A chick by any other name is still cute as hell... (continued)

Part Deux:

The winning chicken breeds are as follows: (mostly bought for egg colour)

• White Chantacler - Canadian breed, winter hardy, our only white chickens.
• Black Copper Marans - Good breed from Europe, super dark brown/red eggs. 
• Amaracauna - Couple different colourings of this breed, but all lay blue eggs.
• Malines - Suppose to be a great tasting bird, bought mostly on a whim. 
• Euskal Oiloa - Super friendly bird, there for the kids and wife to play with. 
• Mystery Green and Blue Egg layers (aka Easter Eggers)- lays blue or green eggs.
• Olive Layers - Lays dark green egg. 

So what did I take away from this experience?

1. It's a good move to set up presales unless you are getting there at 4am like a lunatic. Frankly I don't know what I may have missed due to people selling out early and high tailing out of there.
2. Look closely at what you buy and ensure freshness.
3. Many of the people at these swaps shouldn't be breeding with each other never mind eggs. Buyer beware, go with your gut.
4. The swaps happen both in spring and fall, but if nothing else you can set up connections to get eggs off the swap circuit. 
5. Park far away for a quick exit. Some looked like they got boxed in until 3 people moved their trucks. 
6. Bring llama treats.   

Egg army ready for world domination

 Step 3: Time to turn up the heat...

A couple days prior to the swap I fired up the incubator to get it set to the right temp to hit the ground running. I'm glad I did because it took a couple days to get things just right. 99 deg is what the goal temp is with a humidity of about 60-65 percent. An impossible calculation if you don't have the right instruments.

We set it up in the office on the floor where the temperature stays stable and there are no breezes. Ultimately I should have put it on a desk but paranoia initially started it on the floor and it stayed there. As soon as I got home, I put the eggs into the office for a couple hours to settle at room temp and started to decide which eggs won't make the cut. 48 eggs and 41 spaces, really the turner holds 42 but one of the spots looked a little dangerously close to turner motor so we left it at 41. The choice was decided based on cost of eggs, colour of eggs and purity of the breed. We ended up posting an ad on craigslist to give away the others to a nice hippie woman. If she was wearing a tank there'd be armpit hair for sure, but none the less she was nice and promised to slip us a couple chicks in the future if we want it. I didnt have the heart to just toss them. I'm a softy like that...

So the winning eggs are in their spots, turner is plugged in and the temps are all right. There's no going back now, and with a total investment of 200$ we're in good shape. For the next 18 days tho, it's a case of hurry up and wait. Over the next 2 and a half weeks it was uneventful except for a power outage which happened while I was an hour away. D's mother called me up all frantic about the power knowing what it meant to the chicks. I was too far and had to call a buddy to swing by the house to make sure it wasn't a breaker and to possibly transport the chicks to an electrical source. If the temperature goes too far above or below 99 deg for too long, you can kiss your eggs goodbye. After all that work it would have been a bad scene if we lost them. Luckily it was short lived and the heat wasn't off for very long. 

On the 18th day it time to get the eggs into lock down for the next 3 days. At day 18 you:

1. Remove eggs from turner and remove turner from incubator
2. Replace eggs on their sides with small end pointing kinda downward. 
3. Raise humidity to 75% by filling most or all of the water traps the incubator has.
4. Try to make eggs not touch one another, which was hard with 41 eggs. 
5. Replace lid to incubator and don't touch it for 3 days. I ended up having to add water once or twice but I found a way with a straw to feed water through a vent hole.

At the end of the 2nd of 3 days we had a couple eggs wobbling back n forth periodically and eventually our first 'pip' (a small break in the eggs caused by the chicks beak) It was a great site to see considering I assumed something messed up along the way and we'd have maybe 1 hatch. I'd be happy if 5 made it honestly. Your instinct is to help but for so many reasons you can't. A few hours later (midnight) while doing a quick check we had our first hatch. I was excited and woke D with a quick iPhone pic of it, she was dazed but happy. (99% of pics on this blog are all iPhone) D woke me the next morning on her way to work to let me know 3 more had hatched. More revenge than information I'd guess....

