Busy busy

My BLR Wyandott with her share of the mixes, all 9 :)

Things have been wild here lately. Hatched out 2 batches of barnyard mix chicks under 2 broodies. Had 3 other nests go rotten, the one hen left hers, the other two are being totally stubborn beyond belief so I am frantically searching for some hatching eggs to stick under them. I am so frustrated, the 3 hens were swapping nests around and around. Basically they bombed their own efforts. The 15 chicks I did get are amazing colored. I did get one pure BLR Wyandott. Cute little cuss. 

The cochin chicks, with a few abandoned mixes and the turkeys

My Cochin chicks and turkey poults I got for my birthday are thriving. The one bronze tom is a little stinker, loving to fly up out of the brooder and have me chase him around. Once I catch him he just snuggles right in like a baby and adores being held. I am so pleased with the colors on the Cochin chicks. I have to get myself the poultry SOP book so I can educate myself on selecting the ones to breed, the ones to "cull". I won't actually cull them, as far as sell or eat, but the non-breed quality will go to making us some cool mix chicks, as I love the stunning colors the barnyard crosses come in!

Upper photo: one of a pair of Holland White turkeys

Lower photo: the bronze tom

Next Thursday I am going to Clifton Springs NY, to a poultry breeding place to pick up our BB turkeys. I have no idea what color I will end up with. I told them I needed birds, and if they were pink and polka dotted I didn't care. With the husband's help I am going to set up the old upper coop that I finished our Cornish off in with a heat light to brood them and then we will set up the outer yard so that they can learn to go in and out. After that the 15 will split into two groups, by size at first, then by gender at finish time. 

Some of the gardens when it wasn't pouring :)

The garden is growing by leaps and bounds...as are the weeds. It has been so very very wet these last weeks that weeding is a problem. The peas and beans look more weed than crop at the moment. Our onions are doing fantastic at the moment though. Still have more tomatoes, onions, carrots, beets, beans radishes and the like to plant tough. Perhaps a fall crop of peas as we all love them. 

Really I think you ought to move that over a row

Princess of all she surveys, Peg has become quite the little supervisor. She is walking and slowly learning to talk. She certainly loves her time outside and in the barns.