The Magpie Population

Let's start with my first post about Betty and her broody ways - go HERE to check out that post. 

Just last night Tom looked at me and said that he didn't think that those eggs were fertile and asked what we should do. Well, I thought about it for a second and then said that it take about 4 weeks for ducklings to hatch. It hasn't been quite 4 weeks yet so we need to wait. Good thing we did because Betty successfully added to our Magpie Duck population by hatching out three more ducklings.

Shortly after I arrived to work this morning I got a message from Tom saying that Betty was a surrogate mother again...YAY. After a couple of more hours he took this photo and sent it to me:

Duckling No. 1

There was no sign of other ducklings since this photo. So he was thinking that just one of the eggs was good. Again, I told him we had to wait.

He came to Hazel Dell and we went on our lunch time Pokemon hunt as we do most days. After he arrived home I received the following message:

"I think you could put a rock under betty and she could hatch it. We have 3 new duck babies."

It's good to know that Gordon is doing his job and the girls are popping out fertile eggs! These three make eight Magpies now. We'll see how many last to adult age. Out of the four last year we have one. Two were taken by a predator and one was probably squished by momma. I am hoping that hey will all survive. If they do survive we might have two "gangs" and Princess Leona. We'll just deal with the logistics of the ducks later when it becomes a thing. 

This will work out in our favor in the future. If our Turkey hens don't show interest in nesting and sitting on eggs we always have Betty. Actually, we could take a certain amount of the turkey's eggs and then give them to Betty. Then let the turkeys nest with any eggs they lay after, if they choose to. Another idea, we could just maybe sell those eggs to someone who is interested in White Holland Turkeys.

For now, we are going to enjoy the three new babies on our farm. I'm REALLY excited to get home and see them, if Betty will let me.

We Couldn't Break Her

Over a week ago Tom put Betty into Broody Jail. She was in jail for the amount of time that we leave hens in jail that usually sufficiently breaks them of wanting to sit on eggs.

Not with our Betty. She went broody really fast after being released back into the general population. When we figured this out, it was Friday (August 21st). During our evening after dinner routine I had enough of her wandering around and making her broody noises. I broke down and said we need to give her eggs since she has found her calling in the chicken world. A world that has NO rooster by the way...I gave her duck eggs. Again. Last year she hatched out a couple of ducklings in May and then again in late summer. from the four that she hatched, we still have one.

Betty with Walter & Leona

We started something with her by letting her sit on the eggs and it appears that she is not willing to end her mothering ways. Granted she is a good momma. She takes REALLY good care of her babies! So well, that we are not allowed to come within grabbing distance of her or the babies. Let alone look in her general direction - sometimes.

Back to the eggs, we (I) gave her three. She also has a nest that is better for when the ducklings hatch and she'll be able to get them out of the garage whenever she likes. Last year she chose a storage tote that had some straw or and pine shavings in it to set up her broody hen shop.

This is what she has this time -

An milk crate placed in a storage bin that is on its side

Her very serious look

If she continues to be broody, I might just let her be broody. Depending on how things go with the turkeys she might be our ticket to adding more White Holland chicks to our flock. However, she is so protective that she might not allow the poults to join their own kind once they are hatched. We'll have to watch the turkeys and see if they will be broody. Turkeys raising turkeys would be my first choice. However, if we had to, we'll turn to Betty for her incubating services.

Farm Life, Best Life with a broody hen!

Betty

Betty is back at it!

A few weeks ago I said out loud that I didn't want to try to break Betty's broody the next time it comes around. I wasn't thinking that a few weeks after uttering those words that she would want to sit. She must have heard me...tricksey little hen! Then she went broody and Tom said that he would like to give Betty a couple of eggs.

What would be great is that these will be females. With my luck we'll get two drakes. What would be good is that the eggs hatch at all. Not that we doubt they will, there is a chance that they won't. If they do hatch that would happen around September 24. My thought is that I could get some chicks from the local farm store and take the ducklings from her and raise them with the chicks. We ended up raising W & L after 4 weeks so it seems like maybe we should just raise them from the beginning. Of course the problem with that plan would be that she is the momma and she was a good one to the first two that she hatched. So, I need to think about this carefully over the next few weeks before the eggs hatch.

