This is one of the turkey poults that hatched. We have three of them.



This is the snake we caught. It liked to wrap around my arm and stuff. Gripped pretty tight, too.

This is the goose and the 4 chickens. I have them in a separate pen from the turkeys. They all seem to be doing good. The chicks crawl over the goose and as you can see, the love to lay on it. And it always sits with it's face in the corner or up against the box. Of course, mom does the same thing out in the nest box.

The three turkey poults.

The first two turkeys right after they hatched.

10 May 2010

Candled all of the eggs tonight. Most of them are developing, but a few had to be pulled. Some of them that hatch in June I left in just to be sure. What is the real harm in leaving them in right now?
OK, so I have some that will hatch in 3 days. Moved them into the new incubator with the fan and laid them all out flat or horizontal. Then I have another batch that will hatch right after we get back from Texas. I probably should have counted all the eggs, but didn’t. Think there are 12 chicken, 5 geese and about 9 turkeys in the first hatch.

Went out in the garden last week and did some work. Found this snake under one of the large metal pieces I use to keep the weeds down. Let it go outside the garden. Did a lot of mowing, and moved Drew’s frames for his boat over to another spot. Thinking about building a garage and we need to cut some of the trees down first.

Next Hatch

2 May. 2 turkeys hatched, doing good. Noticed a pip before work, Frances said two hatched while I was gone.

3 May. Remaining turkey hatched. So of 5 geese, 1 hatched. Of 5 Turkeys, I opened 2 good eggs, effectively killing them because I miscalculated their hatch date and the other three hatched. I know the mom was the Red based on the eggs, and looks like the dad was the Spanish Black.

Have Turkey and goose eggs and 12 chicken eggs in the incubator to hatch 13 May.
Another batch is due to hatch 24 May. I just put 24 chicken eggs in to hatch with them. Also put in 4 goose and 9 turkey eggs that will hatch a week after that. Been collecting some, and tonight I found a turkey nest in the chicken area, had 6 turkey eggs, 5 Red and 1 Slate and one chicken egg. Also got another goose egg so I put them all in the incubator. All the chicks seems to be doing good. Need to look at the calendar and figure out which dates I’m taking things to the auction. I’ll probably sell the 4 Rhode Island reds, if Jeanne will let me, and the goose. Hesitant to sell the goose until I get more to hatch out.
Have a lady wants me to mail her day old chicks, which I have never done before. Also not sure about the numbers, she only wants 11 and I think the minimum to send is 25 to keep them themselves warm. Have to do some more checking.
I substitute taught today, so I'll try to get some pictures up tomorrow of the babies.

On the Spurs Note: They had their opening game with the Phoenix Suns last night and lost. They had a chance, maybe, but didn’t play championship ball for the whole 48 minutes. They allowed the Suns to put them in a hole to start with. They tied in the 4th and actually took a 3 point lead for a few seconds, but that was it. Game 2 is Wednesday night and hopefully they can pull out a win then. GO SPURS!!!!!

Updated Hatch Report

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.

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!!!

All the new babies in their new home. The goose still likes the corners best, lol.

She (he?) looks a lot better than this. She is cleaned off and dired better.

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.