I must admit I spent more time than I'm proud of bent over the incubator talking to the eggs encouragingly and tapping the outside. Midway through that day we had 10 chicks and by dinner time we had 15. This is where things started getting tricky and there are 2 schools of thought here regarding the lockdown period. Some say you can't open it no matter what for 3 days, after that period there may be more over the next day or two but most likely your set. Others say it's ok to open the lid quickly to do what you need to and get out. It's tricky because at 15 chicks hatched the incubator started getting a little crowded. Some at this point are now dry, which takes a few hours. Some are still wet and meandering around drunkenly and some are in partway through hatching in varying degrees. Chicks can stay in an incubator for 48 hrs+ feeding off an internal yoke sack so they don't have to be rushed out. The hatched ones are bumping around and knocking not only each other but the eggs around them and causing what I deem to be 'problems'.

I went with the school of get in and get out, but make sure the temp and humidity get back up quickly. A couple times I popped open the lid and grabbed out the dry chicks. In retrospect it may have not been a good move, but the number of chicks I had in there warranted it. It's not unlike when you know your dryer can fit 10 towels but when there's 7 it does a better job. The hatching chicks are fighting the shell, but more importantly, the membrane holding them in, and when that dries out, they're in trouble. There were a couple cases of chicks stuck in their shells, some made it, some didn't. There is a tang of guilt as to whether better planning would have avoided that.

Our new watchdogs: Thor and Whitey

 
In the end, we had 28 of 41 eggs hatch, 2 had passed away midway through coming out, and the rest stayed as coloured eggs silently yearning to chase bugs. We lost one a couple days later which was one I ended up trying to help finish hatching but obviously shouldn't have. Mother nature has a way to pick the ones that should make it, but did my messing with the lid cause this or any others to not hatch?

What I'd do next time:

• Start with less eggs. 41 made it too crowded, maybe at 25-30 there'd me more room for patience.  
• Not open the lid til the eggs were basically done hatching.
• If you do feel it necessary to intervene, just have a little sugar water there to feed the little beaks for a burst of energy. 
• Prepare not only for a little heartache but the unusual smell as well... wish the office had a little more circulation.
• Once the lockdown starts, don't block any vent holes trying to conserve humidity. 
• Make sure you have backup plans for a power outage situation. 

After all the dust settled and we cleaned the gear I have to say it was a great experience. We learned a lot and ended up with more then we expected and they all seem healthy. In fact I would do it again, probably next year. It is one of those moments you feel all warm inside and really feel, even for a moment, like we are legitimate farmers. But most of all, I can't wait to share this with our kids.

Now all that's left is figuring out which is which. They mixed together as they hatched and not only do I not know male from female but the game to figure out the breeds is on now too. I'm going to post some picks on the chicken sites and hope they can help, they always do...

Life Lesson # 922 - Don't count your eggs before they are hatched. This is true literally and figuratively...

 








               

A chick by any other name is still cute as hell...

If someone told me 20 years ago that one day I'd gladly be spending the first long weekend of the summer huddled over a bunch of incubating eggs, I would have punched him. However, that is exactly what happened, and that Bizzarro like change of events began not too long ago... (cue flashback special effects)

One of the things D and I discussed when we first decided to make the jump to the green acres lifestyle was raising chickens. As always I thought big, at that point in time I assured her it would be about 10 chickens in a small coop. A general rule I've learned in our short marriage is this: In any marriage, to psych your significant other up for something, you half it at first and then let it grow organically. So once the seed was planted for that one, I set to reading my plethora of books on the subject and joined a couple websites.

