27 April. Bought 5 Rhode Island Red chicks, 3 hens, 2 roosters to put in with the gosling. Doing much better, up and around, eating on it’s own. The chicks love it, but it was scared at first. They get along well now. It is really cute when it cocks it’s head to look up at you.
29 April. One of the chicks died. Frances found it dead, partially under the waterer. Could have gotten stuck and then suffocated. Not sure.
Took all the eggs that didn’t hatch out on the porch and cracked them open to see how developed they were. 4 goose and 5 turkey eggs. One of the goose eggs didn’t develop much, the other three were more, but difficult to tell when they stopped growing and died. I was putting off doing this but they had started to smell. Cracked open a turkey egg and noticed it was bloody. Cracked open the second turkey egg and it wasn’t as bloody, but they were both developing well. Then I noticed one moved, then both moved. Took the other three eggs back to the incubator. Looked at my dates again and it would seem I made a mistake on the turkey dates. I didn’t write what day I put them in, but there is an entry dated 5 April says I have 4 turkey eggs. So if I put them in that day, the earliest hatch date would be 3 May. And if I remember right I put the 4 in that night and then when I got the 5th one the next day, I put it in also. So I’m looking at 3-5 May as possible hatch dates. Sad about the two I lost and could have had, but excited about the 3 that are still in there. Just goes to show how important records are.
Speaking of which. Need to figure dates, because I have 4 incubators now, that I own and have eggs in three of them. One has turkey and chicken eggs that should hatch 13 May. 12 chicken and about 4 turkey eggs. The second one has turkey eggs that should hatch 25 May, after I come back from Texas. So I need to collect chicken eggs to add to it about 1 May. I had problems with the goose eggs on the auto turners, so did some checking and found out they do better being turned by hand. So the third incubator is full of goose eggs. They are marked on the end with their hatch date, 13 or 24 May. Have to get some kind of shelving to hold the incubators on if I am going to be doing this very much.
Went to the Bolivar auction at 1pm last Saturday only to find out the poultry sells at noon. So planning to go back this weekend and see what is there, how things go and if I can make any money selling my stuff there. Also need to do some research to find out where I can take my turkeys and how much it will cost to have them professionally processed. Get me a big freezer and then I can sell more of them, maybe.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Spurs WIN!!!!
Spurs basketball is one of the few sports I follow. And being the post season, I tend to pay a little more attention to it. Spurs finished number 7. And they just finished eliminating the number 2 seed Dallas Maverics, 4-2. Now they face the winner of the Phoenix/Portland series. Since Phoenix leads that series 3-2, I'm betting on them. And if the match upwith them is anything like in years past, it will be a good one. We faught them to game 7 the last time we won the championship. Go SPURS!!!
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Hatch Report
Well the hatch report isn’t so good. Out of the ten eggs, one goose egg hatched. In retrospect, I think that the eggs rolled around when I was moving things around. They aren’t supposed to be turned for the last 3 days. This is really hard on geese because of their long necks. Sad. But the one goose pipped on Sunday and was completely out of the shell on Monday. It looked kind of weak and I was worried about it. Got the good chick starter and fed it some. It wasn’t eating on it’s own. Then decided to get 5 chicks from the hatchery to keep it company and help teach it how to eat, etc. SO now I have 5 Rhode Island Red chicks in with it and it is standing and eating on it’s own and looking MUCH better.
Took the tiller to parts of the garden and planted some lettuce seed today. Now I have SOMETHING planted in the garden. Have several plants ready to transplant, but no place prepared for them yet. Working on a plan. Depends on the weather this weekend and how my back is feeling.
Monday, April 26, 2010
This is actually the second batch in the new incubator.They are on an auto turner, the goose eggs at the top of the page, the turkey eggs in the middle and the chicken eggs at the bottom. The turkey egg on the same row as the goose eggs is a bourbon red egg. The others are Blue Slate eggs. Teh metal piece is a hygrometer to measure the relative humidity.
