But wait! There’s more!
Last one! Meet the test egg. I usually call her Baby.
My incubator came before my Ebay eggs and I wanted to test out the functions, so I pinched an egg from my own flock to experiment with.
Incubators do three things: heat, humidity and turn the eggs regularly. Well, some of them don’t do that last thing and you have to do it by hand, but I got a good one. 100% hatch, y’all.
When the eggs came and it was all ready to go, I thought “what the heck?” and left the test egg in with the others. I really didn’t think, after all the handling, it would hatch.
I was very excited when I candled the eggs on day 7 and Baby was swimming around inside. Yes, they do that. Freaked me right out.
So this is the child of Sam and Millie. He’s off-white, she’s mille fleur and Baby is the same silver color as Spoon. Chicken genetics are very complicated.
She’s much smaller than the polands. She’s smaller than the other pekins, even (she came from a tiny egg from a young hen, so it’s not surprising). But she can see and the polands can’t, so she runs rings around them. And me. Flighty little miss.
And that is my flock: nine chickens. Four male, five female. Four pekins, five polands. I have comfortable accommodations for six, so things are a little tight.
Back to normal next week, but I got one more weekend and I’m going to laze right through it. Happy Friday!
Posted: January 3rd, 2020 under animals, birds.
Comments: 8
Comments
Comment from DurnedYankee
Time: January 3, 2020, 8:35 pm
What’s her official position on Transgenderized Global Climate Change and Brexit?
Comment from OldFert
Time: January 3, 2020, 9:27 pm
You amaze me. I never thought I’d be reading a blog about chickens.
Well done.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: January 3, 2020, 9:37 pm
She’s agnostic, Durned.
If you ever want to experience epic geekery, try any of the chicken color genetics groups on FaceBook. The way you arrive at different colors by breeding other colors.
Lavender, which I believe Sam technically is, can be arrived at by breeding a black father and a white mother (I think), or by breeding lavender to lavender.
I reckon Baby is the color she is because of that black ancestor. She’s like a…super dark lavender.
Comment from DurnedYankee
Time: January 4, 2020, 1:35 pm
Epic geekery is also worrying about “canon” when watching Witcher.
Or
getting angry about Arwen Evenstar, never known to even touch a sword (except in a porn version with double entendre references to Aragorn’s ‘weapon’…Relax! I just made that up!) being the one the Nazgul had to fear at the ford of Bruinen when it was really Glorfindel!
I denounce myself.
Comment from weasel again
Time: January 4, 2020, 6:32 pm
I don’t have Netflix 🙁
Comment from BJM
Time: January 4, 2020, 10:49 pm
Stoaty I can see why you’re so enchanted with this flock …beauties all.
Not sure if it’s geekery or peak Anglophile-ness…but I spent a hour watching ordinary Brits wander through Blenheim’s Illuminated Christmas Light Trail and Alice in Wonderland dioramas in the Palace. Marvelous it was too.
Waddesdon Manor, meh. I guess to be fair Waddesdon doesn’t have the vast interior spaces of Blenheim. They fluffed up some rooms and trotted out the second best stuff for the peasants to admire. Although there was one amazing laser display in the grounds that looked like golden Aspen leaves swirling from the ground into pale eerily lit trees…it was fairy dust magical.
Comment from Drew458
Time: January 5, 2020, 1:56 am
Nine! Nine chooks! Get out there and enlarge their run and go for an even dozen. Pretty soon you’ll be selling eggs out by the mailbox.
Comment from Bob Mulroy
Time: January 9, 2020, 11:56 pm
I forgot to mention, but the “free rooster – not for food!” ads are starting on our local farm and garden forums again.
A bit early, I think.
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