Pretty Pysanka

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ross made this pretty egg in school.  I think he did a great job!

 

 

 

Happy Easter everyone!!

 

 

 

 

Chicks and Quilts

Well, I have put eggs in the incubator now, just a tray of Silkie and RIR eggs since they were separated already anyhow.  They have been laying really well so why not? Hope to sell them as chicks in April at Swift Current Sale.  Now E has his Chanteclers separated as well so we may put a second tray in this weekend. I know I said no chicks but it doesn't seem like Spring without baby chicks!  They are due to hatch Easter morning!


I have been quilting with the ladies' group in town during Lent, making baby quilts to donate.  They are such talented quilters, I am getting lots of ideas for quilts to make!
 I finally started on E's Grad memory quilt.  The pattern is called circle square jeans quilt.  I am using circles of denim from old jeans and sewing them together with the seam up, then folding over the seam to make a petal effect.  I am using squares from flannel shirts and pj's I made him to put inside the square.  It is a "quilt as you go" because I have already made the back with the denim sandwich. 
Here's a photo of the start: I haven't zigzagged the petals down yet which results in the "quilting".

Here is the front with the petals sewn down, I used an orange denim thread which is quite a heavy gauge.
 This bottom one shows the back of the quilt, I like the yellow thread design it makes here.

Wow here it is a new Year!

Me, again!  Can't believe it's a New Year already!  I missed reading my fellow blogger's posts and kind of missed posting myself too.
It is pretty cold here this morning and I am really enjoying just having three coops of chickens to look after,and two  of those with heated waterers.  We hatched too many chickens last year but the up side of it is that we have lots of lovely pullets laying beautiful brown eggs for us.  Also have 14 nice roosters in another coop and 10 cute little RIR bantam cockerels in another.  The RIRs were supposed to get butchered but they got along so well and are doing just fine, all glossy mahogany and pretty tails that it looks like they are going to make it right through til Spring after all.
Speaking of Spring, yes, hatching did cross my mind the other day as lots of people I know are getting out the incubators but I did reread my last post and yeah I'm holding to not TOO much hatching this year.
Except G wants to hatch tons of ducklings to sell as this will be his next to last year and E wants to do more chicks (but Im not comitting to many more chicks for him because he had way too many last year!).
I do need to keep working on my Dominiques, have to hatch at least 30 out for myself so I have some new pullets and I really want to see how my Nova Scotia line does for me but I hope I can wait til later in the Spring so it will be easier to keep the chicks warm.
Meanwhile I have been keeping busy with some quilting projects, a tree skirt and some potholders and have discovered a new craft that uses clothesline and lots of fabric scraps-coiled baskets!

This is my very first one, probably shouldnt post it but I really like the Spring/Easter colours!
I also have made a Chrismassy one and TRIED to make an oval one, it is shaped a little like a peanut unfortunately but still kind of interesting!

Im not gone but maybe forgotten?

Well it has been a while!  Spring turned into Summer and the posting just dwindled away...
I'm going to blame it on all those little mouths needing food and attention and boy did we end up with lots of little mouths!
If anyone needs some chickens (or 2 drakes!) please just ask, I have enough to spare and more....
Next year, no hatching!  Maybe under some broody mamas but that is it.  Remember to remind me of this next February when I am eyeing up my incubator again!
We ended up with 300 + chicks running around, all different ages and stages and wow was that a lot of work.  Fun but a lot of work.
Also raised 6 ducklings up and sold the 3 females and 1 male to a girl in a nearby town starting out with her first waterfowl stock.  Hope she does really well with them.



Heres a pic of the young ducks before I sold them:

And some of the chickens we raised up this year:



Some pretty Cornish Bantams we tried



Black Silkie hen that set for the first time in June

And she had some luck..

6 out of 7 hatched!





So lots of little ones and now they are turning into big ones but so is my feed bill!









A good day for ducks

       We have been getting such a lot of nice soaking rains lately....great for the grass and should make good humidity for the hatching.
I have had 8 ducklings hatch so far and there are quite a few more pipped still.  Ducklings are so slow to hatch and even often go over their 28 days, well that is the way these Saxony ducklings work for me!
I put the first 5 that had hatched out in a little duck brooder I had made, they are so killer cute ducklings!
     I decided to put in the 25 extra eggs we had on hand and fertility looks great, 24/25 are fertile w/ 3 or 4 having a bit weaker development, they usually quit early on but I have left them in anyhow for now.
I figure I will sell the early hatched ones at Milo May 12 and keep the rest for ourselves.  I will seperate the drakes and ducks and raise most of the drakes for the freezer.  We like duck meat.
    Today it just sprinkled off and on and we rode down and brought up the heifers to make a second cut for the "calving pen".  We added 16 heifers that we figured were the closest to calving and took the rest back down to the heifer pasture.  When G got home from school I had Samson ready for him and we rode out to the Rastadt pasture to gather in the last of the cows and calves still out there.
    One of the cows was Star, his cow and she has the nicest little bull calf this year, black w/ a white half moon on his forehead.  We cut out one heifer w/ a calf to keep in the gas well pasture with the other heifers and turned the rest of the cows w/calves, and 3 cows that haven't calved yet into the calving grounds.


