Hatching Season Begins: Sebastopol Gosling

With the weather making a valiant attempt at warming, the geese, turkeys, ducks, and chickens are all thinking HATCH SOMETHING with varying degrees of success. Since we aren't ready for chicks quite yet, we have been thwarting all the hens efforts to procreate by collecting eggs from the nest boxes each morning. In response, they have begun their yearly game of "Find Where I Am Laying My Eggs Now". I have no illusions that we will win this game, but if we can help minimize the number of 'Barnyard Beauties' (what we affectionately call chicks of mixed heritage) hatched in favor of pure bred chicks which can be adopted to other families, that would be well in my eyes. 

The turkeys have started laying, but not yet sitting on nests. THOSE I do want to hatch- the sooner the better. 

The ducks have no hope of success. At least, not without my purchasing another male to live here. Our big boy, Boris passed last year and we haven't had the heart to find another until now. Without a male, our females have zero chance of hatching ducklings for us this season. And, I would love more Muscovies living here. 

Which bring us to the geese. Lucy decided to lay a nest under Sean's ladder, next to the barn, in the open. Since she wouldn't be shifted from that intent, we built a small shelter over and around her to offer some protection from the elements. And, 28 days later, she hatched out ONE single gosling. We candled the other eggs in the nest. 3 stopped developing early and 3 others were not fertilized. This singleton is getting lots of attention from the entire flock of geese. Gregarious by nature, our geese have the philosophy of 'It takes a village...' so they are all very protective and supportive of this little one. It is sweet to watch. 

Three other geese are now sitting on nests in their shelter within the pond area. If they are successful, more goslings will join our farm in May. 

These short video clips were captured in Early April. I hope you enjoy. :) 

Thanks for visiting with us today, Friends. I hope you come again.
Sean & Sonja

How We Helped a Gosling Hatch

 Last Wednesday morning, our Sebastapol geese's nest hatched and we were pleased to meet their two goslings. In the nest remained four unhatched eggs. Sometimes the unhatched eggs will hatch slightly later. If they don't, we candle the eggs to see if they are developing. If so, we move any viable eggs into another nest to have a shot at hatching. Most often, the unhatched eggs were either never fertilized or the embryo died at some earlier point of development. In either of those cases, the eggs have to be disposed of before they begin to rot.


Thursday evening, Sean checked the eggs to remove those that needed it and discovered an egg stalled in the hatching process. It was growing cold and the geese had already abandoned the remaining eggs in the nest, so we made the call to try to help this little one to hatch. We have had both success and failure at this, but weighed against doing nothing resulting in most likely it's death, we had to at least try.

It takes hours to help a bird to hatch. It must be done slowly, mimicking nature. Gentle tapping on the outside of the egg, stimulates the processes of closing off umbilicus and readying the chick for hatching. Care must be taken to not breech veins that might cause too much bleeding.

Helping this gosling was not without trouble. The first day, it was so weak that it could barely lift its head. Then, it developed splay-leg (or sprattle leg) and needed us to make braces from band-aids to align its legs properly for another 24 hours. It imprinted on Sonja. While that is sweet, it makes it hard to integrate the gosling back to its family.

This is what happened for us...

Morning snuggle buddy. #farmhairdontcare

Bath time! 

New Additions and More to Come~

When Sean and I gave the coop a good clean out a few days ago, several things came to light. One of them being that a couple of our ducklings have gone broody. This is good news since we want to hatch some ducklings to sell at this year's farm swap at the Tractor Supply Company (TSC) in Bangor, Maine. Another revelation was that the fencing was due for some repairs; winter had taken a toll on the chain panels we use. Most surprisingly, was the discovery of an additional 3 roosters in with the hens- no spurs yet, small, and previously crow-less, we had hoped that we'd separated all the lads that needed re-homing about a month ago. If their "interest" in the hens was not a clear give-away, the new ability to crow was. Ugggh. Did we hatch out nearly entire clutches of roos??? Shouldn't it, at least statistically, be a 50/50 ratio??? Adding to the insult, these roosters were ALL Cochins; 2 partridge colored and the gorgeous little copper one I was so pleased with hatching. Let's do the math. That makes a total of 11 roosters living in separate quarters awaiting sale, re-homing, or a soup pot plus our 4 breeding boys; Aloysius, Ruffeo, Sebastian, and Cooper, AND 3 more Cochin roos! 18 Roosters!!! Which means, considering the hens that are "retired" and the gang of 14 roosters all NOT laying eggs, we are down to only 30 or so hens a laying. We did not like those numbers.

