After much anticipation, we candled the Muscovy eggs last night (it’s easiest to do when it’s dark – there’s more contrast) and were pleasantly surprised to find development in 5 of the 7. The egg with the crack was clear, so likely was infertile. Another egg that we left in was “iffy” – while not clear, it also didn’t show the same kind of vein development the others did. It could just be a bit slower to develop, so we’ll give it another week and recheck. Continue reading “More On Amazing Eggs”
Tag: Chickens
Chickens And Eggs Are Simply Amazing
Most people probably don’t spend much time marveling at how chickens come to be. You know a chicken comes out of an egg, but have you wondered how an egg forms inside a chicken? Have you seen double-yolked eggs, or maybe even triple-yolked eggs, and wondered how that happens?
When a hen first starts laying, usually around six months old (some breeds start earlier and some, later), she’s called a “pullet” and she lays a smallish egg called (you guessed it) a “pullet egg”. These are perfectly edible eggs, but they’re smaller than the ones she’ll lay later, and aren’t really optimal for incubation. Weird things occur when a hen first starts laying – she may, for example, lay soft-shelled, rubbery eggs; eggs with no white or yolk; eggs with no shell; or double-yolked eggs. In addition, sometimes the eggs are strangely shaped: nearly round, oval, lumpy. These anomalies occur because the hen’s internal egg-producing system is working out the kinks.
Cooped Up – Day 3
The chickens seem resigned to their current state of confinement to the coop. Since there’s only 7 of them, it’s pretty roomy. It won’t be like that for too long, though – batch 1 of the second generation chicks will be out there in a few weeks.
Seeing the hawk swoop down on wild birds fleeing the feeder out back validated that keeping the chickens cooped was the right decision. It’s a small hawk, but clearly deadly to chickens.
The hawk deterrents (owl statue, reflective tape) have arrived and we’ll be putting them out where we’ve seen the hawk. We hope they scare the you-know-what out of any hawks looking for a chicken meal. Wild birds: tell your friends that crows and mockingbirds are welcome here!
Day 2 Of Being Cooped Up
Because of the threat of hawk attack, the remaining 6 layers and the rooster have been confined to their coop. They’re not happy about it, and when you think about, it makes total sense. Even if they had witnessed a hawk attack on a flock-mate, they probably don’t remember it now. All they know is that they’re stuck in their nighttime quarters and they’d rather be outside, scratching, running around, and doing their chicken thing.
In researching how others had resolved issues with hawks attacking chickens, a couple of posters had indicated that some states issue depredation permits. It sounded sketchy to us, so we reached out to the KY Fish & Wildlife agency about the predation – they advised that all hawks are federally protected in KY under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and that killing a hawk is a federal offense. The agency helpfully recommended that we keep the chickens confined for a few days so that the hawk would lose interest (good to know we were already on the right track!). Kudos to KY Fish & Wildlife, too – they are very responsive and genuinely seem to want to help citizens who are losing livestock due to predation (within the parameters of applicable law, of course).
Ava Has A Haystache
After the unsuccessful attempt to breed the NZ does last month, it looks like we may have at least one kindling at the end of the month. Today, we spied Ava sporting a “haystache”, which is usually a sign that a doe is pregnant. It’s pretty early (she was bred a week ago), so there’s a possibility this could be a false pregnancy.
We’ll keep an eye on her and Loretta (bred at the same time) and bring them indoors to kindle when they’re closer to the big day. Better to assume pregnancy and be wrong than to dismiss the signs and let these first-time mothers kindle out in the cold.
The Chicks Are Growing Like Weeds
The “waterbugs” are a week old today. They’re starting to get some real feathers on their wings and tiny tailfeathers. They do lots of scratching in their brooder, which has a layer of large pine shavings on the floor (large shavings are used to minimize the risk of chicks ingesting it). The scratching means that their waterer, which sat on the floor, was continuously filling up with shavings. It was time for them to graduate to the nipple waterer.
Waterers in the brooder are, in our experience, prone to overflowing and causing unholy messes. The idea is that the water flow ceases when the water tray fills to a certain point, but we have experienced many that just kept flowing, with disastrous results. One overflowed so much into the brooder that it caused mold to grow under the plywood floor – BAD. We had to tear out the entire floor and replace it. It was about an $80 job just for materials, but that doesn’t account for labor. Many expletives flew that day!