The Tolbunt eggs and the Araucanas

Both of them have gone through some hardships this past week. .

First the Tolbunt Polish eggs. These eggs are VERY expensive and much worth the money, plus I've had an excellent fertility rate of 50%. . . But I suddenly lost an egg. After perhaps a very dangerous routine of candling and photographing an egg each day. it died. . . The fetus lost its veining, movement, and became an odd dark blob. It has not developed since then. So, now I have 5 developing and fertile eggs. . . And only 10 days left until they all hatch.







Next there's the Araucanas. On Monday I decided to move my younger Araucanas, Ameraucanas, and Marans in with the main flock. Well, things of course did not go well, but that always happens when you introduce chickens with each other - especially young and older. But the real problem as that the Araucanas were just worryingly tiny, not really growing much, and getting more and more scared each day. So, finally, I decided to move them and only them back to their original play-place, so they can have peace. When I moved them, I tallied everyone down to make sure I had them all, then watched them chirp, run, scratch, and settle happily again. It took so much stress off of us both.





(more pics added in a couple hours)

Spring has certainly sprung!!

First, there's the KIDS!! Yes, our LaMancha goat, Jugs, finally birthed a pair of twin kids!! One is a girl - A beautiful black, red, and white; Another is a boy - a very neat ashy dun brown with white splashing. I'm so proud of Jugs though - She birthed them so fast and with such perfection, all on her first timer!










Next, there's the Tolbunt Polish eggs! A while ago, I paid nearly $200 for a dozen Tolbunt variety Crested Polish hatching eggs. I set them just 6 days ago, and now have exactly 50% fertility, which for Tolbunts is great! Here's some candling photos:





And last, there's the farm in general. Here's some beautiful peach blossoms:



Here's Paintball, our second LaMancha doe, due to possibly have a kid in June.



And finally a BLUE egg to show off. This one is what one of my Blue Wheaten Ameraucanas hatched from.



Then, there's the Araucanas and Marans with a couple Ameraucanas, enjoying the latter day's sun. Today was beautiful, with constant showers and lovely, warm sun in between each one.

(pics coming soon)

The "baby babies"

I have a lot of chickens. And to categorize the different age groups, we sometimes call them by the "Girls," "The babies," "The baby babies," and "The chicks," or "Baby baby babies."

So, let's give an update first on "The baby baby babies!" These little tykes just hatched this last Friday through Saturday, and are doing fine now. We experienced the loss of two Jersey Giants out of a great hatch of 10/11 but haven't experienced any troubles since then.

In fact, we had one who hatched out with its yolk still hanging from its behind, and another chick eventually pecked and popped it. . . There went all its nutrients for the next two days all over the bottom of the incubator. . . And there was nothing we could do about it until the hatch was completely done. Well, once we finally pulled everyone out of the incubator, the chick was really small and skinny, quite lifeless, and couldn't even open its eyes. After hours of forcing it to drink, trying somehow to make it eat, and keeping watch of it, I had to go to bed. . . The next morning it was still alive. In fact, a day later after much care put into it, the chick began to open its eyes. Now, it's still small and skinny, but isn't quite so weak anymore.

This is all the chicks in the brooder just yesterday:



The black ones are Black Copper Marans and Black Jersey Giants. The blue/grey ones are Blue Jersey Giants. The huge, fluffy yellow-white ones are Wheaten and Blue Wheaten Marans. The one truly white one on the left is a Polish x Easter Egger. The cutie will be our one and only white chicken, and should grow up to have a tiny crest on its head and lay mint green eggs.

Here's a closeup of a Wheaten/Blue Wheaten Ameraucana. This one, like a couple, is marked. The blue signifies that this one hatched from the bluest egg.





Next, we have updates on the "Baby Babies" - And of course first to show off are our Araucanas - They've got true tufts coming in now! Not just little nubbins of feathers, but real tufts. They're becoming very beautiful birds, but still quite small.

Here's a white one with great tufts, though on the white background you may or may not see them very well. . .



Here's a blue pullet with magnificent tufts, also a very friendly one compared to others.



Here's a beautiful but clean-faced Silver Duckwing pullet.



And here's a unique "Blue Cuckoo" type clean faced Araucana:



Next, here's a Blue Wheaten Marans pullet:





A Blue Wheaten Marans cockerel:



And a Black Copper Marans cockerel:



And then there's our oldest mini-flock of Marans and Ameraucanas. . . Here's how our cockerel, Maple, is at 2 months old. He's finally starting to actually look like a Black Copper Marans.



Well, . . My camera's batteries need to be recharged. and tomorrow is a promised good and sunny day, so I'll show you around to our pregnant goat who's due in just a couple days, and the rest of the chookies!

A bump in the population!

So my hatch finally commenced today. It began excitingly with a pip on day 20, a day early for hatching, then took a little hiatus until midnight and into the morning, more pips arrived and finally the first chick, a BBS Wheaten Ameraucana, hatched out.







