Day 5!

Today i am going to talk about candling.

I tend to candle my eggs on day 5 (sometimes on day 4 if i am really impatient!) and day 10. This is really just shining an LED torch through the shell to see shadows of what is inside. You can get specifically designed egg candlers, but these can be expensive, ad i have never had an issue using a torch. Make sure its an LED though as the older bulb types can get hot and cause issues for your eggs.


I do this to check whether or not the eggs are developing properly. There are many pictures and articles about egg development out there online, its really easy to do a google image search and find pictures of candled eggs at various stages of development.  I candle on day 5 to check that development has started, and at 10 to check that they are all still with us. At day 10, if i see no development, i will remove the non fertile eggs from the incubator, as there is a risk that they may explode, contaminating the other eggs with bacteria.  I attempted to get a picture for you, but my camera didnt show the veining at all :(

Here is a picture from www.riverbendfarmtasmania.com showing how a candled egg looks at different stages of incubation.

Thanks for visiting!

Restful morning.

This morning is for relaxing. As much as you can in such a busy household. 
I'm not a tidy person. My household routine and priorities dont revolve around decluttering and tidying. They revolve around feeding the chickens, caring for and snuggling with children, or working on crafts (my mother says I craft to procrastinate, and I suppose I do, as I am only putting off the inevitable).

This morning I am not at work, and have nowhere I need to be, so Imi and I are chilling at home, with a cup of tea and my crochet project.

At Christmas I started a blanket for my eldest daughter. She wanted autumn colours, so autumn colours she gets! We are in the home straight now, she is getting excited about snuggling under it.

Egg Watch 2016!

Here at the Yeo house, we usually hatch a small clutch of chicks each spring. I just usually forget to blog about it. This year i have decided to put it out there for the world to see.

 My teenage daughter is doing this with me this year, as she is applying for an animal management diploma for college next year, and wants to get some practical experience in before her interview.

 I ordered the eggs from ebay. I have had good luck in the past buying eggs this way, but it has to be said that sending eggs through the postal service can result in a lower hatch rate, as they don't really like the vibrations and rough handling. Many rearers advertise through pages like preloved, or at animal feed shops, so you can look around locally and see what is available for you. I ordered some Cream Legbar birds. They lay the most beautiful Blue/Green/Turquoise (depending on which of my children you ask!) eggs. These birds are considered a rare breed and have soft feathers. They lay around 180- 200 eggs a year, so they are not the most prolific layers, but they will do for us. There is added bonus that they are an autosexing breed, which means i should be able to tell as soon as they are hatched which are the roosters and which are the pullets. The boys are lighter with a white spot on their head, and the girls will have a darker streak down their back.

It is recommended to let the eggs settle for a day with the fat end up to allow things to resettle and make sure the air space has returned to the correct position within the egg.

I like to run my incubator for 24 hours to ensure that it is maintaining a constant temperature before i "set" (put them in the incubator) my eggs. Its essential to make sure the equipment is working properly (especially as it has been sat in my loft all winter!). The temperature for incubating chicken eggs is 37.5°C - 37.8°C.

And in they go! I let them acclimatise in there for 24 hours before i get to the business of turning them.

You may have noticed I have numbered all my eggs, and drawn a circle on the top of each one. The number is so that I can identify each egg individually when candling (I'll get to that in a few days!) and come hatch time. The circle is so that I can identify which eggs have been turned when turning them. I turn my eggs 3-5 times a day. This mimics the mother hen nudging them around in the nest. It is done to ensure that the chicks develop correctly inside the shell, as if they aren't turned, they rest against the shell and this can cause malformed chicks. I turn them an odd number of times during the day, because then they spend each night on a different side, so they don't always spend each night laying the same way.

 This blog has been neglected for a number of years, because I just wasn't sure where to go with it, but I suppose I don't really need a direction. I am just doing what a lot of people are, trying to fit a little more conciousness of our planet and our food chain into daily family life.

What to do today?

The sun is shining, the birds are singing. The boys, surprisingly ARENT whining!

I'll be off down the allotment then!

I hope the council have got off their backsides and had the water supply turned on at the allotments, because i have some rather dry seedlings at the moment that may die soon if they dont get a drink! My father has kindly lent me a rolling camping watter butt that i will be using to take some water from home with me, and (unusually for me) I am praying for some rain (lots of rain!) to fill the parched water butts on my plot.

Bed 3 is almost dug over, i will finish that today and rake it over, ready for planting. Legumes i think in bed 3 this year. I will have to check my planner.

The weeds are taking over at the moment, as they are prone to do. Every time i go down i spend half my time digging, and the other half weeding. Its a rare opportunity to actually plant anything!!

What are you doing today?

Its All About the Resolutions.

The blogging world seems to be buzzing with resolutions at the moment. Heck, most people IRL are making goals and plans for the year ahead, often to be forgotten by mid February or March, as the incessant daily grind fully takes hold.

I'll join in and play for a bit, as there things i would like to achieve this year.

• My Allotment. I would like to see this producing most of the veg we need throughout the second half of this year, continuing from there on producing the vast majority of our veg. I just need to get everything set up ready for the start of the growing season.
• Get Fit. This one is on the list every year, but this year i intend to follow through. DD also has this on her list, so we are going to do it together. Plus spending a lot of time down on the allotment will naturally add an extra element of exercise into our daily routine.
• Keep my house clean. Ahem, yes.
• To reduce our debt substantially. We don't owe a lot compared to most. In fact if we left it to tick over on minimum payments it would all still be paid off by Jan 2014, but i would like to give it a push. I reckon if we try, then we can get rid of ALL of it by mid 2012.

So the aim of the game this year is simple, frugal living and enjoying life with my babies before they are not babies anymore!

New Year, New Adventures.

Last year, i started growing vegetables in a small area of our back garden. It was good fun, we got a bit of veg to eat , and i managed to keep plants alive all summer long!

So this year i am going to upscale a bit.
In November i was offered an allotment (after being on the waiting list a year and a half). It is only a half plot, but its better than nothing.

This is what my plot looked like when i took it over on the 12th November.


And this is what it looked like after our last visit to the plot on the 11th December.


Unfortunately thanks to the awful weather we have had lately combined with the holiday season, we havent been able to get back up there since to continue work. But Keira and i will be heading back up there tomorrow weather permitting to continue the good work :)

I am looking forward to making lots of memories on the plot for me and the children

Disappointing Potato Harvest

They looked to be going great guns. Lush green foliage, lovely delicate purple flowers, and then dying back in just the right way. Textbook perfect potato growing.
Until the harvest that is. I think we may just have enough for a meal for the 5 of us from the 6 plants that were planted. I am a little gutted, if I am honest.

Some of them had scab, while while after peeling are still edible, the size of them means that there wouldnt be much left.

I sure hope they taste nice after all this!

The christmas potatoes are going in next week, so hopefully we will have more luck with them.