I get busy with a lot of things. Some times I think I have some sort of attention deficit disorder. I worry about it for a couple seconds. Then I forget. (insert smiley here)
The blog will get updated once a week, I think. Trying.
Speaking of (trying) this has been making me crazy.
Timeline: January 2012 every hen wants to sit on eggs. I oblige them, leaving all those delectable bantam eggs under hens. Then I go to ebay and buy a bunch of bantam Ameraucana hatching eggs, to place under the sitting hens.
Ameraucana chickens are a mix of Araucana and various types. The Araucana is from Chile (according to Wikipedia) and is a smallish chicken that lays blue/green eggs. They have no tails, and have funny tufts near their ears.
Here is Pearl. She is an Ameraucana (can you see the tufts by her ears? In Araucanas the tufts are more pronounced)
Actually the tufts make her look like she has puffy cheeks. Anyway, according to the Internet, pure Araucanas are rare because the gene that makes the tufts causes a high percentage of chick deaths in the shell. So people crossed the Araucanas with other breeds that are hardier.
The legend is that the chicken will lay the same color egg as the color she hatched out of. Wrong. In the front is a piece of Pearl's hatch egg (off to the left). It is turquoise. In back is one of her eggs, which is olive.
See how I have drifted?
So, January 2012 the hens are sitting on their eggs and a bunch of Ameraucana eggs I got from ebay. Nothing. I mean, chicks did develop in some eggs, but nothing hatched and eventually Chibi
ATE the eggs. She looks so innocent in this photo, doesn't she? Chibi is the size of a softball when she is fully fluffed out. But she can be the meanest.
Fast forward to April 2012. A hen wants to set eggs. She produces and egg and sits on it. She encourages other hens to lay eggs in her nest. Oh boy! I mark each egg with its mother and the date. A second hen scrunches herself into the nest, sharing setting times with the first hen. In my past experience this means only good things: a nest-full of chicks and two moms who share the work.
I wait 24 hours then I (you know what's next, right?) order eggs on ebay from the same person who sold me Pearl's egg.
Two hours or so later, both hens abandon the nest. They occasionally drift by and sit for a few, but no one is incubating with intensity.
Over the next day, I buy a big box from the UPS store and turn it into a chicken maternity ward. I place it in my dining room and try our eggs with a hen. No. Okay, I move it to the garage by the other chickens. No. I put each hen, one at a time, for 3 or so hours, in the box. Nothing remotely resembling motherhood is going on.
Meanwhile the eggs have arrived (fast!). My mailman understands such things as fresh hatching eggs and places the box right by the door. He knocks insistently, calling out, "Hey, they're here!"
Chicken people are a generous lot. I ordered 10 bantam eggs. I received 18.
Out of time, out of ideas. I call the local feed store (God bless El Mel, Florissant, MO) and John confirms that yes, he has a good incubator. I could always make one since they are just glorified styrofoam fish boxes, he says. Yes, I agree. But I am out of time.
An incubator tries to duplicate the underside of a hen, minus the smell. (Incubating hens smell odd-all the hormones they generate in order to sit on a nest smell really strange). So, the incubator has heat, humidity, and some circulation. I turn the eggs 3 times a day and constantly monitor the temp and humidity.
This is easy since the only place the whole she-bang can go is on my kitchen counter, which I pass many, many times a day.
This has been a trying experience. Trying to get the hens to set. Trying to understand how to use an incubator. Trying to get it all right. Trying my patience.
Only 18 or so days to go.
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