Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Candleing Eggs

 Thought I would share how I candle eggs. After my eggs have been in the incubator about 10 days or so I candle them. You could do it before but It is hard for me to decide weather something is in them or not at about 10 days there is no mistake.  All you need is a flashlight, roll of toilet paper, a dark room and an egg.
Hold the flashlight between your knees put the roll of toilet paper on the light and the egg on it.  That's all there is to it. If the egg is clear like this one nothing is in it, but if your egg has a dark blob in it, it has a chicken in it. The roll of toilet paper funnels the light and the opening in the roll is just the right size for the chicken egg.  A dark room helps but the toilet paper roll reflects the flash so I had to take this picture during the day

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Nancy and Yoda

Nancy had a little billy on Thursday. The kids named him Yoda because of his small head and large ears. They were taken and penned in the barn because of our little coyote problems. I watched them extra carefully since Maisey let her baby die. Nancy seems to be a real good momma. Yoda is growing real good and is always busy jumping around and exploring.

Other news, our little bantam hen just hatched out 10 biddies. One died ,I think it hatched before the others and for some reason she kicked it out the nest. If my hens will hatch their eggs I let them. I prefer they take care of the biddies and not me. I do still have some in the incubator from the big hens. They haven't tried to sit on their eggs yet. Yesterday I had one quail hatch out, about 3 days early. Nothing else has hatched I'm not sure why this one did. I have him in the house in a box with a light waiting on the others.

Two of our beagles are missing.  They went hunting rabbits on Wednesday and haven't been home. Not sure if they just got lost, caught by coyotes, or shot. We miss them very much.