Lockwood Woods

I’m really behind on my posting, but I've had a lot of homework and big things just keep happening before I can post about the big thing that happened before that, so settle in for a catcher upper post=) Firstly I started candling Buffy’s eggs with a flashlight almost every day from day 3 of incubation. At first all I could see was a speck, then a spot with gossamer like veins branching from it, then a pulsing blob with veins over most of the egg, then… you get the picture till the entire egg was black. We removed 2 eggs that never developed specks, spots , or blobs, which left 6 potential hatchers. On the evening of the 20^th day we apprehensively called our house-sitter and found that all 6 eggs had hatched. I was very excited, and thankful, because on day 15 Buffy tired of her maternal duty got off her nest, jumped the divider, and mingled with the rest of the flock for an hour or so before I came in and found a motherless moving box full of COLD eggs. Luckily she resumed her maternal duties after I threw her back with her eggs and thankfully all the blobs survived their chilly experience.

They are truly adorable little balls of fluff, now 3 weeks old, and getting big. We let them out to range with the rest of the flock, and enjoy watching momma hen unleash her fury on any hen unfortunate enough to get too close to her brood. This is her fluffed up like a bowling ball warning me to back off, she has since gotten used to me and doesn't mind when I cuddle the chicks.They are a cute mix, 1 speckled Sussex x Buff Orp , 2 Rhode Island Red x Buff Orp and 3 pure Buff Orps.

If you counted the little heads in the above pic you may have noticed that there are in fact 7 little chicks under momma. On the day of our return our neighbor offered me a lone americauna chick from her own flock. How could I say no? The Americauna breed is known for it's tinted eggs, green, blue, pink, or just plain old brown. She is the same age as our own chicks so I thought I could smuggle her in with momma's babies, so I wouldn't have to brood her inside. But the momma bird knew that something was amiss, and chased the poor thing from her own babies. So what do I do, but brood her inside. She was lonely so I gave her a stuffed animal and a mirror to keep her company.

A few days later was the day of the biannual livestock sale. I had been looking forward to this for a while. So I got up early on a Saturday morning, now that is sacrifice, with both my parents to peruse the hundreds of cages full of critters. Chicks, chickens, bantams, ducks, quail, doves, puppies, turkeys, geese, guineas, llamas, donkeys, miniature horseys, sheep, goats, piglets, etc. We did not come home empty handed. I bought 4 light brahmas and 5 welsummers both breeds I've been interested in for a while. These are all in the bathroom, and have been for a whole week. the younger welys have taken over the mirror's job of keeping the americauna company. On a warm afternoon I took them outside to run around and eat some grass and bugsthe big whitish ones are the brahmas, the browny ones are welsummers, and the bluish one is the americaunaIsn't this one adorable.
Unfortunately that is not all that's new. We lost one of our ducks to a predator =( We suspect a fox. It was in the middle of the day, when we heard the roosters sounding the alarm like crazy, we ran outside and the female rouen , mallard looking one, was missing. We never found any trace.
I've been much more carefully about when I let them out now.
--Anna