Homestead Update 2-29-24
We’ve had a LOT going on this month on the homestead!
Baby Chickens!
We have been hatching like crazy trying to test fertility and build up our flocks. At the end of January we hatched 3 Polish and 3 Ayam Cemani chicks. I want to say there are 2 Polish roos and 1 AC roo in this lot, but we shall see how that all plays out as they grow up. I’m still learning how to sex them.
The first clutch of eggs was actually mostly Wyandotte, but our roo is not doing his job very well, so most weren’t fertilized. Sir Winston is helping now, so the next clutch should be good to go.
The Polish has a near 100% fertilization and hatch rate. Dudley and Philbert take their jobs VERY seriously, as some of these eggs were almost a month old by the time I was able to get them in. The chicks from the first clutch all came out blue, despite their mom being black.
We promptly refilled the incubator. In the second clutch we got 4 Ayam Cemani and 5 Polish. One of the little Polish babies never did well, and died a few days later. Out of 8 Polish babies, only one is black.
One of the AC babies came out a little less “black” and more “blue” looking. It has a spot on its head that looks like the back of a Silverback Gorilla. It’s hard to tell if the spot is actually a lighter color, or just glowing in the light. I won’t be breeding it in the AC program but I’m gonna keep it to see what it turns out looking like. It’s also considerably larger than the other 3. Probably a rooster.
I bought an older cabinet style incubator from a friend and fired it up.
We currently have eggs hatching in that incubator. So far there are 4 Wyandottes, so we shall see what we end up with in a day or so.
I think there was something off with the temp in the incubator despite having not one, not two, but 3 different thermometers involved. The eggs just never felt warm when I went to candle them, and a LOT of them got started but failed somewhere in the first 2 weeks.
I will be buying new thermometers, adding more glass to the door, possibly adding a light, and trying again after these are done.
On a side note: You wouldn’t BELIEVE the difference 3 weeks makes in the size and feathering of a baby chick!
Zombies
We got 4 new Leghorn hens for Monte the other AC roo. You know what that means right? ZOMBIES are coming!
Unfortunately we didn’t have time to get them their own pen so they had to go into the bachelor pad with Forest and Monte. Forest stays in the pen, Monte does not, so they’re gonna have BCM in their systems for a little while.
We moved the white and splash Marans over there too to see if they are laying eggs yet. THEY ARE! It only took them 6 months to get comfy with the place…
I was really concerned with all these hens getting along, and finding their way into the coop since it’s quite different from the ones they came from, but after the first night, everyone was inside. I think it really helps to have “veterans” in the pen, those who know what to do and where to go at night. They tend to show the others pretty well.
Gonna have to split the bachelor pen into two, one for Monte and the Leghorn girls and the other for Forest, and his girls: the Olive eggers, Cream Legbar, and all the Marans hens who are currently in with Toes. Eggs will be available after they’ve had time to clear the other roosters from their systems.
Growouts
We finally got all the young’uns out of the growout A-frame and into the Hentagon with the big girls. These are the chicks we hatched from Forest and the Olive/Blue egger girls. Norman (the only rooster we kept) went with. He thought he was gonna be big stuff the first day and kept starting shit with the hens. He managed to piss of two at once and they laid into him, causing him to bump into Toes, the BCM roo. That went over about like you’d expect, with Toes putting him in his place real damn quick.
We had to run them into the coop the first night, and put them on the roosts, but when we went out on the second night, they’d all found their way inside and had a spot on the roosts. I was really expecting to have to show them more than once.
As soon as the weather gets warm we will be moving the newly hatched chicks out to the A-frame as they develop their big bird feathers.
Musical Chicken Coops
It’s almost like there’s a perpetual game of musical coops going on over here as we rearrange the pens, shuffling chickens here and there. They eventually integrate into one flock, but for a little bit they tend to hang with their own groups within the run. It’s never dull though, that’s for sure.
Check back often for the most up to date happenings on the homestead.
