Spring's slowly coming!!

Despite the fact that we just recently had some snow again, I just KNOW that spring is right around the corner! And I've been doing a lot to prepare for it. . .

First, the snow beat me to my first "preperation." Among all this lovely 3 inch thick snow that fell then melted overnight, one of my PVC Hoop-Houses got crushed by the weight, and collapsed inward. Sadly I'll have to start over, but at least I now know that plan isn't strong enough for our weather. . .





Rest in Peace, hoop-house.

We had some very nice snow that night though, I'll admit. This is looking out to the "Tolbunt Pen," an enclosed area of grass, shrubs, and an apple tree for all my Polish.



And this is looking at some wood laying around. The snow stacked up to about 3 inches. Not much, I know, but for out here it is impressive.



This is looking out to the "Breeding Pen," what you're seeing is snow piling up on poultry netting.




But, INSIDE the house, is a whole other story! Here's the Shamo eggs and Marans/Shamo eggs we're incubating. All of them are fertile. The Marans/Shamos will be our meat project. They'll be a wide, muscled, long lived breed with decent growth rate and amazing size.



And then, there's the plant life! We've been planting hundreds of Tomato and Pepper seeds indoors to allow them to grow ahead of time, then get transplanted out to the Greenhouses around May when all is ready. But for now, they'll be carefully watched over and babied in here. There are a total 220 seeds in all, with a total 24 varieties of Tomatoes and Peppers total - All of them heirloom, too. ( Non-GMO, Non-Hybrid )





Next to all these seeds are three grown pepper plants I started last year. Last summer I brought them in, and they were only inches tall. They've been living indoor throughout the time, and this summer will be a year old when brought outdoors again. They're also an heirloom variety, however I have little clue on what variety they are. We planted a lot of peppers last year, a lot didn't make it, and these popped up later on in the garden as an unknown group of triplets.





So, with the tomatoes and peppers ready, we've also been planning out large areas for crops like Quinoa, Amaranth, Tef, and heirloom colored corn. This will all be for both the livestock and for us. We want to go completely self-sufficient! We also want to go Gluten-Free, too, so all four varieties of "grains" will help that.

And to add on, we'll be ordering nearly 40 different fruit trees to plant in the back of our pasture, splitting it off to the "West Pasture," "East Pasture," and inbetween will also be our new orchard.

This won't distract me from our current trees though. . . We still do have some extremely old pear, plum, and apple trees here as well as some newly planted peach, plum, apple, pear, and almond trees from last spring.

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!

Eggs Eggs Eggs!!

So many eggs!

First, there was Moha's eggs. Moha, our last New Hampshire pullet, was found "cackling" (typical chicken call after or before laying an egg) in our barn today, outside of her fenced in pasture. I picked her up, and looked over at a small mound of hay. "Ah, so I see you laid an egg today" I said, taking steps foreward to what looked like an egg in the middle of the mound. Once I got a clear view of the "egg," I thought to myself "WHOA!!" - There were 15 eggs in one large clutch in the nest she built! She's been laying in secret here for possibly more than 15 days! Wow. . . So, I brought them all in, cleaned them, and put them in a carton. Pretty sure they were all hers, as they were very uniform looking once in the carton. This photo is before I cleaned and organized them.



Then, I got my expected shipment of 15 black/blue/splash Ameraucana eggs just yesterday. My were they beautiful! They varied in saturations from vibrant to faint hues of minty green to a seamfoamy blue color. They were sooo beautiful, and once candled - Glow a vibrant, neon green color! Here's them laid out before being put in the incubator:



And now, I just returned from nabbing 15 Wheaten and 11 Black Copper Marans eggs on a 7 roundtrip hour drive. They were certainly worth it! Both Wheaten and Black Copper are pure Bev Davis lines, and pure beauty. Photos never really due justice, but they were plenty dark, and plenty rich in color! Also, the Black Coppers were very big!



Put together - The black copper eggs and Ameraucana eggs are a nice little checkerboard of faint green and rich, dark red-brown. Right now, they finally rest in the incubator while my less than 15 brown eggs rest in the refrigerator, quite a few already eaten. My my, so many eggs!!



So, with the new eggs, new incubator, and new location to hatch the eggs - I really really hope all goes well, and many chicks hatch out of these eggs! After these chicks, I'm still expecting 12 more Black Copper Marans eggs from someone else along with 12 blue/black/splash Jersey Giant eggs! Soooo many eggs!!! What can I say, chickens are like potato chips - Ya can't have just one!!