1. A great one for our geographic location was Poultry Swap Ontario 
2. A very informative yet USA based site Backyard Chickens     

 As usual it's mostly about the message boards whose members are very educated and more than helpful with information, even if it has been asked a hundred times already. The Backyard Chickens site even has a little education section for all the basics. Priceless.

The original plan was to purchase a few day old chicks from a couple places and get them into a brooder, then out to a mansion like coop to start laying. At some point along the road, about 2 months ago, I had the eureka to hatch our own eggs. As mentioned in the last episode, it was about price/chick, health of the chick, the variety available, and of course the experience. If we are doing this, let jump in with both feet. Little did I know...

Step 1 - A Cook is limited by his gear!

Incubator hard at work

So the first step is to buy an incubator. Gotta have some place to cook these little devils and get them out into the world. There are various places to buy them and various suppliers of anything from a desktop model to one the size of a fridge which does 1000 eggs. We settled on the Hovabator basic model from a guy on Ebay. (A family member was visiting the USA so we had it shipped there and they brought it back. Saving shipping and customs) It holds up to 42 eggs and you can get some basic extras for it to make life a lot easier. These extras made all the difference so if you are planning on giving the egg hatching a try, trust me on this one.

The entire package cost us about 120$ US and included:

• The Incubator - Hovabator basic model, mostly Styrofoam and a footprint equal to a laptop.  
• A Digital Thermometer/Hydrometer: Very important extra because the included thermometer is about as lame as extras get, and the moisture meter aspect is key for maintaining humidity at different levels.  
• An Egg Turner: The most import extra you can get for this endeavour. Normally, for those who are crazy, you literally have to turn the egg over 3 times a day for 18 days to ensure the eggs hatch properly. Something to do with preventing sticking to the egg. They have a whole system of marking each side with an X or O and that keeps track. The egg turner does it all for you. Put the eggs in small end down, plug it in and walk away...  
•  A Computer Fan: You hard wire and attach it inside the incubator to keep air circulating. (takes 5 mins) Keeps temps even and help to dry off the chicks once they hatch.

This combination is all we needed to turn our place into a hatchapalooza festival. Oh, but first we have to get the eggs...

Step 2 -  Gotta fill'em with something...

If you visit either of the aforementioned websites they have sales areas for people to buy and sell various types of poultry: eggs, chicks, full grown layers/roosters, ducks and even geese or pheasants. It was here while poking around I found out about a 'Fir and Fowl' swap happening out in ultra-farmland a couple weeks from then. I would have been able to get eggs (craigslist, chicken sites) here and there from different places, with me driving back and forth or, I could head to one place and get a large variety from all over the area.

At first the idea was to just head out to this little town and probably see like 15 or 20 pickup trucks with chickens at various stages. Like a mini farmer tailgate party where they sell live chickens not cooked ones. Anyway, before heading up I thought it might be a good move to have some sales prebooked to pick up there. I sent messages to a few people on the site and had it set to hold them for us to pickup. It was a very nice thing for these people to do considering I may not show/be lost or any number of things which would leave them with eggs unsold.

Again, things got a little out of hand and I ended up pre-booking basically all the free spots I had eggs for. Actually, we were only going for about 10 chickens so we are way over the top now. I justified it to myself by thinking, 'ok, usually they say you get about 75-80% hatch rate (less for us being newbies) and from that, if we're lucky, 50% of those will be roosters (which you only need 1 or 2 of). So once everything washes out we'll maybe lose a couple to the circle of life and we'll be just about right. We also can trade/sell and/or eat any extras we have. The problem being, it'll stop us being able to pickup new eggs there unless I wanted to try to sell or toss any overage. In the end I was glad I did pre-book.    