What we have observed is that W & L are more duck like than the Magpie Squad who were hatched and then shipped to the feed store. They had to figure out things on their own. Other than showing them the water and their food, they followed their instinct and that really only goes so far. The thing that I do like about the Squad is that they are not totally skittish around us.

Betty is great though - every couple of days she will totally tear out of her nesting box (which is a tote) and get down to business. Eating, getting hydrated and get in a dust bath. Each task is done with great urgency. Unfortunately I usually don't get to witness her time OFF of the eggs because I am at work most of the time she goes into this routine. So, the garage door HAS to be open just wide enough so she can get out of there!

Growing the Magpie Squad wasn't something that I thought would really happen. However, it looks like Betty is our ticket to the charming and delightful Magpie Duck. I am glad to add a couple more, but what would be really great - one of the magpie girls going broody and hatching her own clutch of eggs. I guess this will have to do for now.

Life on the farm is time well spent.

New Babies!

A month ago we stuck some duck eggs under our broody hen, Betty...go HERE for that post.

Last Friday morning as I started to do the morning chores I decided to check in on Miss Betty and I saw this:

So exciting! Our broody-hen-hatching-duck-egg experiment worked! Well, I didn't doubt her ability to sit on the eggs until they hatched...just what she would do when they actually came out and they were NOT chicks.

She seems to be doing alright with them and is very protective, because they are her babies. However, I have observed her clucking at them as she would if she had chicks instead and they are not responding. It would be nice to know if she thinks that this is weird or not. She's just doing what comes natural and the ducklings are doing what comes natural to them. Maybe I'm overthinking this whole thing for her.

The ducklings are doing fine and they spend time underneath momma when they are in the garage - they do play around a little too. They are both quite active and got to spend the majority of the day outside with Betty yesterday. She does a good job at protecting them. Even with the ducks and goslings hanging around.

It will be fun to see how they progress over the next few weeks. I hope that they will transition to being part of the flock when the time comes. That should be in a few weeks - they are only 4 days old at this point.

Betty my be our ticket to more Magpie Ducks! A couple of weeks ago Miss Bernadette thought that she wanted to be broody and spent one day - about 8 hours - sitting on some eggs. Toward the end of the day, her empty stomach won and she left the nest and hasn't gone back.

Little Stinker!

It would have been nice to have one of the Magpie Girls sit on eggs, but evidently that is something that is not a part of their constitution. Good thing we have a surrogate in Betty. We'll increase the Magpie population yet!

Farm Life is best with baby waterfowl!

Broody Happens

It's just best to not fight nature.

We have one Java hen who routinely jumps the fence and forages all over the place.

Every. Single. Day.

If she doesn't jump the fence - which is rare - it might just be weather related. We could have tried to keep her penned up, but it doesn't do any good.

Over the past few days I have been observing her and I started to get the idea that she just might be broody. Well, yesterday I wanted to get her egg and get her back to the others. So I did what I needed to do which is get too close to her nest. She jumped out and got all agitated. She was running outside with all her feathers ruffled and puffed up. However, the attitude adjustment came when she realized that she would be heading back and getting some scratch with the other hens. She's not so dumb.

This morning, I went out to take care of the girls and released them from the coop and after they settled down I started to count the hens, just to make sure that they all made it in last night. First I started by counting the Javas. It's not hard to count them as they are black and white instead of black like the Jerseys and the Australorps. I kept coming up with five hens...there should be six. After looking in the coop, like one would still be in there, I realized that the daily escapee was out all night. My hope was that she made her way to the garage before we closed it up for the night - she did. Tom mentioned that he didn't see her earlier as she was totally hunkered down. Plus we don't expect to see her in the garage that early.

Okay...Now what?

We don't have a rooster so there is no opportunity to have her hatch out chicken eggs, BUT we do have ducks - 3 hens and a Drake. A few months ago, I thought that maybe if we had a broody hen that we should pop a couple of duck eggs under them and let them hatch out ducklings. It doesn't seem likely that one of the ducks will go broody. Plus we wouldn't even know what that looks like. After a brief discussion, Tom agreed and went it to retrieve a couple of eggs from the house, those being the freshest ones from this weekend actually.

