Tag: incubator

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We have decided to try Twitter You can catch upon…

We have decided to try Twitter. You can catch upon the latest news on our Twitter site. http://twitter.com/denburyfarm Join and be one of our followers http://twitter.com

Although the Emu and Rhea are . easy to look after they have increased our workload giving me less time to do a Diary or upload any photographs on the Gallery but I will try harder.

Three batches of the Emu eggs have not hatched, so it seems that the power cut we had did not do us any favours. The three batches came from the small incubator. It is possible that the bigger incubator may not had suffered so much, but I wont be holding my breath. We were looking forward to having the Emu Chicks to show on the webcams and for our Holiday Guests to see. The Emu are still laying and we have managed to put another 40 eggs in the incubator since the power cut. We have let two Emu sit eggs in their paddock. One is very diligent and has not moved off of the eggs at all. The other one is a waste of time, on and off its nest allowing the eggs to get cold. Other females are still laying on the nest, but they will not hatch so I am having to put my hand under the Emu to find the new laid eggs.

We have given up trying to return Edwin back with the other Emu. We have returned him twice but he just comes back to be close to the Farm House. When we went looking for our Sheep a couple of weeks back we found the way Edwin was getting back to the Farm. There were some of his feathers on a fence where he had got through, so as we thought he was travelling nearly a mile through the Woods and Fields to get back to us.

The Black Swans really have brought the Lake alive since they have been here. We are getting lots of Geese and Ducks visiting. There have never been so many Ducks living on the Lake. There have been a two regular small flocks of Canada Geese visiting, some times staying over night. One a flock of six and another of eleven. The good news is that last years breeding pair are coming regular and have been going on to the Island. This morning we have seen them mating and chasing off the other Geese. Not sure how the Swans will react as they have also been visiting the Island over the past two weeks, so much so that they flattened the grass that I usually need to strim. Could be that they are trying to stop the Geese from settling.

Have to finish now as Dennis is very unwell. Must admit it doesnt look good. I have given him antibiotics and we have got him in the Farm House in front of the aga keeping him warm. His breathing is very laboured, he is not eating but we are trying to get him to take a little water with a syringe. I will let you know how he gets on.

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Starting from number six there are five new photographs on…

Starting from number six there are five new photographs on the Photo Page.

Betty save the day by sending in over 60 photographs.

Chicken at our picnic table in Beamish Betty Canada.

Hay Rick at Beamish, is that a weather vane on top? Betty Canada.

Shark Hull Aquarium Betty Canada.

Emu eggs that I found.

Emu egg incubator warming up.

Teach me to keep my eyes open. At least every other day I have been walking all over the Emu Field looking for any eggs that they have laid since I found one a few weeks back. yesterday afternoon I walked the Field again and came across a nest tucked away in the far right hand corner of the Field partly covered with grass. How I missed the nest I will never know as there were 20 eggs in the nest. Trouble is that I don’t know how old the eggs are. You can keep the eggs for about 14 days before incubating them but some that I found may be a lot older. By the look of the eggs I would think that the eggs were laid by 3 or 4 different Emu.

Today we have been getting the incubator ready for the eggs. I was waiting for a couple more eggs before cleaning the incubator ready to set the eggs. It will need to be running for a couple of day to make sure that it is working properly as we have only just got the incubator and I am not to sure how they work yet. I cant complain as I was starting to think that we may not get many eggs this year after the moving the bird only six weeks ago.

Asbo has been doing his job. We started to incubate some of the eggs he has fertilised earlier this week. On checking them last night a lot of the eggs are fertile so in just over two weeks we will start hatching the eggs on the webcam. Just a bit shorter than the time that the Emu eggs will take to incubate of 56 days.

Thornton has been coming in a lot more. I think it may be something to do with the weather. The only time he doesn’t come in is when it is raining at the time he normally knocks on the door to come in, then he will spend the night in the barn with some of the other Sheep. Believe me Thorbton really does knock on the door. Normally three times. At times when I need to knocked on the Cottages doors they are not answered as people think that it is Thornton who is knocking.