I started reading that people begin poking around at like 4 am at this swap with flashlights. These are the hardcore chicken heads who are coming for something specific or rare. As it turned out the place for the swap was 2 hours from our house, so there is no way I was making it that early and frankly we decided that I should go solo, which I am also just as happy to do. I'll be the first to admit I'm a bad person to shop with and finding/meandering around a place I've never been to, could frustrate anyone with me. I'll circle a place a couple times just to take it all in, and then zig zag back and forth getting the best of what we need. Sometimes changing my mind and going back for something else. Even worse I'll just stand at a busy table for a while, looking at the merchandise and people watching.

Poultry Flea Market / DNA Boggle capital

So I leave at 6 am and most people I'm meeting are expecting me about 9. I've got time to get lost or doddle if I want, scope out the competition and see if anything else of higher interest is available. The ride is uneventful and when I pull into the small town the swap was easy to find. When I say it was packed to the brim with people and trucks, it would be an understatement. It was a standard football field and racetrack at a high school, with trucks of all sizes side by side around both sides of the track, plus any other place where a truck could park, there was one. Even the parking lots were full with sellers. I had to park almost a km away, and was happy I wasn't getting anything big. Carrying a couple boxes of fragile eggs was bad enough.

They sold every kind of feathered foul you can think of, eggs and live ones. Plus they had snakes, pigs, puppies and I think I saw a llama. Few chicken waterers and accessories here and there, nothing mind shattering. However there were tons of people, and in some spots it was shoulder to shoulder. In the middle of nowhere? This swap probably quadruples the towns population for a few hours. The point of this story is that all the good eggs we would want to get our hands on were nowhere to be found. Many signs with crossed out listings peppered the lane ways and by 9am the stuff was basically gonzo. Hence why we read people are snooping around at 4 am.

Regardless, we had our sales set up and the transactions went smooth enough. One person was a sweet woman from the far south west and she traded me a dozen eggs for some seeds I had brought with me. (Thanks seed swap) The only negative I would take with me was one of the sellers eggs were a little different colour than his listing pics, and his eggs were a little dated. Not to mention they were expensive. As a rule you want your eggs to be 7 days or younger for maximum hatching. A couple of his were hitting the 7 day mark but I didn't notice it till I got back home. (he penciled the date they were laid on them) I ended up getting out of there about 12:30 with 48 eggs in hand and a big bag of pine shavings I know we'd need at some point. I could have gotten more things but this trip was as much recon as anything.

To be continued....

Be careful with your actions, you never know when you're creating a memory...

Tomorrow is the day it all begins. We did our final inspection today to make sure the farm wasn't burned down or rented out to hippies with a grow-op. The place itself was still standing but the homeowner has not lived up to her agreement to get a list of issues taken care of. Let this be a lesson to anyone buying a house from a bitter old curmudgeon. Get the price to where you want it regardless of the issues with the idea you're fixing it. When it comes time to sign and get the keys, if things aren't done, you're pretty much out of luck unless you want to cancel the deal and sue in court for a year or two.

Well, even with a grow-op we'd be taking the farm but the hassles we are now faced with have just added a few more posts in the future blog file. Including but ot restricted to a new AC unit, oil tank replacement and garbage removal from 10 years of bad landscaping jobs. All in all, it's better to have us do it, at least it will be done right. This will be a constant theme in the future. You want something done right, do it yourself or at least watch the person doing it and figure it out for next time, unless of course it's a root canal or colonoscopy.   

We drop off the cats tomorrow and await the pods we filled a few weeks ago. Everything will be on site for Saturday so when the movers show up we can have it done ASAP. At $150/hr we'll do anything we can to speed things up including oil up the driveway with PAM. We ended up finding a good moving company on the website www.homestars.com , it's the same place we found our home inspector and that worked out great for us so I'll let you know how this one goes.

Rules change after 30...

"Don't you have friends to help you move?" you're asking?

Of course we do, however we are trying to live by a new rule of thumb. Once you ask someone to help you move, you're on the hook to help them. So let's say you ask 4 buddies to help you move once. You now have to help 4 people move, and if your friends are like some of mine, they drift around like plastic in the ocean, it could be every year or so. Not to mention, you shouldn't ask people to help you move after you're 30. Add that to the list of things to not do after 30, including using "party" as a verb and men having piercings.



