Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! Here's to a happy and healthy new year!

Today is the day I set my eggs in the incubator.  I got an egg incubator for Christmas from my husband and have been collecting fertilized eggs from the ducks and chickens for a week.  At 6:00 p.m. I started them in the incubator.  I have 21 eggs total.  Three duck eggs ( 1 each from December 30, 31, and January 1) and 18 eggs from the chickens (5 from December 25; 5 from December 26; 2 from December 31; and 6 from January 1).  I am very excited to see how many of these eggs will be fertile and grow chicks/ducklings.  In 21 days I should hopefully have some baby chicks hopping and peeping around.  And in 1 week more I should hopefully have 3 ducklings doing the same thing.

I also had a beautiful Buff Orpington hen that started sitting on an egg a day or two before Christmas.  She sat diligently on this single egg for a few solid days.  Then one day I went to collect the eggs as usual and there were none.  She collected all the eggs and was sitting on them; eight to be exact.  She sat on these for several more days.  Well, yesterday she was in a different egg box and the other chickens had raided her nest.  I was very sad to see all of her hard work gone.  They were now cold so I brought them in the house and cracked them.  It turns out she was doing a good job because they were definitely fertile and they had little veins starting to grow.  If she starts to sit again, which I think she will, we will move her into her own little house so she can sit and hatch eggs to her own liking without any other hens bothering her.

On a sadder note, I do have 4 chickens that I think we will be slaughtering in the not so distant future.  Last year when I was deciding to get chickens I ordered a brown laying mix of chickens from Myers Hatchery. I got brown, white, and black chickens.  Unfortunately I believe the white chickens are pecking the other ones.  All the other chickens are pecked in some way except the white ones.  Also the white ones seem to be the ones eating eggs every once in a while too.  Time for chicken dinner I suppose.  :(

All ready to go in their incubator!

Lots of eggs for lots of chicks!