Dennis has got very big. If it wasn’t that he is a pet he would be just about be the size of a Turkey that we would buy for Christmas, saving a lot of money. We have never eaten any of the animals that we have kept at Denbury. Ostrich meat is very tasty and low in cholesterol but after working with them we couldn’t eat any. The same with Wild Boar. I use to give the Piglets away once they were weaned. We just may just have one of our Lambs next year. We usually send them to Market but the last time that I put any in to be sold they only fetched a small amount and after the commissions I was sent an invoice. This year we have sent three to the abattoir, partly because of the little we got but also because we do not like to see the stress that the animals go through when sent to Market, we also never know just how far they will travel before getting to their final destination. Two that we had slaughtered were sold to two of our Holiday Guests,and one to friends. Although the Lambs didn’t look that big the Butcher said that they were very well finished and the meat did look very good. All three people who had them said the the meat tasted very good. Two said it was the best that they had ever eaten.

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Starting from number six there are five new photographs on…

Starting from number six there are five new photographs on the Photo Page.

Duck. Karen.

Hot pink water lilly in our pond. The blooms open during the night and early morning. By noon they starting folding back up. Karen, Florida (USA)

Monarch Butterfly caterpillars forming into their chrysalis (cocoons)
Karen, Florida (USA)

Two pictures taken at Kew Gardens.May 2009. Janice of Leeds.

One our Holiday Guests pointed up to a Bird who was flying high above us this afternoon. The Bird was so high that I could not see what it was other than it was the colouring of a Swallow, it wasnt, or I don’t think it was as it was flying quite slow. The Bird seemed to be playing with something that was in its beak. It was letting the something fall from its beak and flying around to catch it. I saw it happen twice our Holiday Quest a few time more. Strange.

The Chicks on the Hatchery webcam are white Turkeys. Unfortunately our broken computer was repaired after the Chicks had all hatched. Tomorrow there will be Geese eggs that should be hatching any time. I must admit that we are not best pleased with the eggs that we purchased. Out of 35 eggs only one has hatched. The eggs that we got from our Geese have been very successful with all but two that we have put into the incubator hatching, with all of the Gosling being healthy. To be honest I didn’t think that after moving our Geese on to Denbury that we would have had a fertile egg.

We were given three Rhea eggs from Cricket St Thomas. The eggs are from a proven pair of breeding Rhea so with a bit of luck we may have some Rhea at Denbury. The eggs are going into the incubator tonight and take between 36 to 40 days to hatch.

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Starting from number one there are five new photographs on…

Starting from number one there are five new photographs on the Photo Page.

ALL TOOK AT RUFFORD COUNTRY PARK NEAR WORKSOP LAST WEEKEND. LYNNE

Twelve Geese eggs were put in the incubator this evening. Ten that we purchased from a local breeder and two that our new Geese have layed.

The first night that the incubator has been working with eggs in it, all is working as it should be. The temperature is exactly right and the humidity is fluctuating one per cent either way. The incubator has a warning alarm if the heat rises or falls above or below the correct temperature. If the temperature of the incubator rises it will quickly kill the embryo. If it falls it is not such a disaster. As long as it is corrected within four or five hours the eggs will be OK. The other important part is to keep turning the eggs otherwise the embryo will stick to.

When incubating an egg it will need to loose 13% of it weight, so weighing the eggs periodically whilst incubating is a good way of telling if the egg will hatch correctly. The weight loss helps the membrane that you can see when you open a boiled egg needs to shrink, leaving a gap between the shell and the membrane that makes an air pocket. The air pocket allows the hatching Chick to breath whilst it is breaking through the shell. Controlling the humidity correctly allows the air pocket to get larger through the incubating period.

