Baby Season

Baby season has successfully begun. 

The incubator is up and running with our first hatch completed. We had one duck egg which was fertilized but did not hatch and 13 chicken eggs. Of those, 12 were fertilized and 9 hatched. So what does this mean?? It means my roosters and drakes are doing their jobs, but I have to do mine better. I have the incubator temperature and timing down pat and am getting better success rates, but still struggle with keeping the humidity levels at an ideal percentage. 

We have 5 ducks eggs in right now (all fertilized yay) and 19 chicken eggs but I won’t know their fertility until Wednesday when I do the first candling. 

It’s wonderful to be hatching these tiny adorable babies but I do feel badly for the big girls. Between the fox that I still see regularly in the back yard and the avian flu which is wiping out flocks across North America, they remain locked up in the barn for their safety. That is not the life I want for my animals, so I am moving ahead with the fenced in area and Tillie is spending more and more time in the barn learning her guardian dog skills which will at least help with the predator problems. Unfortunately time is the only thing that will help with the avian flu problem.

The puppies are growing although not as fast as I had feared. They are gaining about 2 pounds a week putting them at 44 pounds right now. We are doing our best to expend their puppy energy by running in the back field a couple times a day. Scouts idea of running is chasing me to get a treat while Tillie runs circles around us🤦‍♀️ We are also ramping up the training and doing a lot of recall training as I learned the hard way with Dixie…for their own safety, the dogs need to be perfect at coming to me when I call them.

The cats have been the concern this week. Phoenix, our primary barn cat (who comes in the house a lot) had a tapeworm. Poor guy must have been so uncomfortable. But one trip to the vets, deworming pills for all our cats, one gross worm in the litter box and we are happy again.

Another slide show for you. Love all my babies💖