Life Lesson #888: People will forget what you said and what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel, so be kind.

Be prepared, and careful not to do your good deeds when there's no one watching...

There's only 9 days left until we finally move in and the anticipation is taxing. We haven't even sold our condo yet, it was bad timing in August supposedly so until we sell, we are carrying 2 houses. D is so stressed her stress is palpable, I tend to lean more on the side of things will work itself out. Plus we have tons of positive karma in the bank. The place looks great and we only just listed 5 days ago. Either way, once its gone it will be a huge relief obviously.

So in preparation for the big move I've got the design for the chicken coop all set.

Chicken Coop for a King

Doesn't even matter that I wont be getting any chickens until spring time. I try to think ahead and give myself time to adapt any given project if needed. Also, knowing the design gives me time to gather things on the cheap from stores, garage sales, friends and neighbours. I probably won't even build the thing til march, but once I'm ready, we are good to go. It will be a winterised and 'ingenious' modification of this one here: Cooptopia Version 1.0

Another project I've have worked on is within an Apple app. Used with the iPad, it lays out a garden for you up to 5 acres. The details on the app are incredible. From every kind of fruit and vegetable you can think of, and all their planting/harvesting details. To succession planting, and warning you about duplicate planting issues, ie not planting tomatoes in the same spot as peppers the previous year. Easy to use and handy tutorials. Gardening App for iPad  It's the kind of thing you can lose yourself in for a few hours but I'm hoping once it's set up, it will be a irreplaceable tool. No more pen and paper graphs. I should mention it's 20$, but I feel worth it, and I think it goes on sale once in a while.

However, the top priority and first project to work on once we move is an in-law suite for D's mother. I'll make sure it's soundproof and a complete separate entrance. I'll keep you up to date on the progress because I know you're interested. Nothing over the top, new entry door, separation door, install new floors, electric fireplace and a kitchen. Perhaps a small deck and sliding glass doors off a guest bedroom. All this is second nature to me having worked in construction for 15 years. If you are a fan of HGtv you can see me as a lead contractor 1st season on the show Design Inc. But that will be our little secret...

Life Lesson #198: Everyone's got a story that could break your heart. Be patient and don't judge too quickly... 
 

Just a filler to try and do a blog per day...

It never ceases to amaze me the degree in which most people will go out of there way to help a virtual stranger when you are starting off in farming. It's like a brotherhood I never even knew existed but now that I do we are very appreciative. The value of books as a quick and in most ways substantiated form of information has it's value for sure, but the information super highway definitely lives up to its name. Any subject pertaining to a hobby farm has its own dedicated message board, and most likely one located either within Canada or even better Ontario. Even if it's just a general one it's still priceless in terms of information, its just a little less concrete.

Just within the last few weeks of researching a variety of Hobby Farm topics we have come across some valuable user generated information resources:

• www.backyardchickens.com  user generated information website/message board for raising chickens
• www.canadiangunnutz.com  user generated information website/message board for safe handling of firearms
• www.beesource.com  user generated information website/message board about beekeeping
• www.gardenweb.com user generated information website/message board about everything garden related. 

These are just some examples of useful sites of course. These sites in particular we have joined, tossed out a few questions here and there and the responses were quick, informative and first hand from someone we know was in our position not too long ago. Some have even gone out of there way to contact us outside the message board via email to offer advice for locations for good chicken/bee stocks or anything else we may be looking for. The time and money saved utilizing these type of sites are incalculable. Of course it has to be said to always use common sense before trusting anything anyone says right off the bat. We probably wouldn't meet someone in a dark alley while being lured with a candy or a baby chick, but in general everything has been nothing but positive.

Life Lesson #212: Success nowadays is 10% Inspiration, 50% Perspiration and 40% Nepotism.