These are the first hatch, 5 goose and 5 turkey eggs. The 2 on the right are Bourbon red eggs and the other 3 are Blue slate eggs. Again you can see the hygrometer. I replaced the water tray with a wet wash cloth to help keep the humidity near 85% for the last three days of hatching. The other material is egg carton that has been cut down to help keeo the eggs stationary.
These are the first hatch, 5 goose and 5 turkey eggs. The 2 on the right are Bourbon red eggs and the other 3 are Blue slate eggs. Again you can see the hygrometer. I replaced the water tray with a wet wash cloth to help keep the humidity near 85% for the last three days of hatching. The other material is egg carton that has been cut down to help keeo the eggs stationary.
This is a picture actually taken with my cell phone and you can see the hole in the side of the egg.
I have numbered all the eggs as I collected them just to help keep track of how many and which ones I got first, etc. We ate the first 3 geese eggs, and the next 7 didn't develop. It is egg number 11 that is pipped. I expect the others to start soon.
Hatch Time
26 April 2010
Hatch time for the first set of eggs. 5 Emden Geese and 5 turkeys. Not sure if the turkeys are Bourbon Reds or Blue slate, think most are Slate. And the dad could be either Bourbon Red or Spanish Black. Guess it doesn’t really matter. I’m hoping to raise some of them for meat, and in the end, they will all be about the same.
Got up yesterday, Sunday 25 April, and there was one goose egg that had pipped. There is a small hole and you can see the beak and hear it whine. Sounds like a puppy almost. By the end of the day the hole had gotten a little bigger, but not much. Came home from work and the hole is bigger still, but the baby is far from being out of the shell. And no more have pipped that I can tell. Moved the incubator out of the closet and into my room so I can get to it and see it better.
I have a second batch of eggs in another incubator, 9 geese and 6 turkey eggs I think. Also put in 12 chicken eggs a week later so they should all hatch on 13 May. Some of those eggs are the Bourbon red and others are the Slate. Picked a wide variety of colors for the chicken eggs. Got the biggest ones I could, ones that were pretty fresh. Some one said to use day old eggs not the just laid ones, so that is what I did. They should be pretty. Plan to take most of them to the auction in Bolivar and try to sell them. Some of the geese and turkeys I plan to sell also. Guess I can put an add on Craig’s list, too.
Collecting eggs for the next batch. Have 12 turkey eggs and 4 geese eggs. Want them to hatch about 25 May. Right now the plan is for me to make a trip to Texas to get stuff from storage the weekend of 21 May, so want them to hatch when I get back.
Got a peach tree and an apple tree and planted them in the garden, but other than that haven’t done anything there.
On the 24th, I took my Praxis II exam for Middle school Science. Think I did good enough. With that, Will have finished all my requirements for teaching except Student Teaching, which I am scheduled to do in the fall. Excited about that.
Rained here over the weekend. The grass is really growing. Got a new lawn mower, and just need to try to keep up with the grass and weeds. And I’ll try to keep up on here and post pictures of all the new critters. See ya.
Clay
Hatch time for the first set of eggs. 5 Emden Geese and 5 turkeys. Not sure if the turkeys are Bourbon Reds or Blue slate, think most are Slate. And the dad could be either Bourbon Red or Spanish Black. Guess it doesn’t really matter. I’m hoping to raise some of them for meat, and in the end, they will all be about the same.
Got up yesterday, Sunday 25 April, and there was one goose egg that had pipped. There is a small hole and you can see the beak and hear it whine. Sounds like a puppy almost. By the end of the day the hole had gotten a little bigger, but not much. Came home from work and the hole is bigger still, but the baby is far from being out of the shell. And no more have pipped that I can tell. Moved the incubator out of the closet and into my room so I can get to it and see it better.
