Expecting - Coturnix, Rabbits, Guineas, Ducks

We have had two neighbors and one friend lend us incubators and we are rocking.  We have 22 chicks that we incubated and hatched on the 10th of this month that I blogged about earlier.  Well we also have Muscovy duck eggs and 129 Coturnix quail eggs due to hatch along with now some Peking duck eggs we added to the incubator last night.  This is new and exciting territory for us.

Coturnix - Pharaoh, Golden, A&M

The Coturnix quail are a mix of Pharaoh, Golden, and A&M.  They should be hatching starting tomorrow.  It is good I finally got that quail brooder finished.  My next project will be building pens for those we will keep for eggs and grow out pens.  I don't want to mix the breeds for grow out either as I am going to take advantage of the egg laying with them too.

From everything I have read these birds fully mature in 10 weeks and start laying at 6 to 8 weeks.  I just hope we like how they taste.

Coturnix Brooder

Muscovy Duck Eggs

The Muscovy duck eggs were given to us by a guy who's hen was killed.  These were the eggs she was laying to sit.  I feel good knowing we are finishing the job for her.  It is so cute to candle them and see their feet stretch or a beak.

The guy also ended up giving us his Muscovy male as he was afraid something would get him too.  It is a good thing because it looks like someone permanently clipped his wings and he would not be able to fly to safety.  We added him to our flock and call him Jedediah.

Last night the same guy gave us some Peking duck eggs.  Well the deal is we hatch them for him and we can have half.  It's a good deal if you ask me.

We also have 3 new baby rabbits as of last night.  They are from our mini Rex Tara and our lion head mix Bugsy.  We believe "T" is laboring as we speak.  Talk about getting another project completed down to the wire.  I just came in from adding the nesting box addition to her hutch.

I like the addition of a wire nesting box on the back of the hutch instead of in the hutch as it does not limit the space of the doe.  I also like using wire since we do live in Texas and it is starting to get pretty hot.  We are off in a hour or so to get fans for both the coop and the rabbits.  Last year it got so hot our hens stopped laying.  We are going to try and be ahead of the game this year.

We have a black Australorp hen that has been broody for 4 months or so.  Bless her heart she just kept breaking every chicken egg.  So we finally gave her 10 guinea eggs.  Those are tough little boogers.  They are due to hatch the 29th.  Wish this little girl luck because she has been trying so hard.  She deserves to hatch and raise some babies.  Hopefully it will mellow out the natural instinct of those crazy guineas.

Our duckling Dyanne, from last year is now sitting on her own clutch of eggs.  She started actually sitting the 19th.  We are looking forward to our little one being a mother.

There you go.  Now you are all caught up.  See you guys next time.  Until then live hard and full.