This little'un was alone for hours, but unlike the last hatch's first Ameraucana, this one was really quiet, good, brave, and VERY curious. I could even tap the incubator and make light little peep peeps at it, and it would look up at me and run on over. SO cute!! So, I lured it to the ventplug, snuck a pink marker through, and marked it to remember it specifically once the others hatch. . .

Later on, even more Ameraucanas hatched, and our Jersey Giants followed right behind. After a while it was a whole party of Jersey Giant hatchings.







And of course, during all this new traffic that soon got pretty busy and crowded, my first little "strawberry blonde" watched from above. . .



And finally, the Marans began to hatch. . .



I find that when we hatch chicks, they seem to take turns. . . One will only start to zip and hatch once another has already hatched from its egg, wandered off, and settled down. It's like they are waiting in line with their tickets out, and sometimes they'll steal each others' tickets! Some of the chicks will almost zip, then another races it to zipping, and hatches. . . So the first one has to wait until that hatched chick is done. THEN it can hatch. . .

In the end, out of 11 Jersey Giant eggs - 10 made it. Wooo!!!
Out of 9 Marans eggs, 5 made it. Not bad, considering 2 I'm pretty sure were never alive before lockdown.
Out of 15 Ameraucana eggs - 5 made it. REALLY not great.
Out of 1 Polish x Easter Egger egg, 1 made it. SO proud of it!!

Even more Chocolate!!

Today, we drove out a little more than 3 hours to pick up even more chocolate-eggers, (and 3 hours back) but this time they were of a different feather color. . . They're Wheaten and Blue Wheaten! We alread have 3 Wheatie chicks, but we're just in love with this color, and wanted more - So we got more, from the same breeder and bloodlines! - Oh, and we also got another Black Copper to set our Bev Davs Black Copper population to 6 now.

In these photos, you'll see a black chick - The black copper, some creamy brown and white ones - Wheaten pullets, and two blue and brown ones - Blue Wheaten cockerels. The sex of the Black Copper is still to be determined, but although it has a decent, small sized comb. . . It was the first to find the food when settled to its new home, and automatically started calling to the girls: "Chook chook-chook-chook chook!" - They responded well, looked at what "he" had, and dived into the food.

They're now settled into the "Bachelor Pad" for now, and in a week or two when they're fully feathered will be introduced to the wilderness of the free range pastures.

All about the EGGS.

Eggs. They're the biggest subject of production on this farm to date. And before we go on with a proper tour of all the chickens who create them, we start with the egg. . .

These here are the eggs we just put in the incubator 14 days ago. It's a huge, grand assortment of dark chocolate, orange, pink, green, white, light brown, and khaki green eggs. All these eggs will of course hatch in 7 more days, and the chicks from them will grow up and give as a grand supply more of the very same types of eggs they hatched from.

For those curious, the orange and dark brown ones come from a breed called Marans. The pink ones come from Jersey Giants. The green ones come from Ameraucanas, and although Ameraucanas should not lay "green" eggs, but rather a blue-green color, they can vary based on the age of the chicken and the quality of it. The white eggs come from our own Crested Polish, the three huge light brown ones come from our own Easter Egger (crossbred chicken commonly sold under false claim as an Ameraucana) and the last row of khaki green eggs are also from true Ameraucanas.



All these eggs, over the last 14 days, have no been "culled" (any non developed ones removed) down to any that are fertile and developing. We have plenty Ameraucana, Jersey Giant, and Marans eggs left - But only one Polish. When they hatch, that chick sure will stand out!

The black circles marked on the eggs are to show which are fertile. After 10 days of being in the incubator, any egg not marked with a circle is removed to prevent rotting or exploding.



Aren't they all just beautiful?

Now, customers who buy our eating eggs won't see jewels like these until July or up to September. Then, we'll be selling "rainbow specialty" dozens. So, what our customers actually will be getting for the next two to three months are these, various shades of brown, pink, and white:



By July, we'll be getting these in the basket as well as blue:





Yes, the eggs will be this gorgeous! These here are "preserved" examples of some Marans eggs we hatched - They're a gorgeous, really dark chocolate type of color, but when comparing them to the popular Cadbury Egg - They're much bigger and richer in color!

Then, a month after those come around, we'll be getting even more chocolate eggs, blue eggs, and some green eggs. A month after that, come September, we'll also have an abundance of pink eggs and green eggs as well, with of course even more chocolate brown eggs available.

Here's an example of the green eggs available in September.



And finally, here's something we'll be offering as well: Tri-sample rainbows of color. Of course, there will be more color than this example, but that's because we have yet to get blue eggs to show off.