I have a second batch of eggs in another incubator, 9 geese and 6 turkey eggs I think. Also put in 12 chicken eggs a week later so they should all hatch on 13 May. Some of those eggs are the Bourbon red and others are the Slate. Picked a wide variety of colors for the chicken eggs. Got the biggest ones I could, ones that were pretty fresh. Some one said to use day old eggs not the just laid ones, so that is what I did. They should be pretty. Plan to take most of them to the auction in Bolivar and try to sell them. Some of the geese and turkeys I plan to sell also. Guess I can put an add on Craig’s list, too.
Collecting eggs for the next batch. Have 12 turkey eggs and 4 geese eggs. Want them to hatch about 25 May. Right now the plan is for me to make a trip to Texas to get stuff from storage the weekend of 21 May, so want them to hatch when I get back.
Got a peach tree and an apple tree and planted them in the garden, but other than that haven’t done anything there.
On the 24th, I took my Praxis II exam for Middle school Science. Think I did good enough. With that, Will have finished all my requirements for teaching except Student Teaching, which I am scheduled to do in the fall. Excited about that.
Rained here over the weekend. The grass is really growing. Got a new lawn mower, and just need to try to keep up with the grass and weeds. And I’ll try to keep up on here and post pictures of all the new critters. See ya.
Clay
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Spring Time events
15 April, 2010
I’m trying to keep up the blog, and at least think about things that should be put on it.
Had to buy a new lawn mower this year. Been putting off fixing the riding lawn mower and bent the shaft on the push mower last year, so had no operable mower. And the grass is getting pretty bad, so had to get one. Thought about a used one, but not sure what I’d get that way, so I broke down and went looking for a new mower. Went to Sam’s and they were out, but what I did find was a 225 foot roll of weed cloth for $30. Now that is a deal I have been looking for and trust me, don’t think I’ll have any problem finding a use for all of it. Ended up buying a Craftsman at Sears, for way more than I planned. And it was the cheapest one they had.
So, mowed most of the front yard this morning. Looks nice. Got a lot more mowed on a tank of gas than I used to. Now need to get the back yard mowed.
Candled the eggs again tonight. Today should be day 18 of 28 for the goose eggs and day 11 of 28 for the turkeys. There were 12 goose eggs and 5 showed development. Cracked open the others and my guess would be that they weren’t fertile. And I noticed something else. Some where I read that the first few aren’t fertile any way. So we ate the first three, made an excellent omelet. Then I started numbering the rest as I got them. And the ones that we threw out tonight were numbers 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10. Not sure if nature does it that way on purpose, but so it is with these. So we put 11 through 16 back in the incubator. There are also 5 turkey eggs and all of them showed development.
We also got a new incubator and set it up so the temperature is correct. Put the next set of eggs in it tonight, 9 goose eggs and 3 turkey eggs. They all take 28 days to hatch so the expected hatch date for them will be May 13th.
Went out on the back deck and watched the fireflies about 830 tonight. Didn’t think they were out yet, but there were several of them. There will be more when it warms up more, but nice to see them.
Still working on the garden. Not sure where to put everything. Had problems last year with bugs and such and realized part of the problem was that I hadn’t rotated my plants and was growing things in the same spot for the second year or so. So did some research and read an article in Mother Earth News about crop rotation, and now I’m trying to design a plan for rotation. Once I get that figured out, It will be easy each year to plant the garden. And once I get the ground all taken care of it will be easier to plant, period. With the new roll of weed cloth, and the huge pile of wood chips in the front yard, set to have quite a garden, either this year or next. Looking forward to it.
In just over a week I take my Praxis II exam for Middle School Science. My last hurdle before I do my student teaching in August. So looking forward to that. But there is a lot of stuff I need to review and study for the exam, so that is what I am trying to concentrate on the most.
Till next time.
I’m trying to keep up the blog, and at least think about things that should be put on it.
