Today I went looking for a missing hen. After hearing her I narrowed my search and found her under the back porch steps. After she finished I went to look and found this in the picture. No idea how any times I’ve walked right over this nest!
It was pretty cold last night, so I fear many of these eggs are no longer good. Notice the chicken egg?
This morning while the girls and Dee were at the table having breakfast they were able to watch a duck hen scratch out a small depression and lay this egg. I’ve since added a little straw and will wait to see if she won’t possibly end up sitting on a clutch here. It would be fun to be able to watch her everyday as she hatched some ducklings! You can see the white egg just under the bush.
Forty one eggs loaded and ready to hatch! In twenty one days we should be in little chick heaven.
This afternoon I was refilling the ducks water bowl and noticed two eggs on the ground in their pen. The nesting box took just a few minutes put together and fill with straw. This evening I spotted one of the hens up in the straw. Hopefully they’ll begin using it and stop laying on the ground.
It’s always fun when they begin popping out. These are out of our silver laced Wyandottes .
All seven of the eggs have begun hatching ! The girls are very excited to see the new babies.
Our incubator just arrived! We won’t be hatching a bunch at one time so we decided on the Brinsea Mini Advanced. It’s automated, self turning and has several other automated features. What I am most excited about is the girls will be able to easily observe the hatching process through the clear plastic cover!
As we get it unpacked and setup I’ll add more pictures.
UPDATE: 5May12 – just put 7 mixed breed duck eggs in the incubator! The other 5 are going in with my moms peacock eggs.
Our order from the Cackle Hatchery arrived this afternoon. We ordered 15 pullets and two cockerels of the silver laced Wyandotte. We have had sexlinks for two years but I decided to switch to the Wyandottes. Sexlinks do not breed true, so if for some reason I couldn’t find more chicks we wouldn’t have egg laying chickens. That isn’t an issue with the Wyandotte breed.
When these are grown they’ll replace our reds. Here are some chick pictures and one of the red sexlink hens. The chick with the red head indicates a male.
