I candled the eggs in the incubator last night and found several with viable embryos, so we're 'Go' for our June 7th hatch! Hopefully we'll get some chicks with Weedcat, our splash Giant Cochin roo, as a daddy.

The June hatch should happen right about the time the current chicks are ready to go out into the flock, so the timing should be perfect!

So last night while making dinner, I glanced out the kitchen window and saw this lenticular cloud formation in the distance, hovering over Reno:

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We've started the final three days! The brooder box is ready, as is the styrofoam incubator we'll have standing by as a chick-dryer-outer if we need it.

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Set another 14 eggs in the incubator, we'll have a staggered hatch this year. These should hatch 2 weeks after the first group due April 20th--this group, if they develop, are due May 4th.

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We're on schedule for our annual Chickam live web broadcast of our baby chick hatch set for Saturday, April 20th! Just in case, we suggest checking the UStream Chickam page starting two days before that (April 18th) in case the little stinkers are early, which has happened in the past. It'll be here--if you tune in and see eggs, that means the ( Read more... )

Bloop was only mildly wowed by the weird colored eggs.

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We're off!

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Rounding the far turn and entering the home stretch with the back yard! We're down to the last bank of juniper/cypress plants. This batch is harboring more big rocks than the others, and just as much trash. But be gone they eventually will be, although we're trying to salvage some of the cypress plants as cover for the chickens for now.

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Finally, a feed store with the guts to call chickens what they REALLY are:

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So the new ReptiPro 6000 incubator has arrived and is being tested:

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