Showing posts with label Eggs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Eggs. Show all posts
Monday, February 10, 2014
GO Abby! First goose egg of the season!
Just had to post, as this is my only real record of when things happen. Saw Abby in the A-frame hut for the first time yesterday. Today, I discovered her first egg! Now, if I can just witness Beefy getting his business underway, and the weather warms up so eggs don't freeze, I'll let her start building a clutch. Gotta remember to email the gal I got her from and share the good news. Apparently Abby hatched a batch last year, so we'll see how it goes. If nothing is fertile this year, we may need to add another gander to the flock... and what that means for Beefy? I dunno. Anyhoo, goose eggs leave me feeling that spring weather and longer days aren't far off. :)
Friday, February 22, 2013
We HAVE to get rid of some chickens!
Planning on culling a several of the poor producers and escape artists, and will be giving a few more to my pal Paula. That should take us down to nice small(er) number, and we'll be able to let Bellina and perhaps another hen hatch a couple batches of replacements this year. We're even considering buying some good dark maran eggs to pop under Belly when she goes broody. Fun fun fun!
Oh, and Paula... LJ will be on a new shift here soon, and I'll have some weekend time free. Totally willing to come help you dig your ditch. :)
Happy Friday, all!
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
BOTH ducks are laying! Yay!
These eggs are weird! Very smooth/polished, compared to chicken eggs. Also, unlike the chickens who just drop an egg in the nest box, our ducky gals make a little nest in the straw and lay their eggs in the same spot. Haven't tried them yet, but planning on it this weekend before heading out to our tree stands.
Friday, September 21, 2012
First whole duck egg!
Don't know whether Crusty or Olga laid this egg. Gonna have to see if some ducks lay green eggs and others don't. Pretty exciting, though!
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Sunday, March 4, 2012
High-rise laying
Friday, November 18, 2011
Critter and project updates
Still haven't managed to get to my computer for some real posting, so via iPhone pics, here's an update on some of what's been going on around here.
We were getting lots of these (like 18 a day), but cold weather and short days have the girls laying only 4-9 a day now. Haven't seen a white egg from Miss Blue in about 3 weeks. Either she stopped laying, or she's hiding them somewhere.
The girls are enjoying the new pen I fenced off for them.
And Dunderhead, with his wicked unruly eyebrows, seems recovered (knock on wood).
It is getting colder, and according to LJ, it started snowing after I left for work.
This is just pretty. Snapped while hiking the trails on our property. We've had some raging storms over the last week, so I doubt this lovely web is still out there.
I made this stool for our library so I can reach the top shelves, and I have begun organizing my books. I ordered a roll of dust jacket covers from Brodart, and have only managed to get about 1/3 of my hardbacks covered.
I also made a woodbox for in the house. I got the andirons for $8 at an antique show, painted them satin black (they were a really awful antiqued gold before), and mounted the box on them. I put legs on the back of the box. Works well, holds two sling-loads of wood, keeps bark and chips off the floor, and is PERFECTLY square. I'm pretty proud of that last part. :) (Please excuse the unfinished tile work on the hearth, and the lack of baseboard on the wall...)
Also been working on this little side table I just picked up at the thrift store. It took me about two hours to chip out that awful concrete and glass mosaic. Yuck. Makes me sad, as originally this little table would have had tiles made by, or in the style of, a company like Taylor, Catalina, or Malibu. I've had a few of these tables with their original tiles intact, and just love them. I'm going to refinish this, and see if I can get repro tiles that will fit. If anything, I only paid $7.95 for it, and have some mexican tile that I could make work.
I made some of this (mandarin ginger marmalade), as well as apple sauce and blackberry jam, and learned that the Ball recipes put too freakin much sugar in everything. Luckily, I've skimped a bit, except for the blackberry jam, which unfortunately came out painfully sweet.
I also took some of our pig fat...
And rendered some lard. It's awesome! Though, the crockpot method was gross, and slow, and a pain in the butt. A gal I know swears by the dutch oven method, so I'll try that next. If I don't get a dutch oven for my birthday next week (Mom hinted I would), I'll go out and buy one. We need one anyway. :) (Lard is cooling below. Came out pure white once fully cooled)
And that's about it for now. Gonna spend the weekend cleaning and prepping for Thanksgiving.
