The Great Chicken Adventure: Post Hatching

After my last update, 3 more birdies hatched naturally. Sunday night I was up every hour to check on the birds. I want to add a quick note about one of the birds that hatched normally, in the middle of the night. He made it out of his shell, but his naval seemed to be abnormally large, like it was swelled. The umbilical cord came off fine, but this thing was still there. I got into a panic - because youre more prone to do that at 3AM when youre significantly sleep deprived. I tried researching it, but I didn't have much luck. I took him out and put him in the cage but the other birds were trying to pick at the naval. So I put him back in the incubator for several more hours. When I put him in the cage again he didn't get picked on. And a day later he was actually hard to identify from the other birds, because he looks just as healthy. There were two that I was watching on Day 21, they had made cracks in their shells but didn't continue to hatch. Monday morning Day 22 those were the first that I picked out at 7AM. It seemed like the lining inside the egg stuck and dried to them, preventing them from hatching without a lot of pain. I had to bathe the lining off with warm water. The last chick #33 was a survivor from the end of the line pick out. There were 10 eggs left in the incubator, and I knew if I was going to save any I had to lend them a helping hand. I picked them all, and somewhere in the middle, when I grabbed one egg, it peeped at me! I started peeling it out, starting at the air hole in the wide end of the egg. The chick was moving in there, but when I was peeling it out, it started bleeding some. Upon previous recommendation (from my farmer friends), I returned that egg to the incubator for about 2 more hours until I hatched it out the rest of the way. In that egg there was a lot of the yolk sack that was not absorbed, Im not sure how or why that happens. That chick is alive though, and seems to be fine now. As for the others, 4 weren't fertilized - they had a yellow yolk and a white, but the egg was dry. Three eggs appeared to be fertilized, but must have died early in development, the egg was a messy grey, with bits in it. And a sad two were fully developed, but musnt have had the gumption to hatch out, because when I got to them, they were dead. So all said and done I had a very successful hatch rate of 76.5%!
Today the birds are getting along well. They are eating and drinking, AND pooping. I had to change their bedding already because it was starting to stink. I moved the birds into a box to clean the cages, and when I was returning the birds I checked each of their bums, and five had caked on poop that I had to try and wipe off. What a horrible job. The birds practically hated me, whistling to them didn't even calm them down much. Then they were all cold from being damp and one was shivering. I hope they are all ok, but really I cant leave the poop caked on. Ill give those 5 a wipedown tomorrow again, I couldn't get it all this time - they were practically flying away on me. Speaking of flying, they are developing their wing feathers already - a neat line of feathers at the tips of their wings. They will grow fast and Ill definitely be ready for when they move out of the house and into the coop.

Cage #1 occupants

Cage #2 occupants

The Great Chicken Adventure: Day 21 - 3PM

Today is hatching day! And indeed they have been hatching - steady since 12PM last night. There are currently 26 that have hatched, out of the 42. Apparently a 50% hatch rate is good, and Im so fortunate to have (so far) attained and surpassed that! After chick #7 hatched yesterday at 10:30AM, there wasn't anymore action until 6PM, when we had 7 eggs with cracks in their shells. By 8:45PM we had a chick #8, and in quick pursuit was chick #9 at 9PM. Chick #9 I had been watching throughout the day, he had a crack in his shell at 10AM and no action after that, except I could see his beak moving in the small hole he had made. I was afraid I would have to try picking him out by the evening if he didn't continue to hatch - but he hatched after all! At 12 PM we had a total of 12 chicks, all seemingly healthy. I got up throughout the night every two hours, and I got lots of surprises. I guess you can never estimate when they will hatch - morning or night. On my 2AM check, I found chick #13 and chick #14 fully hatched in the incubator. They looked quite stable, not wobbly and confused like when they first hatch, so I assume they had been hatched for over an hour. I put them in the "ICU" box and transferred the ones in there to the main box, and stumbled back to bed. On my 4AM check there weren't any hatched, and the birds in the box were all happily sleeping. On my 6AM check I was surprised to find a lovely brown chick! All the eggs were supposed to be Buff Orpingtons, and I think this one is, but maybe just with a recessive gene to produce dark feathers. By this time in the morning the water was soiled AGAIN, and full of food. I went back to bed for a couple of hours and woke up before my 8AM alarm went off and I was up just in time to see chick #16 hatch. I had a couple of chores to do, so I left chick #16 in the incubator for a little while to dry off - there were signs of another soon to hatch. I threw in a load of laundry and fed the other cats and when I came back the incubator had 3 fully hatched chicks out and about! I put them in the "ICU" - but there were so many chicks now, I decided to get their upgraded home ready. I borrowed a chinchilla cage from friends with 4 stacked cages - I lined the cages with newpaper and some hay, put in the larger waterers as well as the temporary ones that I put in last night. It was quite a juggling act to get the heat lamps set up over the new cage and get both boxes of chicks transferred into the cage without anyone getting cold. I ended up putting everyone in one box under one heat lamp, rigged up the first heat lamp, then move all the chicks into the new cage, rigged up the second heat lamp (to the second level of the cage) and then moved the stronger chicks into the second level. Chick #19 made its way out at 9:15AM and then there was a lull. Between 11 and 12AM two more chicks hatched and another one was brown! Around noon until 2PM five more chicks hatched bringing the total up to 26! We've had lots of visitors and the chicks are getting well handled. Right now theres another chick half way through hatching. By this evening or tomorrow morning, the remaining eggs will have to be picked out, any survivors will probably be weak and theres quite a chance that several are infertile or for whatever reason just didn't develop. But we'll cross that bridge when we get there, as for now, here are some snapshots of the fluffballs.

