Recall that Snoop the runner duck was on eggs for nearly 4 weeks, only to be ousted by Sally the muscovy. Unfortunately, Sally was a bit to heavy for the hatchlings... I was able to save only two.
A week prior, 8 lavender keets hatched. They are already too big for the indoor coop -- they are flying out of the enclosure, pooping all over the kitchen floor, etc. They will go outside tomorrow and the two duck-incubated keets will get the kiddie-pool-keet-kondo in the kitchen.
Found yet another clutch of eggs outside and put them into the incubator. Those hens sure put up a good fight when it comes to their eggs being stolen -- bruises on the hand, scratches, etc. They seem to forget within hours though.
2006/06/15
2006/06/08
Smells Like Rotten Eggs
Foie and Gras eventually sat less and less on the eggs until one afternoon they didn't sit at all and so I took them away. They must've been as old as two months by that point -- definitely not hatching.
You know the various sayings having to do with rotten eggs? Have any of you actually smelled rotten eggs? Have you thrown out 8 week old eggs from the fridge? You were worried, right? Now, imagine an egg being sat on for 8 weeks, i.e. 99.5 degrees, and imagine what microbes are churning away at the whites and yolk. I tossed those eggs onto my compost pile, and one broke when it hit. It sprayed the most disgusting cream-colored, putrid contents, under pressure, all against the wall of the compost enclosure. I couldn't wash it down fast enough. The smell was enough to make gag and nearly hurl. I know the meaning of "rotten egg" now. Take it from me, it's worse than you think.
Good ol' Snoop did her best as well, but it doesn't look like those guinea eggs are going to hatch. She put in a good 4 weeks of setting, very unusual for an Indian Runner.
About every 3 months Sally the Muscovy seems to want to set, and right on schedule this past week she plucked out a bunch of down from her chest and sat on an empty nest. Well, there was actually one egg, but it's a fake to trick the girls into laying in a nest box. Today I saw Sally and Snoop had switched -- Sally is now on the guinea eggs. I think they are too old by now, but good luck to her anyway.
A little over a month ago I broke up a Lavender's nest and put the eggs into the incubator. So now I have week-olds growing faster than you can believe. If theory holds (noisey birds are girls), we have three females, five males. We'll see how close theory matches reality in a few weeks.
You know the various sayings having to do with rotten eggs? Have any of you actually smelled rotten eggs? Have you thrown out 8 week old eggs from the fridge? You were worried, right? Now, imagine an egg being sat on for 8 weeks, i.e. 99.5 degrees, and imagine what microbes are churning away at the whites and yolk. I tossed those eggs onto my compost pile, and one broke when it hit. It sprayed the most disgusting cream-colored, putrid contents, under pressure, all against the wall of the compost enclosure. I couldn't wash it down fast enough. The smell was enough to make gag and nearly hurl. I know the meaning of "rotten egg" now. Take it from me, it's worse than you think.
Good ol' Snoop did her best as well, but it doesn't look like those guinea eggs are going to hatch. She put in a good 4 weeks of setting, very unusual for an Indian Runner.
About every 3 months Sally the Muscovy seems to want to set, and right on schedule this past week she plucked out a bunch of down from her chest and sat on an empty nest. Well, there was actually one egg, but it's a fake to trick the girls into laying in a nest box. Today I saw Sally and Snoop had switched -- Sally is now on the guinea eggs. I think they are too old by now, but good luck to her anyway.
A little over a month ago I broke up a Lavender's nest and put the eggs into the incubator. So now I have week-olds growing faster than you can believe. If theory holds (noisey birds are girls), we have three females, five males. We'll see how close theory matches reality in a few weeks.
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