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- #41
rhoda_bruce
Almost Self-Reliant
My araucana project isn't going as well as I'd hoped. First of all, there are lots of eggs that somehow don't hatch, due to poor contact of genitals, with the rumplessness. Then you can expect some to have tails, if the parents have a few tails (which is what I'm trying to do away with), so I was hoping for a lot of rumpless females, due to already having rumpless males to use. I really wanted to slaughter all my tailed females in September. I don't think its gonna happen. I had my eyes on a few chicks that were rumpless, but alas....they are looking masculine, so they will end up in a gumbo. I was hoping I was just finishing my last hatch of the year, but that would have to mean, almost 100% females hatching. Best I raise things a while, slaughter what is big enough and do another hatch in late summer.
One setback is my own fault. I had lost my white silkie hen, so I told DS to put my white araucana hen in with the silkie roo, thinking that her eggs still would be fertilized by the araucana roo for a few more days, possibly weeks....well, I picked up her eggs maybe only 2 or 3 days for incubation purposes. That was 3 weeks ago....Okay fast forward to today. I have 2 chicks with white down, black feet and beaks and feathers all the way down....little mutts. I was only wanting to put them together because I was hoping for a silkie hen to replace my dead one. I didn't care about a pure breed silkie project, cuz I only wanted help with incubating difficult eggs. They are cute though. But this incident has completely destroyed everything I thought about how long one roo's fertility deals are good for.
DS got fired today and he was really really down. He planned on quitting in a month anyway to go to school, but it hurt him to lose his job like that. I suggested her work for me a month and get my place in shape, so we can be better situated. He would prefer a paycheck, but a paycheck for just a month....He asked me how will working for him, help the family just as much or more as working for an employee, so I started telling him about how much food I can produce if my barn was finished. How much produce I could bring in if the garden was tended better. How much less work we'd have to do if the fence was finished, because of being able to let out the geese and ducks to do our weeding and grass control, how much calmer we can approach winter if our firelogs are already stacked and drying and how all that amounts to dollar signs when you tally them up. I don't know if he heard me out though.
One setback is my own fault. I had lost my white silkie hen, so I told DS to put my white araucana hen in with the silkie roo, thinking that her eggs still would be fertilized by the araucana roo for a few more days, possibly weeks....well, I picked up her eggs maybe only 2 or 3 days for incubation purposes. That was 3 weeks ago....Okay fast forward to today. I have 2 chicks with white down, black feet and beaks and feathers all the way down....little mutts. I was only wanting to put them together because I was hoping for a silkie hen to replace my dead one. I didn't care about a pure breed silkie project, cuz I only wanted help with incubating difficult eggs. They are cute though. But this incident has completely destroyed everything I thought about how long one roo's fertility deals are good for.
DS got fired today and he was really really down. He planned on quitting in a month anyway to go to school, but it hurt him to lose his job like that. I suggested her work for me a month and get my place in shape, so we can be better situated. He would prefer a paycheck, but a paycheck for just a month....He asked me how will working for him, help the family just as much or more as working for an employee, so I started telling him about how much food I can produce if my barn was finished. How much produce I could bring in if the garden was tended better. How much less work we'd have to do if the fence was finished, because of being able to let out the geese and ducks to do our weeding and grass control, how much calmer we can approach winter if our firelogs are already stacked and drying and how all that amounts to dollar signs when you tally them up. I don't know if he heard me out though.