 <-- These are the 1-2 day olds

 <-- Silly fluffball hogging the food   

<-- These are some of the ones that hatched today

The Great Chicken Adventure: Day 20 - 10PM

After a flurry of excitement form the incubator, we now have 11 chicks and counting! Between 9PM and 10PM we had four chicks hatch out. So far they seem quite healthy, tired though. The new chicks are being rotated through the small box, and once theyre dry (45 min-ish) they get put into the larger box. There are about four more that have pecked holes in their shells, which means the night isn't over for us yet - theres more to come. The chicks have had lots of visitors and have gotten handled lots. Its better if theyre handled from a young age, that way (ideally) they wont fuss as much when theyre older. I will be checking throughout the night on their progress, so expect an update in the morning.

Here are the latest 3 hatch-outs!

The Great Chicken Adventure: Day 20 - 11AM

Chick # 7 has hatched! He made quick work of it too. Im quite confident that he is a male, as his comb is already quite defined on his head. He is confined in a separate box, until he's had a chance to rest and dry off, then Ill put him in with the others. He seems quite mad that hes not with the others, the others are quite curious too, why they can hear loud peeping but don't see another bird!

The Great Chicken Adventure: Day 20 - 10 AM

Yesterday, I assisted chick #6 with getting out of the shell. Chick #6 had made a hole around 10AM but didn't make any progress after that. By 4PM I was getting worried and maybe I shouldn't have done this but, I picked him out. I peeled back  his shell and after 1/2 of the shell was off he stretched himself out the rest of the way. Although he seemed weak at first, I held him a bit closer to the heat lamp for  a while and now he seems just as strong as the others. Some major developments happened yesterday evening with the first 6. They all are able to eat and drink! I started by sprinkling food on the newspaper lining the bottom of their box, and they found it so quickly! Then I put in shallow dishes of food and water, made from the bottom of yogurt containers. It took them a while to get the hang of the water. They would run through it, but they weren't drinking. So I dipped their beaks in the water, they didn't like that but soon after they were drinking (Thanks for the tip Grandma!). Between 4PM yesterday and 10AM  this morning there were no signs of life from the incubator. I checked them twice in the night and even got up early to sit with them - since early bird hatched yesterday before 6AM. I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me because it seemed like the eggs were all jiggling! But now two have poked holes in their shells and one is very close to hatching, so I don't think I need to worry. I have made a separate box with another heat lamp for the fresh hatchers, before I mix them in with the day-olds. Here are some quick shots of a chick from yesterday and the one that's hatching now. More soon.

The Great Chicken Adventure: Day 19 3PM

Time flies when you're having fun! After 9 hours we have 5 chicks hatched. Each one is interesting to watch because they all hatch differently. Even coming out of the egg they seem to have different personalities. Chick #3 slowly and deliberately pecked a line around the top of her egg and gracefully came into the world. Whereas chick #4 (who was trying to hatch at the same time as Chick #3) thought it would be more effective to roll around instead of peck a hole. Eventually he discovered that he too had to pick a line and hatch out the traditional way. Chick #5 was very slow at picking out. He had a great line picked but he got himself turned around in the egg and the first thing to pop out of the crack was a foot. So after about 1/2 hr of struggling, I helped him out and he was glad for it. He seemed a bit weaker, maybe it was just in contrast to the chicks who had already hatched and already were quite strong. Chick #5 had a hard time lifting his head and seemed to be quivering a bit. I did some heat lamp adjustments and after an hour he seems a lot stronger. Right now I have one that has a good hole picked and one that keeps rolling every couple of minutes. So more action to come!

The Great Chicken Adventure: Day 19 6AM

The early bird gets the worm!! When I checked in on my (supposed to be) eggs this morning I was shocked to see one had made it all the way out of his shell! We really hustled to get their temporary accommodations ready - a cardboard box. Im glad I got the chicken feed the other day. I wont put the water and food in until this afternoon though. The little fella that hatched is pretty beat. He was sleeping the last time I checked. As for the other eggs, theres three that have made a hole in their shells. So we'll see what the progress is like by noon!

