick Sexing Experiment article. All set now!

I also wanted to add that after a lot of reflecting, I don't think it would be wise for me to join the Easter Hatch-a-Long this year. I really wanted to, but it would mean having chicks at both 1 and 2 months old at finals week, as well as having to run 2 brooders during what is most likely going to be a hectic month for classes, finishing up homework and preparing presentations. I'm pretty sure I won't be able to handle that, and I don't want any babies I hatch to be neglected because I took on too much. SO, Spring Break babies it is, and the next batch of eggs can be set to hatch after finals week so I'll have lots of time to take care of them!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Week one down! I forgot how stressful this can be! I've been checking the temp in the incubator so often that it's ridiculous! I'm getting this strange urge just to sit by the incubator and stare in at the eggs even though they still have two weeks before anything should happen. It's incubator madness!

I wanted to track the eggs' progress by keeping track of their weight like I did the last time I incubated, but for some reason the scale freaked out on me today and said the eggs weighed substantially more than they did at the beginning of the incubation rather than less like they should? Clearly something here is very wrong! So, I candled the eggs to track air cell growth instead. They look good, maybe a bit on the large side for day 7 eggs, but it has been SUPER dry here, so no surprise there. I absolutely can't see anything else through those shells. I can see darkish blobs in them, which I assume are the embryos, but those dark shells make seeing veining impossible! I do think that Six is clear, but I went ahead and left it in just in case. Two weeks to go!