Have a great weekend!
We were getting lots of these (like 18 a day), but cold weather and short days have the girls laying only 4-9 a day now. Haven't seen a white egg from Miss Blue in about 3 weeks. Either she stopped laying, or she's hiding them somewhere.
The girls are enjoying the new pen I fenced off for them.
And Dunderhead, with his wicked unruly eyebrows, seems recovered (knock on wood).
It is getting colder, and according to LJ, it started snowing after I left for work.
This is just pretty. Snapped while hiking the trails on our property. We've had some raging storms over the last week, so I doubt this lovely web is still out there.
I made this stool for our library so I can reach the top shelves, and I have begun organizing my books. I ordered a roll of dust jacket covers from Brodart, and have only managed to get about 1/3 of my hardbacks covered.
I also made a woodbox for in the house. I got the andirons for $8 at an antique show, painted them satin black (they were a really awful antiqued gold before), and mounted the box on them. I put legs on the back of the box. Works well, holds two sling-loads of wood, keeps bark and chips off the floor, and is PERFECTLY square. I'm pretty proud of that last part. :) (Please excuse the unfinished tile work on the hearth, and the lack of baseboard on the wall...)
Also been working on this little side table I just picked up at the thrift store. It took me about two hours to chip out that awful concrete and glass mosaic. Yuck. Makes me sad, as originally this little table would have had tiles made by, or in the style of, a company like Taylor, Catalina, or Malibu. I've had a few of these tables with their original tiles intact, and just love them. I'm going to refinish this, and see if I can get repro tiles that will fit. If anything, I only paid $7.95 for it, and have some mexican tile that I could make work.
I made some of this (mandarin ginger marmalade), as well as apple sauce and blackberry jam, and learned that the Ball recipes put too freakin much sugar in everything. Luckily, I've skimped a bit, except for the blackberry jam, which unfortunately came out painfully sweet.
I also took some of our pig fat...
And rendered some lard. It's awesome! Though, the crockpot method was gross, and slow, and a pain in the butt. A gal I know swears by the dutch oven method, so I'll try that next. If I don't get a dutch oven for my birthday next week (Mom hinted I would), I'll go out and buy one. We need one anyway. :) (Lard is cooling below. Came out pure white once fully cooled)
And that's about it for now. Gonna spend the weekend cleaning and prepping for Thanksgiving.
Have a great weekend!
Friday, September 16, 2011
Sneaky sneaky chickens
So, we have two habitual escapees. An ameraucana and a maran. They jump the fence (4' netting, with both their wings clipped). The maran isn't as graceful as my little goldy ameraucana, and often fails to completely clear the fence... Her feet catch, and she somersaults over... And lands on her head. One big ball of feathery coordination.
One of the buffs likes to lay an egg each day under the ferns in their pen, instead of the nest boxes. So, we figured it might be a good idea to look around and see whether the escapees were doing the same. Oh yeah. They were. We found the ameraucana nest, with two pretty little green eggs in it. The maran nest was well hidden under ferns and blackberries. It is pretty deep, and she'd taken the time to line it with feathers and leaves. In her nest, we found a DOZEN eggs. I think she knew we'd found her secret hidey hole, because today, her egg was way on the other side of the yard... In the ameraucana's nest. :) Sneaky sneaky chicken...
Friday, August 12, 2011
Our egg journal
Ok, posting this again, as apparently first one flubbed and wouldn't show up. Grrr... Blogger.
So, a couple days after the girls started laying I decided to keep an egg journal. I was at the gas station, talking to my mom about our first eggs, and remembered how my friend would keep track of his hotrod's mileage/gas usage in a little notebook so he could see the effects of changes he made to the car's engine, etc. I thought, why not keep one for the girls!
We keep a little 3x5 spiral notebook with our egg basket. Every day, we note down how many we collected, as well as anything unusual that we'd like to record. For example, odd egg sizes, shapes, shell condition, location, etc. Inside the cover of the notebook, I listed all our chickens (11 buffs, 1 barred rock, 4 ameraucanas, etc) and their approximate hatch dates.
