Eggs all Over

The thing about having so many chickens and ducks is the volume of eggs produced by them.  I don't keep up with them very well sometimes either.  I gather them, but I have not been counting them every day like I was.  Yesterday I got 56 chicken eggs and 7 duck eggs.  I do sell some, but they build up pretty fast and I find myself with mountains of eggs sitting everywhere in my kitchen.  I got some plastic egg trays off of eBay to help with storage.  It is easier to wash them and the plastic doesn't deteriorate like the cardboard flats.  But, I fill up two flats a day...so after the original 6 I ordered, I got I think, 16 more.  Now I need a carrier for them.  We finally got a hold of someone at the food pantry in the nearby town and have been donating eggs to it...so far about 75 dozen.  As soon as I sent everything I had...I had two customers that bought from me...one bought 8 packs of 18, the other bought 6 dozen.  I had to wash and refrigerate what I had left on the counter...and for a very short while my counters were cleaned off.  I am back to a full mini fridge and probably 10 dozen on my counter of chicken eggs, I probably have about 14 dozen duck eggs now too...I guess I better get the dehydrator out again.

We moved the geese outside a few weeks ago, they are beautiful little geese with all their feathers coming in nicely.  We put Thor and Loki, our male geese, out of the pen and let the girls out in the pen yesterday they did a little chicken chasing but, it sure looked like they were happy to get out and stretch their wings.  We are starting the process of them bounding with a mate.  We caught two And put bright orange zip ties on their legs to help identify them as Loki's girls.  Then we had a supervised visit with Loki.

I started this post almost two weeks ago, we had tradgety strike since then.  One of our baby geese was killed by a predator.  My husband comes home from work and we do what we call second dinner.  Lol...we feed all of the poultry the fermented feed the second time for the day.  He likes giving out scratch grains to the ducks and geese up by the back patio, I opened the gate from their pen and we had a stampeded out towards him, I do a bit of a head count when I go out...well, kind of...I look for specific chickens, and do a quick look at the ducks and geese.  One was missing...I saw her laying by the fence.  Normally all four of the baby geese would be together, no more than feet away from each other...I ran to the one next to the fence praying that she was asleep, or maybe stuck...but, she was dead...she was still warm so whatever killed her had not been gone long.  I don't remember what I said but Crew came running, it was his favorite little goose.  He gently pulled her head through the fence and started looking her over.  We didn't see any blood on her, but discovered about a two inch slit at the base of her neck.  I felt sick, just wanted to cry...we think it was a bird of prey, but the first daytime attack we have had.  The dogs were in the yard only about 50 feet from where I found her.  The whole area is fenced, actually there are several fences and areas within areas...so whatever it was had to fly.  It must have landed in my upper vegetable garden area, she may have been sleeping by the fence when it attacked her and pulled her head through the fence.  It didn't have time to eat her, her wound was not obvious and the feathers were not bloody.  It just pisses me off that with all the rabbits and squirrels running around here that it had to take out one of our baby geese.  I say baby goose...it is not like it was small, she probably weighed about 6 or 7 pounds and was about the same body sized as a full grown duck, just a longer set of legs and long neck.  I had to go do chores, I had to try and not think about her death and do something else before I broke down in tears.  I went and gathered eggs, feed and water the baby chickens.

Crew disappeared with the goose.  We have talked about aviary netting, but we have a large area to cover...and it would take an awful lot to protect them from overhead.  I already have scare tape on a lot of the fencing, I have a decoy owl and falcon...and those didn't stop the bird of prey...even my dogs barking apparently did not deter it.  We may try running fine fishing wire overhead, but that would require taller posts...we have since let the adult male geese have access to the girls, we are hoping that Thor and Loki will protect them, their wingspan is about 5 feet now...so whatever bird of prey would have to be pretty huge to want to tackle an 18 pound mad goose.

Give and Take

Ms McCluckinson (one of my first chickens) did not make it, she steadily got worse and was just laying on her side.  I would touch her and she would kick her legs a little and that was it.  She could no longer stand or walk so we made the decision to put her down.  After working on her for two weeks and seeing no improvement, I gave up.  Sometimes you just don't succeed and it is hard not being able to help.  I didn't do a necropsy on her, I figured I wouldn't know what I was looking for anyway.  She would not eat or drink any more, several times I thought she had died, but she would kick when I touched her.  I wonder if she was bitten by a spider or something, we have a lot of spiders out here.  It sounds silly but one night we were outside and my surrogate son Mark turned a flashlight on a field of grass out back, and you could see tons of little glowing eyes...he said they were spiders.  It has sort of creeped me out ever since.  

I have been busy as usual.  I have hatched several small batches of chickens, but have not had very good hatch rates, so I am continuing to try.  We put our first hatches out in what I call the "Sidecar" yesterday.  I had to wait almost two weeks longer than planned.  I have slowly been working on breeding pens, and all the roosters that were in the "Sidecar" were transferred to a breeding pen.  Then about 35 chicks were transferred to the sidecar, after I gave it a good cleaning and spread fresh straw and made a short roost for them.  They spent a short while in the corner, then I got the food and water inside and they came over to eat and drink.  I was afraid the hanging waterer was to high, but they were able to reach it without a problem.  I checked on them several times and they really seemed to like the fresh air and sunshine.  This batch of chicks had chicks I ordered from a hatchery in it too...Dominiques, Gold and Silver Laced Wyandottes and Gold Laced Polish.  Some of our barnyard mixes and some Barnevelders I hatched.  

Oh, and the reason I waited to move the chicks...I had an outbreak of Coccidiosis.  I lost three chicks before I got it under control, people on one of the Facebook groups for chickens I am on said it happens when you get hatchery chicks sometimes.  Coccidosis is a common disease...or maybe I should say parasite?  It is like nematodes in the ground and can be passed on shoes, in feces, by contact.  It causes bloody poop, lethargy and discomfort...and sometimes death in chickens...it messes with their intestines.  A simple treatment in the water or feed treats it.  I normally use the Medicated feed for my chicks because of it, but I had not this time because of the baby geese.  I will not make that mistake again.  I don't like my babies dying on me or looking so miserable.  Normally they slowly get use to the types of Cocci type nematodes and eggs in the ground, but when you introduce chicks from somewhere else, they can bring a different kind with them...even a person who walked somewhere else can bring them, or a wild bird or other animal.  I got lucky, the Chicken Health Handbook I have said it is common to loose up to 30% of your flock...so 3 out of the 60 chickens in the brooder room is pretty good.  I got medicated feed and started feeding it to the rest of my chicks.

In the mean time, we expanded the chicken, ducks and geeses free range area.  I pulled up the fencing to my lower garden plot that never got planted and expanded it out almost to the road up to the lake.  I will have to rethink my garden areas, but with all the rain we get, the area I selected when we were having drought conditions, turned out not to be the best place to have a garden.  I may have to move flowers around the patio area and some blueberry bushes, because the poultry seems to like eating them and digging up the flower beds.  It is either that or fence around them.  I have been inspecting all the trees I planted, or transplanted and so far all appear to be nice and healthy.  I have baby apples, pears, plums and peaches coming on to all of them...and all 4 of the pecan trees I planted are starting to leaf out.  Two of my grapevines died, but the rest are getting their leaves and a few have baby grapes on them too.  I tilled up a section of the front yard and hope to get a bunch of flowers going in it...but, we have been seeing a lot of rabbits out in the yard...so I am not sure how that will go.  All of my plant starts are looking good, some are ready to put in the ground.  I need to get more started too.  Now if I could make myself weed my herb garden and strawberry patch...