High Winds

It got a little windy here last night. A few things blew over but there wasn't too much damage. My pineapple pot broke.


I know it looks like a window blew out of the house but this was window I found on the street that's been leaning against the house for a while. I was thinking I could take it apart and put one in each gable end of the attic. One of the panes broke but that's easy to fix.


This is only slightly messier than the yard usually looks. All that wood is usually gathered into one heaping pile and there aren't normally 20' long palm fronds everywhere.


I also usually keep the trash cans in an upright position, and behind the house rather than in front.


I as a little concerned what happened up the hill. The sopote tree had lost about half it's leaves and a lot of fruit.






I was afraid the tall beehive might have been blown over but it was OK. Those boxes sitting to the right are some spare that have been there for a while. That green corrugated roof panel is one that I hadn't attached yet. It blew about 30 feet.


A couple trunks of the ratty weed-trees also blew over. No great loss. I'll have to cut these up and do something with them.


The power also went out for a while in the middle of the night so the chicks lost their heat source. They've gotten big enough though that they generate enough heat to stay warm if they huddle together. I did put them in a smaller box to retain more of the heat. They were fine in the morning and the power was back on so I put them back in the brooder.

Turkey Dinner

So yesterday we at the first turkey. It was the large Royal Palm tom that was fighting last week. We chose him because he was the biggest.

Here's two videos showing what we did. The first one is everything pre-cooking and shows a dead turkey but no killing. The second video shows how we cooked it.




The turkey tasted good and fed 15 of us. The differences between it and a commercial turkey were that the breast was much smaller and the dark meat was much darker. I'm not sure if I would raise turkeys again to eat but it's been an interesting process.

Turkey Fight

Alex and I were cleaning out the chicken coop to make it ready to move the 3 pullets up from the chicken tractor. We were digging out 3 years worth of litter from the inside when we heard a commotion from the turkey coop.

The toms were fighting.

I had never seen them fight before and was a little taken aback at their hostility towards each other. It was like a switch had been flipped and they were no longer friends. I figure that the hens are finally old enough to be worth fighting for.

Although the blue slate tom has been the most assertive, the royal palm tom has at least 5 pounds on him and was easily able to overpower the blue slate.

They didn't show any sign of stopping so we finally moved the royal palm in the the newly finished chicken run just to get them away from each other.

Chicks

The eggs that I was incubating never hatched. I'm not sure what happened to them. As I wrote last time, several of them seemed to be developing but it's hard to know what you're going to end up with.

I resorted to a much more dependable, and expensive solution. I got a box of chicks from a hatchery. These travel through the USPS and it looks like they made a stop at LAX, poor things.


They all survived the trip though. There are 20 Black Australorps and 5 Polish that I got for Alex.


As I moved each one from the box into the brooder I dipped their beaks in the water to let them know what it was. Some things you have to teach them, but they learn fast.

Once one gets the hang of it the rest copy it.


I started out with one box, but after a week they were starting to crowed it a little.

I added another box that doubled their space and gave them room to run around.


This is what they looked like a week ago.


And this is them now.

They grow so fast they'll need a bigger space soon. I'm going to move the pullets up to the coop and then the chicks can go in the tractor. I just need to move one of the heat lamps out there to keep them warm. I figure I'll give them another week inside and then they'll be a month old and will have a lot of their feathers. They will only need the heat source now and then to warm up in between running around and scratching in the dirt.

Agave Potatorum Bloom

My little agave's bloom spike finally has flowers on it. I was waiting to see what color they were to make a determination what species it is. The blooms look light green to me as opposed to bright yellow, so I think it's potatorum.

Incubator

The eggs that I put in the incubator a while back went into lock down this morning. That means that I took them out of the egg turner and I won't open the incubator again until the chicks hatch.

The turner has a little electric motor and a gear that turns the eggs back and forth so the chicks don't get stuck in the same place. With out the turner I would have to turn them by hand twice a day. A mother hen would also shift the eggs periodically throughout the day.


Out of the 20 eggs that I put in the incubator there are only 9 still in there. These two won't be going back in. I think they were cracked during shipping. The cracks allow bacteria to enter and turn the eggs rotten.


Rotten egg comes bubbling out of the crack. This egg was stuck to the turner. It smells about as bad as you would expect.


This egg had just a pin hole with egg coming out but it was enough to turn the egg.


The other thing you do at lock down is add water to increase the humidity inside the incubator. This will keep the chicks from drying out as they hatch. If it's too dry their fluff could stick to the eggs and they won't be able to hatch. I also add a wet sponge which helps add humidity. You can see the condensation forming on the window. It disappeared after a few minutes.

I added a little computer fan to the inside. The fan helps to even out the temperature inside the incubator so every part is the same. When it gets closer to the time for the hatch I'll turn the fan off. It could also dry a chick out.

I'm not sure how many chicks to expect. There is definitely something developing in 7 or 8 of them but you never know what you're going to end up with. As long as I get a decent cockerel out of this batch I'll be able to breed more next summer with the three pullets that I got from Dare 2 Dream Farm.

Chicken Run Repair

I had hoped to finish the run today but I spent a lot of time painting the bottom panels. I had to prime them and then apply two coats of paint. I tried out a shade of blue I'm considering for the house. It looks alarmingly royal while it's wet but it should darken to a more flinty color as it dries.


I thought that I had enough plywood to cut all the pieces but I didn't so I also cut up this old door that used to be my back door. It's been leaning up against the back of the house forever so I'm glad to finally make use of it.


I got the door of the run done as the sun went down. Doors always take me forever because I end up fiddling with them to make them fit openings that aren't quite square. This one feels reassuringly solid.


If you missed the supervisor in the last shot, here's a close up.