Candling is fun!

So here we are, twelve days into the egg experiment and all is going fairly well. Candling is very cool - in all the chickens we had, and eggs we incubated when I was a kid, we never candled any of them. Of course, my method is fairly primitive - I'm using Mike's old dive light as it's about the right size. So while I can see what's happening it's not super bright. If we do this again, I'll have to make myself a better setup.

As far as I can tell we have 2 good eggs, and one maybe. I'm pretty sure that one Maran and one Dominique are progressing as planned, the other Dominique egg looks like it may have stopped maturing around day 6 (according to a handy photo guide I found online) which means that now it's just a warm rotten egg - yum!

Hmmm. A friend at work is thinking about surprising her kids with chicks/pullets on Easter. Her son Will is really excited to have chickens - they even came over a few weeks ago (did I mention that before?) to see my set-up. If she decides to, I may see if Denise is okay with me keeping her chicks (from the eggs) for a couple weeks so that I can tuck three feed store chicks for Darrin in with Phyllis as well. I think if I put them in at night after the eggs hatch that she'd accept them without question. Then at 3 weeks I can deliver Denise's chicks to her (sans Phyllis) and Phyl can keep Darrin's chicks growing until Easter (they'd be 4 weeks old then).

Fun! Here's some photos - Phyl's setup in the shed in Jake's old crate, and her in her cardboard box nest.

Prudence starts to lay!

So I was in NYC for the last 10 days. The first 6 for work and the last 4 playing tourist with my mother who had never been before. I'll try to post photos from the trip later.

While I was gone, Prudence started to lay! On Tuesday, I asked Mike how many eggs he'd been getting and he mentioned that he'd gotten 3 that day. I asked if he'd collected them the day before (not an out of line question for my forgetful husband) and he said yes, of course. Soooo, 2 laying hens do not equal 3 eggs. Turns out that she's been laying almost every day since. Her eggs are slightly larger than those of the bantams and seem to be getting bigger with each one. They are a nice warm reddish brown color.

So exciting! She's all grown up...

Still no photos of the new girls. We were busy all day on Saturday and even tho I was out and cleaned the coop, I didn't have a chance to take their photo. Then Sunday was cold and rainy. But the new girls are settling in and the old girls haven't stopped laying (another 6 eggs since last Thursday) - we're averaging just over an egg a day. Phyl and Agnes seem to be in sync, both laying about every 36 hours or so. Which is just fine with me. Hopefully they'll keep on that nice steady pace for the rest of the winter. Pru should start laying soon and Penny and Lucy in March.

I've determined breeds for the new girls. Lucy is a Black Langshan (first photo below) and Penny is a Partridge Chantecler. Both are going to be very big girls.

In other news, Jake and Sam both had big vet appointments last week. Jake got neutered and microchipped. Sam had his teeth cleaned. Both are doing well, we just took Jake's cone off tonight. Altho, it looks like Jake might have another minor ear infection. Mike will have to take him in and have that looked at. And then deal with ear drops while I'm gone next week. Bummer for him!

Oh, and our omelet last week was fabulous!

Here's a picture of the eggs that I've gotten so far this week (7 since getting home on Saturday). Yay! On the left are the ones laid by Agnes, on the right the ones laid by Phyllis. We're going to make an omelette with them tonight!

Eggs!

12/31/07.
We're still getting eggs. It seems that both Agnes and most likely Phyll are laying (eggs seem too small and perfect to be Pru yet). Yay!

An Egg!

I've been collecting posts and am just now having time to actually put them up.
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12/23/06.

Today we leave for Idaho for a week. Yesterday afternoon I cleaned the girls coop, filled their food, changed their water, all the things I need to do to be gone and make them easy for my neighbor Dwight to watch.

Then I went out to tuck them in later and Agnes had left me an egg. An egg! In December, after not laying for 3 months! So excited!

I took the egg to Dwight and let him know to be sure to check the nest box as maybe she would leave more! Then this morning I did one last check before we got on the road about 7 am. And there was another one - slightly different color, so maybe someone else is also laying???