Though I prefer to purchase chicks from local farms, I wanted chicks immediately; I was "jonesing" for a chick fix- STAT! Which is why I started to call around to our local TSC to see if their chicks were in yet. Being in Maine, local is relative. I checked Ellsworth, Bangor and when neither of these had chicks, I also called our local feed stores. Chicks are expected, but no one had them in-store. I planned to head into Belfast for some other errands, so I popped into Yknot Farms on Route 3. where we purchased our Wyandottes a couple years ago. I was in business, not only did they have chicks, but they had some 10 day old, Rhode Island Red, pullets. I bought 5 for $20 and happily brought them home.

I want to breed some black and white speckled Cochins this year. I plan on breeding Cooper with our 4 Lacey Wyandotte hens and 3 Barred Rock hens to see what comes of that. I ordered 6 Black Copper Marans chicks from Muddy Hoof Farm and will get those at the first chicken swap in April. The new Copper Marans and our Americauna hens will be bred with Sebastian to create more Americaunas and "Olive Eggers" for next year. Aloysius will cover our Cochin hens. And, that leaves Rufeo to remain in the main yard with the Rhode Island Reds, Buff Orpingtons, and Australorpe hens- which we will use exclusively for collecting eating eggs.

So, with all these plans in the back of my mind, we purchased our first chicks of the year. We will need to purchase some additional Cochin pullets, too- because we have 3 less than we thought!

Since the ducks and geese have obliged us with eggs at a steady rate, we borrowed an incubator and set some eggs. We are trying a little experiment. We set 24 duck eggs in the incubator along with 8 geese eggs. The remainder of the eggs collected over the last week were placed back into the duck nest in the coop- 10 in all. Our experiment is two-fold. First, we want to compare the hatch rate between the incubator and what the ducks hatch out. Last year, we let a duck go broody, but her eggs disappeared from her nest until we rescued the final 2 and finished hatching them inside. We are hoping for better results this time around. Secondly, it is cold still. Today was only in the 30's outside with a steady wind. I am curious to see if the eggs are viable so early in the season or if the cold impedes them from developing. We'll candle the eggs in the incubator next weekend to see if any have developed. If broody duck cooperates and sits on the clutch we gave her, we'll attempt to candle some of those, too, to compare. I am interested and hopeful. It would be great to have a couple dozen ducklings to bring to the TSC "Chicken Swap".

Our goats are still pregnant and growing those kids! Ruby has gotten HUGE in size and ungainly with it. Her greatly enlarged udder is producing milk in anticipation of kidding, but when that will happen is any one's guess. Sean felt the kid(s) moving this morning, but there are no clear signs of impending kidding. Leah and Rachel are both smaller in girth than Ruby. We think they are several weeks behind her and won't kid until next month. But, who are we kidding? We do NOT have this down yet. I am just happy they are showing all the sign of radiant, impending motherhood; fat bellies, shiny coats, enlarging udders and good appetites. And, that I have my kidding supplies ready to hand, just in case.

An unexpected and pleasant addition to our homestead is Jane. We heard through a friend about a 3 year old, French Alpine doe in need of a permanent home. Sean called the owner to discuss the situation and then drove to check her out after work on Monday. She is lovely. Jane looks very much like our Oberhausli, except her coat is longer, her head is slightly different in shape and she has a wicked set of horns! Sean checked her eyelids for color, nose and tail end for discharge(s), her stance, hooves, and overall appearance among other things. Jane was a pet doe and thus is wonderfully friendly. She walks on a leash better than our dogs! She birthed a single kid last year and was milked a little. All in all, she was a great find. Sometimes "free" is code for a "very costly vet bill in the making". This did not seem to be the case with Jane and we decided to take her. She is in isolation for a little while until we make certain that she is not carrying anything nasty that could impact our herd, but I have every expectation of her being a great addition for us.

That is what is going on in our corner of the world this week. In addition to animal gains, we got started with planting some 6 packs of tomatoes. I worked on creating additional mosaic eggshell jewelry pieces and I tried my hand at sewing some grain bag totes. I prefer making our jewelry, soaps, and scents, to be honest, but the totes came out decently and will certainly be more useful in this form than taking up space in the "milk room". And, if I can sell them, all the better!

Thanks for visiting with us today, friends. We're glad for the company.
Sean and Sonja ♥