These pictures came up as I was scrolling through my phone and I realized I never posted them! My first ever homegrown goose egg! It was a bit odd shape as the factor was just starting…bit very cool to find .
Of course, the parents were protective and for several months after wards I had to convince them to leave the nighttime pen so I could collect eggs. Looking forward to this year’s batch soon!
Quick egg comparison between the largest and smallest eggs laid on our homestead. Top to bottom is goose, duck, chicken, and serama chicken. All edible or hatchable and all nutritious!
In case you’ve never seen one, here are some pictures of what a young harlequin dutch rabbit looks like. The pattern contrasting with the white markings makes for a very pretty animal!
I made the mistake of mentioning an upcoming show while in the dutch rabbit pen. One of them decided to sculpt both of his adjoining neighbor’s faces overnight!
Of course I had fully intended to enter those two. Luckily I had nit finished my entry yet! So if you’re going to a show, don’t tell the rabbits!
I’ve seen people on Facebook poat pictures like this and stert frantically asking what disease their rabbit has. If the fur is missing between the eyes and it’s clean with no dandruff or redness, it’s either a cagemate or a neighbor.
I have 2 does right now (and now this buck) that have to be in cages that either have solid dividers or are next to a non show contestant because they like to lick other rabbits. Nothing wrong with their diet, it’s just fun!
Sammy and his group were “helping” me today as I was wiring in the new bird area. By helping I mean making sure all the tender grass in the sod I dumped was devoured, as well as reminding me they were there randomly.
When I sat down for half a second, Sammy came over giving me his opinion of my break time. Sp I scooped him up for some Sammy snuggles and reminded him that they take way more breaks than I do!
After a quick picture, it was back to yanking off all the grass pieces! And back to work for me….
My steel dutch doe Susie had a litter of 6 and did great!
However, my blue satin’s first litter wasn’t so good. She had 1 healthy and 2 peanut kits. The peanut kits were humanely culled and since 1 kit can be harder for a first time mom to raise, I decided to give it to Susie.
I took a black mismark out and added the satin kit in. The mismark went over to a chinchilla dutch doe who had a litter the same day. So far, everyone is doing well!
I’m excited to see how these progress, as I see several steels and that’s a color I want to do more of. Baby power!
Testing complete!
Good news…it held temperature! So I carefully marked x and o and a number or letter on the eggs I’ve been saving and loaded them in.
Meet hopefully a future flock of mostly ducks!
27 blue runner eggs (left side), 2 Sermama chicken eggs in middle, and 15 duck eggs from a mixed flock of buff and roeuns.
Stay tuned, I will be candling them in a few days!
Just got done setting up a new incubator. It has been a long time since I hatched anything, although when I did I did hundreds between ducks and quail!
I’ll be putting blue runner duck eggs, one tiny serama chicken egg (that’s all they’ve given me so far) , and filling the rest of the space with buff/Rouen mixed eggs. 28 days of waiting ahead of me!
But for now, I watch the temperature attempt to stabilize itself….
After months of only 1 small rex litter…we finally got 2 litters! Both moms delivered 9 babies. One is a first timer and one is a first timer fir me (second for her). So far so good!
Baby rabbits are hard to take pictures of because as soon as you disturb the nest they pop up and start looking for mom…but I promise they are all in the picture.
It will be a few days before I can pull them to check colors..so for now they just get daily welfare checks (while mom is distracted with a tidbit or two).
I raised cortunix quail several years ago and impulsively bought a bunch of young chicks from a fellow vendor at a farmer’s market. So cute! So small!
I already had a brooder setup, using a watering trough plus cover plus light. Puppy pads were bedding because the first few days I like to make sure they don’t eat the bedding. Chick sized feeders, quail sized waterers (shallow and narrow so they can’t drown). They were quickly snuggled into their spot, shown the water and food, and seemed happy for a couple of days…
….and then they started dying off. Day 3-5 I lost almost half the group. No particular reason! I started asking around and apparently that’s the norm now? Seems they don’t transition to feed and once the yolk sac is gone, so are they. I do NOT remember that from all the babies I raised! I hatched out almost a hundred and didn’t lose that much…so it appears the lines are weaker now.
And the SMELL. OMG. I thought the ducks were bad as babies…but these were worse. Yes, it’s possible. Ducks smelled like wet feed, these smelled like rotting feed. And the FEATHER DUST…my allergies said no more. They were dustier than all the chickens and ducks combined. Below is a picture of the mess from two days…and not that many birds for the area. Ugh.
Found out the breeder I got mine from had lost a bunch due to power outages from a storm…half jokingly offered to sell back the ones I had left. They accepted and a day later…I’m done with quail. Experiment over.
Unless I can find a line that doesn’t have 40-50% chick mortality, and raise outside on wire bottoms, they are not worth it for me…chalk this one up to experience! A disappointing one…but last I checked they were happily being used as breeders so it worked out.
So all those videos claiming how easy quail are? They leave the hard stuff out. You’ve been warned!
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