Hopefully, this little notebook will be useful in tracking egg production, as well as problems. For example, if we're both collecting eggs, we may not be mentioning to each other that we're seeing the occasional weak shell. If we don't see a pattern (seeing them more often, for example), we wouldn't necessarily know that there was a problem to be treated. We'll see if this helps at all. For the moment, it's just fun to look at the slowly climbing numbers as more girls start laying! And, we'll be able to see how many eggs they produce vs feed costs, which would be interesting to see (we're not doing this yet. Perhaps after the first of the year).
Do you keep track of the eggs you collect?
Egg journal, 7/20 - today
7/20 1st egg, found on ground
7/21 2, 1 had weak shell and was broken
7/22 0
7/23 1
7/24 1
7/25 3
7/26 2, 1 cracked but thick shell, added shavings
7/27 3
7/28 4, 1 double yolk lg as store xl(2.3oz)
7/29 3
7/30 3
7/31 2
8/1 3, 1 sm (1.5oz), 2 xl(2.3,2.4)
8/2 5
8/3 6
8/4 6
8/5 5
8/6 10, 1 thin shell and broken
8/7 7, 5 before 11a, 1 very sm,dark,speckled
8/8 8
8/9 11
8/10 8
8/11 11, 1 was GREEN! (1st green egg!)
So, a couple days after the girls started laying I decided to keep an egg journal. I was at the gas station, talking to my mom about our first eggs, and remembered how my friend would keep track of his hotrod's mileage/gas usage in a little notebook so he could see the effects of changes he made to the car's engine, etc. I thought, why not keep one for the girls!
We keep a little 3x5 spiral notebook with our egg basket. Every day, we note down how many we collected, as well as anything unusual that we'd like to record. For example, odd egg sizes, shapes, shell condition, location, etc. Inside the cover of the notebook, I listed all our chickens (11 buffs, 1 barred rock, 4 ameraucanas, etc) and their approximate hatch dates.
Hopefully, this little notebook will be useful in tracking egg production, as well as problems. For example, if we're both collecting eggs, we may not be mentioning to each other that we're seeing the occasional weak shell. If we don't see a pattern (seeing them more often, for example), we wouldn't necessarily know that there was a problem to be treated. We'll see if this helps at all. For the moment, it's just fun to look at the slowly climbing numbers as more girls start laying! And, we'll be able to see how many eggs they produce vs feed costs, which would be interesting to see (we're not doing this yet. Perhaps after the first of the year).
Do you keep track of the eggs you collect?
Egg journal, 7/20 - today
7/20 1st egg, found on ground
7/21 2, 1 had weak shell and was broken
7/22 0
7/23 1
7/24 1
7/25 3
7/26 2, 1 cracked but thick shell, added shavings
7/27 3
7/28 4, 1 double yolk lg as store xl(2.3oz)
7/29 3
7/30 3
7/31 2
8/1 3, 1 sm (1.5oz), 2 xl(2.3,2.4)
8/2 5
8/3 6
8/4 6
8/5 5
8/6 10, 1 thin shell and broken
8/7 7, 5 before 11a, 1 very sm,dark,speckled
8/8 8
8/9 11
8/10 8
8/11 11, 1 was GREEN! (1st green egg!)
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Thought new layers laid small eggs...
Holy crap! Lookie what I pulled out of the nest box today! This egg is HUGE! This is it next to a grocery store extra large.
The girls gave us 4 eggs today. Looks like another girl started laying, as the most before this was 3. :)
*** So, having bought a digital scale today, we weighed the monster egg. It weighed in at 2.3oz, exact same weight as an extra large we plucked at random from the store egg carton. :)
The girls gave us 4 eggs today. Looks like another girl started laying, as the most before this was 3. :)
*** So, having bought a digital scale today, we weighed the monster egg. It weighed in at 2.3oz, exact same weight as an extra large we plucked at random from the store egg carton. :)
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
First egg!!!!!!
21 weeks, and one of the buff girls gave us a beautiful little egg! They've been doing the "egg squat" and cackling like maniacs for about a week, and we were sure they were close. Woooohoooooo!
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