Mind you I have never done anything like this. When I was growing up, the hens just collected up the eggs that they wanted without any help from me or my mom. So I went in with the two eggs and placed them right next to her and as I was violating her space she squawked and pecked at me, as expected. After a few seconds she evaluated the situation she took the eggs and slipped them under her warm little body and hunkered right down.

Good girl!

We call her Betty - Broody Betty

The average time period to hatch chicken eggs is 21 days. Hopefully our hen doesn't have an internal clock that tells her to get off her nest at 21 days as it take 28 days for ducks. I suspect she'll stay on the nest until something happens. She does look happy now. Also, I have gotten close to her to place some food and water next to her nest and she didn't get all crazy. Tomorrow we'll add a couple of extra eggs just to make sure that she has some success.

We tried breaking broody hens last year and it was hard to capture them to confine them. Plus I just felt bad for them. They were just trying to do what comes natural. May as well go with nature.

Farm life is the best life with broody hens!

Broody Hen Update

If you missed my last post on the Broody Hens go HERE to catch-up...go ahead...I'll wait :)

This was Friday morning

As of yesterday two of the hens were back to normal. In fact, whenever I went to look in on them, they looked very much like they would like to rejoin the rest of the flock. They should spend at least one more day in there. Just to be sure.

The third lady is VERY persistent and might not break even today. I am not sure how we'll fish her two friends out without her escaping. We could just remove Miss Broody and release the other two back into the arena.

I suspect that she has been overtaken by her biological malady the longest of the three. It would be so much easier to release three non-bloody girls back to their friends.

Main reason...Egg Production is DOWN!

Oh, I did find out something new - our escape artist, Dora, laid an egg at the neighbor's house! That would be kinda crazy, she is only 4 months old! She's an over-achiever!

I think it is plausible though, over the past couple of weeks I have observed the following things in the Java's behavior:

• A couple of them have been a little more interested in the nesting boxes
• They are becoming more interested in the oyster shells
• They are making the "I wanna lay and egg" sound
• The neighbor found an egg in his lawn (this one is a dead giveaway)

Even this morning, once the chickens were released from their nighttime jail one of the little girls was looking into the nesting boxes they way that the big girls do....hmmm...

Very Interesting.

Broody girls or not, Farm Life is the Best Life!

Broody

We have been dealing with broody hens. It seems like several have been broody over the past couple of months and it is somewhat maddening. As of today there are three hens that have gone broody - for sure. There may be one more, but she has been blending in and hiding her symptoms pretty well.

Since they pretty much quit laying and have been hoarding all of the eggs in their vicinity I've been wanting to find a way to get them to STOP brooding and get over it all. Also, without Thor there is no chance of them actually getting eggs that are fertilized.

This week we got lucky and Justin Rhodes posted a video on how to break a broody hen:

We don't have a kennel, but we do have the old brooder...aaaahhhh - ironical right?

So before releasing the non-broody girls from the chicken mobile this morning we had to catch the three that spent the night under the egg cart. Tom was able to catch #1 pretty easily...before she could figure out what was going on, she was deposited in her old house from waaaay back when she was just a chickie. 

The other two proved to be a little more challenging. After a few minutes of chasing them around the pen, we let them calm down. Then one more time of the two of us chasing them around, this time Tom had the fishing net. That was a no-go. Okay fine, we'll just go along with our morning and we'll get them yet. 

Fast forward a few minutes and they had gone into the big nesting box and settled in for a day of just taking up space. Or so they thought. 

After I told Tom that they were settled in we promptly went over and he was able to grab one of the girls and I got the other and off to the brooder box they went - to be broody. 

They are set up with some water and some food. Hopefully we won't have to keep them in there terribly long - a couple of days maybe three at the most. I hope. We had to weight down the top with a plank and some pieces of firewood to make sure than they will stay in there. I hope they will still be in there when we get home later. It would be something if they weren't...

Look at their hackles...they are not happy!

Hopefully they will decide that being broody is not worth it and snap out of it. It would be nice if they would just realize that they won't be mommas anytime soon, not without a rooster anyway. 

Farm Life is the Best Life...

Even in the frustrating moments.