Had to buy a new lawn mower this year. Been putting off fixing the riding lawn mower and bent the shaft on the push mower last year, so had no operable mower. And the grass is getting pretty bad, so had to get one. Thought about a used one, but not sure what I’d get that way, so I broke down and went looking for a new mower. Went to Sam’s and they were out, but what I did find was a 225 foot roll of weed cloth for $30. Now that is a deal I have been looking for and trust me, don’t think I’ll have any problem finding a use for all of it. Ended up buying a Craftsman at Sears, for way more than I planned. And it was the cheapest one they had.
So, mowed most of the front yard this morning. Looks nice. Got a lot more mowed on a tank of gas than I used to. Now need to get the back yard mowed.
Candled the eggs again tonight. Today should be day 18 of 28 for the goose eggs and day 11 of 28 for the turkeys. There were 12 goose eggs and 5 showed development. Cracked open the others and my guess would be that they weren’t fertile. And I noticed something else. Some where I read that the first few aren’t fertile any way. So we ate the first three, made an excellent omelet. Then I started numbering the rest as I got them. And the ones that we threw out tonight were numbers 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10. Not sure if nature does it that way on purpose, but so it is with these. So we put 11 through 16 back in the incubator. There are also 5 turkey eggs and all of them showed development.
We also got a new incubator and set it up so the temperature is correct. Put the next set of eggs in it tonight, 9 goose eggs and 3 turkey eggs. They all take 28 days to hatch so the expected hatch date for them will be May 13th.
Went out on the back deck and watched the fireflies about 830 tonight. Didn’t think they were out yet, but there were several of them. There will be more when it warms up more, but nice to see them.
Still working on the garden. Not sure where to put everything. Had problems last year with bugs and such and realized part of the problem was that I hadn’t rotated my plants and was growing things in the same spot for the second year or so. So did some research and read an article in Mother Earth News about crop rotation, and now I’m trying to design a plan for rotation. Once I get that figured out, It will be easy each year to plant the garden. And once I get the ground all taken care of it will be easier to plant, period. With the new roll of weed cloth, and the huge pile of wood chips in the front yard, set to have quite a garden, either this year or next. Looking forward to it.
In just over a week I take my Praxis II exam for Middle School Science. My last hurdle before I do my student teaching in August. So looking forward to that. But there is a lot of stuff I need to review and study for the exam, so that is what I am trying to concentrate on the most.
Till next time.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Eggs
Well, it has been almost 2 weeks since I put the eggs in the incubator and it looks like 7 of the 12 goose eggs are developing. The 5 turkey eggs have been in almost a week, so still too early to tell about them.
Finished up one of the pens and put the black tom and the slate hen in it this afternoon. Neither of them seemed to like the Idea very much. And the Red tom would come over and taunt him and fight through the fencing. Go figure. But I haven’t been getting any turkey eggs for a while and think maybe she is laying them. So the extra effort to confine her and try to collect eggs.
Got my new apple tree planted yesterday and it is looking pretty nice. Also got my seed order from Gurney’s so time to get out in the garden and get things organized.
Finished up one of the pens and put the black tom and the slate hen in it this afternoon. Neither of them seemed to like the Idea very much. And the Red tom would come over and taunt him and fight through the fencing. Go figure. But I haven’t been getting any turkey eggs for a while and think maybe she is laying them. So the extra effort to confine her and try to collect eggs.
Got my new apple tree planted yesterday and it is looking pretty nice. Also got my seed order from Gurney’s so time to get out in the garden and get things organized.
Monday, April 5, 2010
College and Garden
5 April 2010
Still trying to figure out how to do all this by myself. Just completed my last assignment for college and tomorrow I take my last college exam. Then the end of April I take my Praxis II exam. That will complete my degree requirements. Scheduled to do my student teaching this fall at the local middle school. Finally made it, can’t believe it sometimes.
