Recent content by SarahIrl

Well I finally got hold of my first pair of month old mandarins! SO excited, they arrive this weekend!!!

Help required guys! Putting in a new enclosure for mandarins this week. Have posts, wire, pond plan, netting for covering enclosure, nesting box plan, all good. The thing is, I am making a BIG enclosure for just a trio of mandarins, is it advisable to keep any other birds with them?? I'd also...

Would you believe this is the first year I won't be taking part.... I have had to let my chickens go to a local good home (thanks Adrian) as my health has finally got so bad I could not longer look after them well enough. So, a whole load of reorganising before I foray back into the chicken...

Well, happy Easter everyone. I'm not a religious person, so maybe I should just say happy chocolate day. Enjoy your sugar comas, I am well on the way to creating some with hot cross buns proving on the kitchen table, and chocolate shortcake shortly....

I'm a well seasoned hatcher and I even wrote an incubation handbook for people to take into schools for the kids if they run a hatch in the classroom, I actually know what I'm doing. The one dead almost out chick was all bloated and puffy, way too much water in it's tissues. Humidity was right...

Well my hatch is done. I had a good look throught he lid of the incubator to see shell on the rack - yay! My one last remaining live egg! Had a look at the egg - no pip. Huh? Shoved in my egg manouvering knitting needle to roll the egg slightly - pipped at the wrong end. Stick fast, completely...

Sounds like a good first hatch! As for the one that died, please remember that hatching is really hard on the chicks and that the energy spent in hatching is tremendous. Some are just too tired afterwards. If they are sleeping a lot they are ok. As long as they aren't spread out to the corners...

Just candled my remaining eggs (the ones not already thrown out) to find one chick banging on the shell pre-pip, and it was only left in as I couldn't tell if it was dead or not, all the certainly live ones now appear to be well dead. So, looks like I might get one chock from 24 after all. One...

Well nothing here and I am +1 hour 52 mins from noon here. (GMT) I have had a nightmare with my shipped eggs, but thankfully the seller has generously offered to send me half as many again as a goodwill gesture. I have cleaned out my brooder and checked my heat lamp is working but not bothered...

Hmm, I'm candling one last time tonight and we'll see what happens over the weekend. I'm not even in the mood to set up my brooder to be honest. Will pick up a bag of pet grade chopped straw Thursday as mine has been in the shed over the winter and I don't trust there not to be mouse pee in it...

I've totally missed out on this year's thread, I must say. I've not been online, I have been avoiding my incubator. After finding 24 of 24 eggs had detatched cells, I have only really checked for signs of life twice and now am still not really expecting anything to hatch after the disaster that...

I spread the grass cuttings in my runs and it helps the new grass to grow in underneath, plus they spread it for me hunting for bugs and munching on the grass. Also a good deodoriser for the ground I find my run gets a bit smelly after a long winter. I do cut the grass once or twice over the...

First candle of my 24/24 detached air cell eggs. Eight gone. Six more maybes, I can only see a small bit of veining, no sign of embryo. The embryos seem to be sitting in the centre of the eggs, away from the shell as I am incubating them all upright. Only two air cells look any way stable, I was...

I'm joining in Mahonri's Easter hatch, and I ordered 24 lovely rare brahma eggs. Rare in the fact that I cannot get these colours from people near me, and if I could I would want a seperate breeding line anyway. So, 8 each of Lemon Pyle, Darks and Pearl Partridge. Candled on arrival and every...

Well, the good news for me is my eggs arrived yesterday... the bad news is EVERY one of them has detached air sacs and two actually have bubbles in them. So I am resting them in my back kitchen until tonight when I'll candle them and I am going to try them all as I know I can't get these colours...