Planting Weekend

The long weekend was spent trying to tackle my very first vegetable/flower/herb/plum tree all-in-one bed from scratch.  I found this picture on a magazine several years ago and kept it in my wallet and told myself one day I will make a garden like this.  And my husband and I finally did it!  We already have two plum trees and so we dug up around one of the plum trees.  Below’s the original plan of the plot I was going to do.

 At first it felt such a daunting task so I was going to make a much smaller version.  However when I stopped by Baltimore Valley Garden Centre, I got carried away with the variety of vegetables they sell and they are cheap ($1.50 per cell which contains about 2 to 4 plants).  And the quality of plants they sell are way much better than the big box garden centres.  I couldn’t find sorrel and chives though.  And I have no idea what is sweet cicely.  I ended up with too many marigolds and basil for some reason. 

Below is how my vegetable/flower garden ended up with.  It was a lot of work.  Definitely got a high intensity work out as we didn't use any power tools or tillers.  We dug up the grass using a shovel.  Not quite the same as the magazine clipping I saved.  But hey it's done.  We put a wire mesh around it to protect it from the chickens.  It’s not even attached.  Only one end is tied up to one of the poles. 

I have so many marigolds but it's okay I think since they will protect the tomatoes from pests.  I ran out of mulch so the upper part has the soil still exposed.  I'll finish it this weekend.  And I hope I won't get lazy taking care of these plants.

 And below are some of the plants I have.  There are some purple version of basil but I didn’t get a chance to take a picture. I have squash (acorn, spaghetti, buttercup varieties), tiny tomatoes, thyme, oregano, dill.  My spacing is too close to each other though.  I hope it will still work.

And below's the pictures of the chickens helping (or rather getting in the way) loosen up the soil.

No luck with ducks

My first attempt on hatching duck eggs didn’t end well at all.  I mixed them with the chicken eggs in the incubator which I know is not supposed to be done but I did it anyway.  I took a chance because I only had 5 duck eggs to start with and I have a 48-egg capacity incubator and so I didn’t want to ‘waste’ the space.  It takes 28 days for duck eggs to hatch while chicken takes 21 days.  And they have different timing requirements on when to stop turning the eggs.

They were already more than 24 hours delayed before it started pipping.  And just when I thought I’ve hit the rock bottom, the incubator all of a sudden quit working while the first duck egg was pipping and the beak was actually out of the shell moving.  I quickly transferred the 3 duck eggs in a box and placed it under a heat lamp in an attempt to save them.  It didn’t work.  I could not control the humidity and not having a thermometer handy, I couldn’t figure out whether it’s too hot or cold for hatching to complete.

I helped the first 2 ducklings hatch because they were struggling for so long cracking the egg shell and at some point they stopped chirping (pictures below)

The 3rd duckling (not pictured), I didn't help in the hatching process at all but still didn't make it.  

I've contacted the guy who sold me incubator and he will replace the incubator with another one. You definitely get what you pay for when it comes to egg incubators.  This one seems to be a piece of junk.  It quit working at the very crucial hatching time.

I'm not putting all the blame on the incubator because I did manage to hatch several chicken eggs in it.  So next time I incubate duck eggs, I will not mix with chicken eggs anymore.

It's frustrating. I simply wanted at least one duckling.  But I'll try again.

4-Week old chicks gone outside for the first time

Here are some of the video and pictures of the 4-week old chicks.  There are 15 of them. They are all barnyard crosses.  I have a variety of breeds...Barred Rock, Dorking cross, Columbian Rock, Black Australorp, Rhode Island Red.

I'm sexy and I know it...

Must be a Barred Rock.

The adult chickens are still inside the run to keep them separate

What you lookin at?  Don't you have a ton of pictures already?

I love this one too.

Blond chick

Hello there!

This chick jumped on my lap on its own.

This one I just noticed has splayed legs unfortunately.

This one has splayed legs.  Notice it's right leg slightly twisted outwards.  It's very active though.

Another favourite of mine.

Hello!

Oh and this one too is my favourite.  Oh my, they are all my favourites.

Black Austrolorp cross.  This one did not have down feather on its back when it hatched.

I love the colour combination

Gorgeous

This is the chick with splayed leg.  Don't mind my slippers.  My dogs ate the other pair.

Hatching eggs take 2

How I spent my 2-day vacation – chicken adventure continues...

It’s been a tiring but very rewarding couple of days.  I’m off from my day job and all the chicks had hatched.  This is the second batch of incubated eggs.  Well, the hatch rate is still as pathetic as my first batch.  I’m now starting to think my cheap incubator’s temperature reading isn’t accurate.  And there’s no way I can control the humidity.  I can only add more water to increase the humidity.  But there’s nothing I can do to decrease it except opening the lid which makes the temperature go down.  The hatching was a bit delayed like last time.  This time I have 3 duck eggs which I have to leave for another 6 days.  The incubation period for duck eggs is 28 days whereas for chickens it’s only 21 days.

The hatch rate this time is 48.5% among the fertile eggs.  Not much of a difference from last time’s 47.5%.  There is only one infertile egg this time.  Here’s a summary of what happened this time.

Line		Chicken
A	Eggs set	34
B	Not fertile	1
C	Dead at first candling	4
D	Dead at second candling	1
E	Full-term, failed to pip	10
F	Pipped, failed to hatch	2
G	Total lost = B+C+D+E+F	18
H	Total hatched = A-G	16
I	Percent hatched = H x 100/A	47%
J	Percent of fertiles hatched = H x 100 / (A-B)	48.5%

Here are some of the day old chicks…There are 9 white/brown chicks and 7 blackish chicks.  Total of 16.

I had to very quickly satinize the incubator because there are still 3 duck eggs in there.  I temporarily put them outside on the porch in the sun and covered with cloth since it was warm today (28 C).  
 

Below’s the picture of the eggs that did not pip.  As soon as I was done putting back the duck eggs and the turning tray in the incubator, I was ready to discard these eggs.  Unfortunately, I heard a random chirp or two in one of these eggs.  I could not identify which one though and it’s already too late to put it back in the incubator.  So I discarded all eggs that did not pip after 36 hours of expected hatching.  I learned from last time that eggs that are very late in hatching end up dying within 24 hours of hatching anyway.  Egg 902 I already suspected during 2^nd candling that it may have a blood ring.

And on top of that, I brought the 4-week old chicks outside for the first time.  But I brought them back inside the house late afternoon as it still gets cold at night.  I wasn’t sure it would work but it turned out the chicks enjoyed scratching the ground for the first time.  Stay tuned for another blog.