Of course, during holidays like Independence Day, Easter, Christmas, Halloween, St. Patrick's Day, and Valentine's Day - We'll have specialty cartons of certain color combinations. Here's a sample of "White Chocolate & Milk Chocolate" - It's a way to show even light Marans eggs and normal white eggs and how combining just the right colors can compliment each other perfectly. Normally white eggs are a common sight, and lighter "orange" Marans eggs are not desired to breeders, even us - But they're great for the colorful beauty in a carton of eating eggs!



In three months once most of my chicks are mature, I'll get a post up that is all about the breeds that create all these fascinating egg colors, and even some of my future projects on some NEW egg colors!

Update for All!

So it has been a while since I've updated the news on the farm. . . Well, let's start from the biggest animals down. :)

First, Djimon the Yak. You heard it, he's bigger than the goats now! He's maturing quite well now, and is quite the "man" . . . Okay so not really, but he thinks he is!



He's so hairy now! And it doesn't stop there. . . He's still got a LOT more wool to grow. Speaking of growing, take a look at how his horns are coming along. . . They used to be little stubs, now they're becoming longer, and I can actually hook my hand around them!



And of course, there's the other black four leggeds. . . Here's Jugs, previously named Zing. She's sooo close to birthing a kid! Look at that belly. . .



And then look at that pretty head.



But, what about this "3rd Goat" of ours? When did that come into play? Well, yes, we now have a 3rd addition to the four leggeds. . . We recently (two weekends ago) got ourselves a Nubian buck. I normally don't care for Nubians, but this guy has a most interesting color, hard to tell in photos though, of creamy tan with big white spots here and there. Also, he's very needy and an absolute sweetheart! He even wags his tail when you pet him.




Now, past the four legged animals, are the chickens. . . Here's our first Ameraucana and Marans chicks we got a while ago, back in February. They're 2 months old now!

The first photo is of our "keeper" Black Copper Marans cockerel walking a long the chicks' new permanent perch, just across from our current layer's perch. He has some undesired traits such as mossiness and a red chest coming through, but we're keeping him for Olive Egger production. "Mossy" Marans, those who have too much copper or golden feathers scattered around their bodies, are often known to lay darker eggs. So, we're keeping him to give us some beautiful Marans-Ameraucana crosses, so his traits won't affect the offspring, as they're going to be hybrids anyway.



Next is our Ameraucanas, who have really grown! We do indeed have some cleanfaced ones, (no muffs and beard) which is also undesired, but the cockerels we're not keeping and the hens will only be used for egg laying. The boys in this photo though are our keepers - One black, and one blue from this particular batch of Ameraucanas.



All 12 Marans and Ameraucanas that are 2 months old are now living with the adult hens. Eventually all of our chicks, including the ones in the incubator right now, will be introduced into the main flock once they're a month old. Then, when everyone hits laying age, the cockerels will all be put into their "bachelor pad" and the hens will all have free range until a month later. . . Then, the breeding programs begin.

And speaking of chicks, here's the Araucanas I got just a little while ago:



Full wing feathering!! They're also getting feathers in on their shoulders and back now. Of course, this photo may look like a chick you can get from the feedstore or hatcheries, but believe me - It isn't. These are true Araucanas, not the "Americanas" and "Araucanas" sold at hatcheries. They're the real thing; The rumpless, tufted, blue egg laying breed from South America.

And to further prove it, here's a gorgeous white one with amazing tufts, with another amazing blue just to the left, also with a lovelt set of tufts coming in.



And, here's the most interesting color of all - blue cuckoo. It isn't a true "barred cuckoo" color, but close enough. As a chick, it is completely convincing. But as it grows up, it is more of a blue tipped splash color. I got my Araucanas from a lovely guy named Gary Ramey, and he mainly works with this weird color as well as splash. I'm hoping to continue work on this color, and especially get some tufts in that genepool, because so far - I have two of thse. One with a clean face, and another with only one tuft.



And then past the Araucanas are our own recently hatched Black Copper Marans, Wheaten Marans, and BBS Ameraucanas. They're maturing very well! Here's our only three Wheaten Marans. . .

The first is feathering out straight brown so far, and a cockerel. It has a very well sized comb, and displayed the proper behavior just days ago.



This one I'm unsure on sex of, but has part black, part brown wings:



Another one I'm unsure on, as it has solid black wings:



And then, there's the Black Coppers. Some are getting some beautifully developed cockerel combs, some are just plain nice looking, and one is solid black. There is not a white feather or bit of down on it - Even its feet and beak are black. Very interesting.



Here's a group bunch of them, with the biggest combed Marans in the middle:



And last but not least: My 3 BBS Ameraucanas, being the biggest and heaviest of the bunch. They're only hours to a day older, but that can change a lot. Pictured is one of the blacks.






Hope you had the patience to look through all that! It sure is a lot, and don't worry. . . There will be more!!

My next post will be all about eggs. I'll be showing pictures of what we currently have in the incubator, what we eat and sell, and what we have that hatched out already, and we're just waiting for to grow up and give us more beautiful eggs! :)