  Put two more trays of eggs into the incubator today and moved two trays over to the hatcher, they should hatch Sun and Mon.  The little Dominique hen is still sitting tight on her 7 eggs, she is doing a great job so far, her chicks are due to hatch Mon, on O's birthday!  I am hoping to add a few chicks from the incubator to her clutch so she can raise up a bunch of babies for us.
  Making plans for Milo trip the following weekend, we will have to head out early that morning!

Display/Sale in SC last weekend

We had a good time at the "Discover the Farm" 2 day event in Swift Current last weekend.  Friday was the day for the display and we had about 150 school kids come through and do tours.  E was the presenter for the poultry section and he did a good job of it.  The hit was the incubator that was hatching chicks in it.  Most of the eggs were just pipped on the Friday and didn't complete the hatch until Sat. but the kids were still impresed and E had them all lined up to climb up the stepladder and take a peek.  Most of them had to be removed by their teacher or they would still be standing there looking in!

A couple who have Alpacas were there and the lady did a great demo, spinning the wool and telling the kids about the things she hand knits and felts while her husband let people lead around his pet alpacas who have the softest eyes I have ever seen.  The kids were also really interested in a lady who crafts the cutest animals out of wool.  Hope she forgives me for twisting her arm to get her there...you really have a neat talent Denise!
R enjoyed leading around the bottle fed Katahdin lambs and of course he loved the bunnies....



We had made display boards for the Buckeyes, Dominiques and White Chanteclers, also the Sebrights and Old English Games as those are the mature pairs we brought to display.  Overall it was really well received, the place was full on Saturday for the market sale and lots of people mentioned that they had no idea there were more than two kinds of chickens...brown and white!
I think people can't help but notice the difference between purchasing animals at this type of sale where they have time to view the animals and talk directly to the breeders/owners compared to the noisy animal auctions where you don't always know what you are buying or where they came from.

  We sold about half of what we had for sale including some hatching eggs at the prices we wanted.  Noone complained about the prices but I think it is still very much a new idea for people to raise and preserve heritage breeds of poultry.  However, I think a seed may have been planted for many.
  Lots of people came in the afternoon with their kids and grandkids mainly to look and that was great to see.

  E was tickled because he won the grand raffle prize after buying 3 tickets for $5.  It was a small chicken tractor that had been donated. 
  Our friends from MC were kind enough to haul it to their place for us so we just have to pick it up from there.

Plans are in place for next year and all in all a great event!

Spring rolls on.......

  We have had lots of chicks hatching each week, we just keep cycling through the different brooders.  I have one box on the porch w/ 2 -100 watt heat lamps in it and small wire openings in the lid that they live in for first 2 weeks, then they go to the shed to a similar box w/ much larger openings in the lid and sometimes just a wire top.  After 4 weeks they go into one side of the big wire brooder which has an auxilliary heat lamp in it.  Then into the other side w/out the heat lamp, it only has the brooder element on the top.  The next step is vaccinating them for ILT, they get a drop in one eye and changing up the leg bands.

 Then I put them into a big metal stock tank wrapped w/ foil bubble wrap and 65 watt yellow heat lamp.  Then it is time for a booster drop of ILT vaccine and sizing up of bands as needed.
Hopefully then after a week or so in there the weather will be decent enough they can go out to the old shed we moved into the trees which doesn't have any power but this year I plan to put in a solar shed light that comes on at dusk to prevent some piling at night.  Then I can open the pop door to let them out into a pen during the day.
Whew....Only 3 more pens/stages to move to and then the keepers will be ready for the main hen house and the eating stock will be eaten!


 We had some very hot weather last week and we were steady busy riding every day to bring in all the cows and heifers from the big winter pasture.
I have been riding Moonshine, Spud and Pokey Joe in turn.
We cut out the heifers at the gate and bring them into the pasture closer to home where we can feed them better and keep a closer eye on them as they calve.
 The cows get chased out onto the calving ground pasture because they are expected to calve on their own with just daily checks. Brought in a neighbour's stray.
Still have cows w/calves out in the Rastadt pasture but we will wait until their calves are a little older to move them as they don't cooperate too well at this stage!


Just got spit on yesterday, tiny rain in evening but this morning some drizzling down....one heavy sounding shower when I was in the metal shed, rain sounds 10 x as good as it really is when you are in there!
Hoping for lots more, we are in sand country so the more the merrier (but you can keep the s***)
You can just about hear the grass growing because around here that is sometimes all the moisture we get in the Spring and the grass has to make do with whatever it gets!


I am happy with my new hatcher, had a pretty good hatch of chicks last week and now I put 13 duck eggs into it. They are due to hatch Sunday or Monday.
I am thinking about putting another 2 1/2 dozen duck eggs in my big incubator that I was going to sell, hmm do I really need ducklings running round end of May?  Tempting ,but ducklings are messy little critters. 
Nice thing is they are so much less work than chicks because they don't need heat except for first two weeks so maybe I will do it....


Stilll kind of drizzly out there, I think a day making buns will be a good choice!