Tom's Thankful!

So tom is thankful to still be strutting around this morning! We had no plans on eating him. Now....who knows about next year! depends how many Toms we end up having.

All the animals enjoyed a buffett of pie and table scraps and the pigs had turkey bone & loved it! We all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

MARY

Not a cat.

Yep, that is not a cat eating cat food. Bad chicken. Hahaha.

Daryl

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Chickens

So we sold a few of the EE laying hens the other day. Didn't have any ads out for laying hens. This guy saw we had chicks posted on Craigslist a few weeks back & knew we must have laying hens. So I let him know that he could only have yellow hens. I had like 5 yellows so I could let a few go. I admit...I was sad to sell them, but I do have my next flock all hatched out. They are a month old and 2 weeks old now. I have to remind myself sometimes that the idea is to sell chickens and make money! haha! I just love them all so much!

So we have the month old EE chicks now moved into their "forever" home over with my favorite rooster Zaxby. In a few weeks the 2 week olds will be over there too. Daryl has a red light in there & has the end of the coop they are in fenced off so they can't get out, but Zaxby can get in and out. Looks pretty good! The plan is to keep them there a few months. I want them to free range when they get older too, but I hope this way I am trainning them where home is.

So it is official...EVERY hen in the chicken house is on strike! HAHAHA! We have frizzles, silkies in there that were laying and 1 more group of each frizzles & polish that should be laying soon. Maybe our slight change in temps affected the hens. This is Florida though and not like we had a huge drop in temperature! Silly hens! EE hens still laying good! Hope they keep up the good laying! I do have paying customers!

So we also put a few hens in a enclosed coop with Grew (Americanna blue rooster) in hopes that he will make some fertile eggs with the hens. And for the 1st time ever I saw him mount a hen yesterday! WOOHOO! Daryl & I read that it takes about a month for the eggs to be fertile so we will wait till then and hatch.

So we are close to narrowing down the brown egg layer! We have always wondered which EE hen it was. Well, it was one of the 2 hens we had in with Grew. We took 1 out now we will see if it is the hen still in with him or the hen we took out and marked with Blue cote. It is exciting to find out. We also gave grew another hen. One of the hens was not laying anyways. The idea is for him to be hatching these later on so I need a hen that feels like laying eggs!

We also have like 8 eggs in the incubator from the small hens. Frizzles & silkes. It was the last eggs they laid for us. The eggs are due December 1st. This will be the smallest batch I have ever hatched. Hope they have a high hatch rate. It would be sad to just hatch a few chicks.

Guess that is all the chicken news! They keep us busy & I love it!

MARY

Three little pigs.

Yes, Mary is excited about her pigs. Here is another pic of our pigs.

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Porky the pig.

Here is Porky, our new pig, along with Bacon, Yum-Yum and Mary. His is the white with black spots.

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baby rabbits

This afternoon we saw that we have baby rabbits living under the chicken house. And they are adorable! To me they look about 5 or 6 weeks old.  Daryl & I saw 2 of them. We aren't sure which of our free range mamas they belong to. They are fat fluffy cutie pies though, mama did great! Just gonna hope they stay safe now that they are older and braver. I do have a cat & my woods are full of animals. Funny....I didn't even know these rabbits existed till this afternoon and now I am worried about them.

MARY

New pig

So we get the new pig, Porky, on Tuesday! Plans changed and now we will meet the guy in Bluntstown on Tuesday. I am excited to get him. Really hoping Porky gets along ok with the 2 pigs we have now.

MARY

Eggs

So yesterday's eggs did not hatch. daryl & I think we just had the incubator open too much. So we are starting a new hatch  ;)  I saved 3 eggs today.

We had 6 of the 8 EEs make it that hatched. They seem to be doing good. Keeping the light on in the chicken house cause we have a few nights in the 30s! BURRRRR!

MARY

Baby chicks

Well after trying the new hatcher and stressing and putting the eggs back in the incubator. We had a total of 8 chicks hatched. The last one was about two days late, not sure but hopefully it will be ok. The next bunch of eggs are due today.
Daryl

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Easter Eggers are here!

After being very worried about our little ee's, they are finally hatching.
Daryl

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Eggs Peeping!

So a hour before Daryl got home from work I saw it...............a pip in a egg! I was so eggcited! After Daryl got here we decided to go ahead and take out the turning tray and put the EE eggs back in the incubator. As we were moving them we saw 2 more eggs were pipped!WOOHOO! Now we have them all moved and they are peeping. I love it!

MARY

Nothing

So today is hatch day and NOTHING is happening. I am real sad about it too. Like I get soooo excited about this. I wait for this very day and then to have nothing happen is just depressing. We have never had a unsucessful hatch before. Never...not even our 1st hatch. So the reason daryl built this hatcher was because of the new egg turner we installed in the incubator. There is no way to stop the turner to lay the eggs still 3 days before they hatch. I should have not had different eggs with different hatch dates I guess. When we candled the eggs before putting them in the hatcher everything looked GREAT! But now....today is hatch day and no pip, no peeps, nothing at all. I am loosing hope fast. Now I know I have 6 EE chicks in the chicken house already so I could just be happy with them till spring aand with our Florida winter approaching I need to stop hatching soon. I still have 2 small batches in the incubator, frizzles & silkies that I am waiting on. But, all the EEs are in the hatcher so if it has gone wrong so EEs for now. Tonight I plan to have Daryl take out the egg turner so I can finish off the last 2 batches in the incubator and not move anybody to the hatcher. Wish us luck with the last 2 batches. The problem has to be with the hatcher cause 3 days ago we had chicks moving in eggs.

MARY