14 days

The changes are pretty subtle for the last week.

So why am I not writing much these days? I don't know, not much to say I guess. I really busted my butt drawing this weekend and got quite a bit done. I put almost 100 more eggs in the incubator today. I will still collect eggs from the Black Rosecombs for a while longer, but probably not too much longer. The chicks are really a lot of work--twice a day feed and water, change light bulbs twice a day (white lights during the day, red lights at night... and then when it's really hot they get fluorescent light during the day and no light at night). Oh goodness, now I have to explain this, I can't resist. They need daytime and nighttime. Without a day/night cycle, they get extremely aggressive (they need sleep!). For the first week they get white light full-time, as aggression is not an issue at that age, they sleep a lot anyway, and they need to eat a lot. But after that I want them awake during the day and asleep at night. It's too chilly at night to turn the lights off, so I use red lights (but then when they are older, or when it's warmer, I will just shut the lights off entirely). They are somewhat active (versus how they would be with the lights off) but for the most part they will just sleep with the red lights on. In the daytime I switch to white lights, so they are up and eating. If it's too warm for regular lights, I use fluorescent so they don't get too hot. I have to use some light during the day because the brooders are dark enough that they will just stay asleep!

Anyway, that was long-winded and rambly, but there's today's lesson in light bulbs. :-)

13 days

12 days and other things

Big change overnight! Note that there is a bit more ambient light in this pic than in others, so the shell is picking up some reflection. I'll try to get a better one tomorrow...

The third batch of chicks hatched this Wednesday and Thursday. Caught me off guard, I'd forgotten I set them early since that was the weekend I went to Ventura, and it's hard to believe that was three weeks ago... Time does fly. It was a small batch, but a high hatch rate. I am going to try lowering the incubator humidity even more though because that may be part of the issue. It's always something. I think I may wrap up hatching pretty soon though (although the eggs will be hatching for three weeks after I stop putting them in the incubator!), and it's looking highly likely that I will be selling eggs.

Anyway, here are the numbers from batch 2, which will not interest you if you aren't a fellow chicken person! :-)

T: Brassy male & Blue Brassy male X Brassy, Blue Brassy, BBB Splash females = 4 Brassy, 5 Blue Brassy
B: BBRed male X Brown Red females = 6 BBRed, 2 Brown Red
T1: BBRed male X F1 Crele female = 1 BBRed
T2: F1 Crele male X BBRed females = 2 BBRed, 1 Crele (by this I mean it has a white spot on the head)
T4: Black male X F1 Cuckoo females = 1 Cuckoo, 2 Black
T5: Black male X F1 Cuckoo females = 1 Cuckoo, 4 Black
T7: Brown Red male X BBRed females = 3 BBRed, 3 Brown Red
N1: BBRed X BBRed = 3 BBRed
N4: Black X Black = 1 Brassy Back
N5: Black X Black = 4 Black

11 days

10 days

I am going to try to start photographing the same side of the egg every day.

If you haven't quite been able to figure out what it is I'm photographing, this is how it looks with the room light on. That black thing is the "candler" which is pretty much like a flashlight, except it plugs in to the wall. It was not plugged in when I took this pic though. So if I turn the lights off and plug the candler in, then it looks like the picture above!

I haven't talked about art for a while have I... Don't want you thinking all I do is sit around and candle chicken eggs. I'm still drawing chickens all the time, so there's really not much to talk about. I do need to get some horse art done within the next couple weeks so that I will have something to enter at Draft Horse Classic. I have one etching to enter, but I would like to submit at least two things. Hmmm...

9 days

8 days, and other things

So here's the egg at day 8. The embryo moves all over the place, but I happened to catch it on this side of the egg just by chance (the camera is on a tripod and I'm using a timer to take the pics, so it's pure chance to catch it). So it may or may not be there in other pics after this, just means it moves around a lot:

It really is amazing to think about the process of hatching (note, a chick does NOT hatch all nice and fluffy! They are wet and and kinda gross when they hatch! This one is about 48 hours old.):

In other news, Sampson, the colt I boarded for the last year, went home on Sunday. I think Shylah misses him. She hung out by the gate next to Gwen all day, which she hasn't done for a LONG time. She's been quiet and not neighed for him though. He'll be back for the occasional play date and some training sessions in the round pen, but he'll get to see his owner a lot more often now since he's with her other horses. So it works out well. I don't know what his measurements are now but he's a tank. When he came here he was the same height as Shylah (about 14 hands at the time) and now he towers over Gwen. There may be another horse moving in for boarding (not sure of the duration yet). More details if it happens... Here's a pic of Sampson though:

Nope, not in it

I just watched Fowl Play at my neighbor's house, and those are NOT my hands doing the bird-grooming. Sadly, I shall not be famous from this. I am in it though, far off in the distance I can be seen sitting at my art booth at PPBA in January. But you'd really not know it was me, it's a blob, but I know I was sitting there and therefore it's me. Anyway, it was entertaining.

7 days

The embryo is along the bottom part of the egg at the moment when this was taken:


A QuickTime movie showing the embryo moving within the egg (they are quite lively!)

poultry on television

Be sure to watch "Fowl Play" on Animal Planet tonight at 8pm (it reruns a few other times too). Unfortunately I don't have cable so I won't be watching it but hopefully will be able to acquire a copy a bit later in the week. Should be interesting. I will know people in it. My birds might be in it. My hand might be in it (I was filmed while grooming a bird at the show in Stockton).