The Great Chicken Adventure: Day 18

Today the eggs moved off the automatic turner right onto the floor of the incubator for the last 3 days before hatching! I was a bit nervous taking them off - but I got it done and we'll see if I did it right when they actually hatch out. I was supposed to take them off the turner at the same time as I put them in, but that didn't work for my schedule today, so I did it a couple hours early. I lifted the turner tray out, filled the second water trough in the incubator and placed the eggs back in the incubator (theres a screen in the bottom that they rest on). The extra water is added to make the incubator more humid, and that helps the shells soften for the chicks to hatch out. And until the first chicks are fully hatched out, I don't open the incubator again. When I was moving the eggs, I could feel that they were heavier, and they felt nice and warm. One really wanted to roll when I put it back in the incubator. I tried to make all the eggs not touch, but the one kept rolling, he seemed to be a bit lopsided. The eggs could start hatching anytime, so I have to check often the next couple of days

. Plenty of updates to come!

The Maple Syrup Run

Finally the weather has warmed up enough that the maple trees are running with sap, and we can begin collecting sap to make maple syrup. Most people are familiar with the process, you drill a hole in the tree, hammer in a spile (an enclosed trough about 2 inches long) and put up a bucket. Over the last couple of days, we put 50 buckets up. We need a lot of buckets up because it takes 40 buckets of sap to make 1 bucket of syrup - and we like a lot of syrup. The sap doesn't run all the time, only when the weather is ideal, when it goes below 10oC at night and up to 8oC or so in the day. At times the sap wont run on a rainy day, or if the wind is too cold. Theres all sorts of factors that contribute. We've found that we get sap earlier by tapping on the south side of the tree, but the north side still will run after the south side has stopped. Either way, its a joyful thing when the sap starts running. Its a SURE sign that spring is coming - its the official thaw-out. Because we don't have the best set up for boiling the sap into syrup, we save our sap in (clean) garbage cans until we have time to boil it. We usually collect during the week and boil on the weekend. Boiling takes a long time, especially when youre boiling down 100-200 litres of sap. We have 2 wood stoves set up that get real hot on top, then we have one stove for heating the sap and one that's a more 'serious' boiler. We use shallow pans no more than 4 inches high (that never get that full). As the sap level goes down on the boiler, we add warm sap from the warmer, then fill the warmer up again with cold sap. The first year we boiled on the BBQ, and did things the hard way. We had a deep pot and we were always adding ice cold sap to the boiling water and that slowed down the process a LOT. If you want to make maple syrup, don't do it that way! When we've worked through most of our sap and want to finish off for the day (which ends up being late at night), we empty the contents of the boiler pan into smaller pots, bring them in the house and finish them on the stove. That way we can control the temperature and prevent it from burning. We store our finished product in mason jars and keep them in the freezer. Although the maple syrup run is starting late this year, if the weather only warms up slowly, we can get as much as a month of collecting. We know when its time to take our buckets and spiles down when the sap starts getting bitter and stops running altogether. The holes that we drill in the trees are small and grow back in within a year or two. Tapping trees does no damage to the tree if you tap them properly. We tap about 4' high off the ground, only one tap if the tree is more than 2' across, don't tap a tree less that 9" across etc. Its best to do some research before you start tapping, just so your familiar with whats best. Nothing is more rewarding than being able to enjoy the fruit of your labour, all year round!

Rabbit Meat is Great to Eat!

So the verdict on rabbit meat is... ITS DELICIOUS! Its not true that it tastes like chicken, it tastes like turkey! If you can get past the strange bone structure, you could deceive anyone that it is in fact turkey. Its very tender and moist, and after roasting 4 hours at 350oF (in my roaster - not the oven), it fell off the bone. There isn't any skin on the rabbit, obviously, but the fat on it is nice like chicken fat and adds flavor. Its not horrible fat like deer fat. The rabbit that I roasted was 2.5lb and it comfortably fed 4. There was lots of leftover, so I do believe it will be rabbit fried rice tonight.  All I did with the rabbit was salted and peppered it, threw on some garlic, and roasted onions, potatoes and carrots with the rabbit. The meat when cooked is white and there is some dark meat as well, same colour as turkey. Instead of breast meat, there are long pieces of meat from the back. The "drumsticks" are significantly larger than a birds, if you consider how a bunny sits on its haunches. And the "wings" are smaller than chickens. When I took out the rabbit from the package, it honestly looked like an overgrown squirrel. I hope we didn't get duped, in which case, squirrel is delicious haha. If you can find locally grown meat rabbits to buy, its worth it, theyre great, but expect to pay enough for them. They are a specialty item after all.
See the picture below and just try to tell me that you don't want to try it!