Bettacreek - New home? Plus a pic of some of the ladies here

[Bettacreek]

21 of 50 eggs hatched. If I remember correctly, 21 didn't develop at all, 2 went bad at some point early on and 6 died before pipping. One chick died after the first night.
Only six eggs hatched naturally. The rest were manually hatched. And people say that helping doesn't work.

Hatching. These were ones that I was helping.

Please excuse the poop. They're pooping machines!

 

[Wifezilla]

You are doing WAY better than me. I set 21 eggs, NONE hatched, and most were clear. I need to replace the thermostat in my incubator and try again. If I still get a bunch of clears, I also need a new coturnix roo

 

[FarmerDenise]

Oh, gosh! they are so cute. I had to help one of mine hatch too.

But it sure is fun having chicks!! even if it is a bit of work.

I took mine outside today and they and their momma had a fun time. As did I, watching them.

Now everyone is inside, by the warm fire, with lots of food and the heating pad. I cleaned the inside pen out, but you'd hardly know it, by the looks of it now They are such good little poopers!!!

 

[Bettacreek]

I would so love to have a BQ pair raise chicks. It's so neat watching them follow each other around, lol. And isn't that the truth! They're pooping machines! It's a good thing that I have a huge stack of papers and only need one layer of paper towels per change!

Wife - I was expecting a 13 chick hatch. 21 was more than I could hope for after candling and only having 29 left! I have someone coming to pick up two babies this weekend, but I think I'm going to hold onto the rest of them and wait to see what I've got. Then I'll probably sell a pair or two, and stress over what I'm going to do with excess roos, then probably use them as dog food or coyote bait. (I know, I'm terrible).
Oh, and, if it's any consolation, I had 20 coturnix eggs (from 12oz birds!) shipped, 7 are good, 4 are maybes (but I'm pretty sure they're good). The rest are clears. Hopefully I get a good breeding group from them. I may have to convince the BF that I need to order a larger batch from a member of BYC with the 14oz birds after our cruise. At least the excess coturnix roos can be eaten. Excess buttons are almost useless. :/



I also FINALLY found some of those glass insulators for phone/power lines from the early 1900's. I found three, but only took two (one aqua and one clear). These things are so neat. Just knowing that I personally collected something from 1922ish.

 

[Bettacreek]

As of right now, I have 9 coturnix eggs left. The other 11 candled clear. I'm debating on sending in an order for more eggs, this time ordering some from the 14-16oz range. I'd obviously have to order some after our cruise.

 

[Dace]

Now that is a lot of little chicks! My goodness.

I would get nothing done. When we got our 6 chicks last year I kept finding myself in the laundry room watching and or playing with them. They are addictive little buggers!

 

[Bettacreek]

I finally started some seeds. We bought a 72 hole greenhouse tray for $4 and a 20lb bag of potting soil for $2.25. I started the seeds in coffee filters in ziploc bags on the fridge though, to save as many holes and soil as possible. I started two ornamental peppers, some tomatoes, sweet banana peppers and some popping corn. The popping corn mostly molded over, but I had only started a few just to test out if they'd sprout or not. I'm still not even 100% sure if I'm going to grow popcorn!
I also weighed the quail meaties yesterday. I'm astonished. I should have recorded their birth weights. They were something around 4-5 grams when born, and now, the weights (and genders) are below:
Golden roos:
70g
75g
84g

Golden hen:
79g

Brown roos:
68g
76g

Brown hen:
77g


I had lost a brown and one of my buttons while on vacation. It was actually much better than I had expected. My count for buttons is 6 roos, 4 unknowns (I so suck at this, lol) and 9 hens. I'm hopefully trading a pair for a wire cage and will be selling another pair this weekend. If I can get out of making cages, and instead can trade my critters to build up my cages, that'd be awesome. I just wish I hadn't gotten rid of ALL of my cages.

 

[Bettacreek]

So, it's confirmed. I will be trading button quail for a cage and selling another pair this weekend. I also received an email from the local feed/pet store. Hopefully I'll be able to trade the rest of my quail that I don't plan on keeping in for store credit. They're interested, but I'm not sure how much credit I'll get per bird. They asked for my price and I basically let it up to them to offer. I gave them my rough estimate on what they could sell them for and let it up to them. I'm not sure what I'm expecting to get in return per bird, but any little bit will help towards the next bag of feed.

I also moved two tomato seeds to the soil tray. My banana peppers are sprouting furiously, so I'm not sure if I'll plant the second packet or not. We'll be ripping up the house a little bit this weekend. We're tearing out the garden on the east side of the house. We like some of the stuff in there, but I'm hoping to convince the guys that I NEED this space, lol. They like flowers and junk, but I want productive stuff. Maybe a compromise of half and half.

The rabbits were booted to the outdoors, and I'm going to start putting my birds outside during warm days. I'm also hoping to get out this weekend and tap a few trees. I have fridge racks that I'm going to put over our one fire pit, and use that to boil sap down. I found some water pipe in the basement that was in the junk pile and plan to use that for taps. I also finally found something to do with our excess ceiling stuff. I'm not sure what it is exactly, but it's plastic and has holes in it. I plan to make a frame and use this as the bottom of a worm bin, and maybe even make a raised bed and again, use this as the bottom. It should be extra sturdy (much more sturdy than screen mesh), it already has drainage holes, and they won't let worms crawl out.

 

[Bettacreek]

So, we're heading down to Lowes later today to get stuff for tapping. I need tubing and buckets, and then I'll be set. I have a road trip early tomorrow (I have to leave by 8:30ish and won't be back until 3ish), so I'm not sure when I'll get my taps in. I may try to get out right before dark to get them in, or I may get up extra early and get taps in the trees before dawn.

 

[modern_pioneer]

Did you guys get anymore snow during the last round?