New life

Here is a picture of our first chick.  We had a speckled sussex sitting on 14 eggs.  The first one hatched Sunday night.  By Monday we were up to eight chicks.  On Tuesday, I checked again and found four sloshy ones that I gave to the pigs.  There was also a non-sloshy one and one that was in the process of hatching.  I made a big mistake by trying to rush a natural process and both of those chicks died.  BIG LESSON LEARNED.  Never interfere with a normal process.  Still, 8/14 is a good return.  The mother chicken is so good, we placed a nestbox for her in a dog crate so she has her own protected space for her chicks.  On the rare day it isn’t raining, we put them all out in the grass where they can peck around.  Next year, we hope to raise all of our own chicks with broody hens, so this was a major accomplishment for us (and for the hen!)

We have another one of this hens sisters sitting on a dozen turkey eggs.  I will “candle” them this weekend to see if any of them are developing.  The turkeys were sitting on another dozen in the barn, but we seem to have some form of egg predator because this morning when I went to let the animals out for the day, the turkeys were both up off the nest and I couldn’t find any eggs.   There were a bunch of feathers and I wonder if something stole the eggs but couldn’t get the turkeys as they were too big.  If they start to lay again, we will set up a pen for them in the top floor of the barn so they can hatch their eggs in peace.

Here is a picture of our baby rabbits.   They are getting very big and enjoying all of the thinnings from the garden.  We plan to butcher them at 12 weeks, and based on that experience, we will decide whether that is something we want to do again.

Our pigs are getting big, the goats and sheep are well, and the bees are busy filling out their frames with comb.  The garden is growing well, and if we could just get a few days of sunshine, we will be putting up hay from our friends’ field.  We have been having some really wonderful visits with friends and enjoying lots of wild goodies from our fields.  Enjoy your summer!