And with the warm weather I have been dying to get out in the yard and the garden and get things going. Took all the plants from the living room out on the deck, except the banana plant. Have to figure out how to protect them from the birds. Maybe take them out to the garden area.
I started some tomato seeds and some cabbage and broccoli seeds, and a few herbs. Cabbage and tomatoes are growing. Ordered some seeds and a peach tree from Gurneys, and bought an Apple tree at Walmart. Got some apple starts from Angela in Utah, and wanted to try to grow them. Guess the cutting won’t root and not sure I can graft them now that everything has started to grow. May still try one any way. IF not, I will spend the summer getting some crab apple rooting stock from around here and try to get new pieces this fall and graft them next spring. Grafting fruit trees is new to me, understand it, but have never actually done it. So there is a new learning experience for me.
Clay
Still trying to figure out how to do all this by myself. Just completed my last assignment for college and tomorrow I take my last college exam. Then the end of April I take my Praxis II exam. That will complete my degree requirements. Scheduled to do my student teaching this fall at the local middle school. Finally made it, can’t believe it sometimes.
And with the warm weather I have been dying to get out in the yard and the garden and get things going. Took all the plants from the living room out on the deck, except the banana plant. Have to figure out how to protect them from the birds. Maybe take them out to the garden area.
I started some tomato seeds and some cabbage and broccoli seeds, and a few herbs. Cabbage and tomatoes are growing. Ordered some seeds and a peach tree from Gurneys, and bought an Apple tree at Walmart. Got some apple starts from Angela in Utah, and wanted to try to grow them. Guess the cutting won’t root and not sure I can graft them now that everything has started to grow. May still try one any way. IF not, I will spend the summer getting some crab apple rooting stock from around here and try to get new pieces this fall and graft them next spring. Grafting fruit trees is new to me, understand it, but have never actually done it. So there is a new learning experience for me.
Clay
5 April 2010
Put 12 Goose eggs in an incubator on March 28. Candled them today and it appears 10 of them are developing. There had been some concerns about the parents being too young or not mating in the water. I have seen them mate on dry land, and he’s gotten good enough to not fall off. And maybe that is good enough to the job done.
Also started getting turkey eggs the other day, I now have 4 of them. They are different than the ones I got back in December, so I am thinking the other type of hen laid these. And more and more I am thinking these are the slate and the those in December were actually Reds. Recently sold one of the Red hens, and I had gotten an egg or two before she left. The lady I sold her to said she has gotten an egg every day since. So I obviously sold the wrong hen, lol! Those eggs looked like the ones I got in December. But the ones I have now are paler, and with less spots. Tomorrow I plan to put them, and hopefully one more, in the incubator. I just ordered my own incubator and will start collecting turkey eggs for when it gets here and I will incubate them. Plan to hatch just about every turkey egg I get, or get the hens to set on some. Might sell some goose eggs or turkey eggs. Will try to sell some of the turkey poults.
Clay
Put 12 Goose eggs in an incubator on March 28. Candled them today and it appears 10 of them are developing. There had been some concerns about the parents being too young or not mating in the water. I have seen them mate on dry land, and he’s gotten good enough to not fall off. And maybe that is good enough to the job done.
Also started getting turkey eggs the other day, I now have 4 of them. They are different than the ones I got back in December, so I am thinking the other type of hen laid these. And more and more I am thinking these are the slate and the those in December were actually Reds. Recently sold one of the Red hens, and I had gotten an egg or two before she left. The lady I sold her to said she has gotten an egg every day since. So I obviously sold the wrong hen, lol! Those eggs looked like the ones I got in December. But the ones I have now are paler, and with less spots. Tomorrow I plan to put them, and hopefully one more, in the incubator. I just ordered my own incubator and will start collecting turkey eggs for when it gets here and I will incubate them. Plan to hatch just about every turkey egg I get, or get the hens to set on some. Might sell some goose eggs or turkey eggs. Will try to sell some of the turkey poults.
Clay
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