Whilst the Embryo is forming into a Chick it needs oxygen and give off carbon dioxide. The forming Embryo also needs food and feeds on the eggs yolk through blood vessels. The hatched Chick will also feed on the yolk for a day or so after hatching. Incubating eggs is very interesting, but it can be a worry. When we were incubating Ostriches we were very successful. Ostrich eggs are meant to be the most difficult to hatch, so hopefully we will get it correct when incubating Turkey and Geese.

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Starting from number eleven there are five new photographs on…

Starting from number eleven there are five new photographs on the Photo Page.

Memorial for USS San Diego. Penny Chicago Chicago Chicago

Interesting Tree in Seaport Village. Penny Chicago Chicago Chicago

Here is another photo of a Ganada Goose in the fork of a tree where her nest was. She has her nest there every year. It is a very large tree with 3 forks coming off it. When the youngsters are ready to leave the nest, about 6 of them, they tumble down the tree and then their parents take then down to the water nearby. Occasionally a gosling does damage its wings and this shows up when they are ready to fly and can’t, which makes them very vulnerable to foxie loxie if the injured goose leaves the pond. Usually the park staff capture the goose and send it to a sanctuary to live out its life. These photos were taken in a beautiful Toronto Park. Rosie’s Mum in Toronto.

Couple of pictures for the gallery if you can include them. Pete.

Our incubator is now up and running and ready for our first eggs to go in to start incubating. 25 Bronze Turkey eggs arrived yesterday, they will go into the incubator tonight. We will be collecting 10 Goose eggs tomorrow that with the 2 that our Geese have layed will go in the incubator tomorrow. The temperature of the incubator is 37.5 c or 99.5 f. The humidity for Turkey and Geese eggs need to be at about 55 per cent.

Turkey eggs will take approximately 28 days to incubate. Geese eggs about 30 days. About two days before the eggs hatch they will go in to a hatcher. That is when we hope to be able to show the hatching on the webcam. We are trying to find one that will be suitable for the webcam.

It is better to have all the eggs hatching at the same time. That would need for the Geese eggs going into the incubator a couple of days before the Turkey eggs. For the first couple of weeks we will put the eggs in the incubator as we get them. We will also need to candle the eggs to see if they are fertile. That will need to be done after 6 days. We have got to cross our fingers and hope that most of the eggs are fertile. At this time of the year when the birds are just beginning to mate, it can be a bit hit and miss. I will try to take a photograph of a an egg when we candle them.

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Starting from number six there are five new photographs on…

Starting from number six there are five new photographs on the Photo Page.

Eight of our new Geese.

The other four.

From the left. Chicken Egg, Turkey Egg and our first Goose Egg.

Well what a surprise, I have won this egg in a raffle at our local garden centre, I had already bought Easter eggs for everyone. Wish I could share it with you all !! We will still be eating it at Christmas! Rose W’canton.

Bird of Paradise in our Hotel Garden. Penny Chicago Chicago Chicago.

As you can see by tonight photographs, we collected our Geese last evening. The eight are a little moth eaten and will do and look better when they are are allowed out on the grass to graze. They are about a year old. To our surprise when we went to feed them this morning one had layed an egg. We don’t know how long that they have been laying, or if the Geese have been mating, but we will try to incubate the egg.

The Four Geese were hatched in the November and December last year. Very late for Geese eggs to hatch. We don’t know how they will be if we mix to two lots of Geese. There may be one almighty fight causing some of them to get killed or injured, so we will keep them apart.

There are too many Geese for us to keep on the Farm. A trio will be about right, so we will sell the remaining nine. I must admit hearing Geese honking is a nice sound to have on the Farm.

We changed our incubator today. The original incubator would incubate 190 Chicken eggs. To be honest I thought that on that working out, it would incubate about a 100 Goose eggs. On reading the instruction book it will only incubate just over 50 Goose eggs. Being we hope to hatch every week, we changed the incubator for one double the size. As you can see on the photograph, Geese eggs are a lot bigger. The one in the photograph is the one we found our Geese had laid this morning is not a very big one.

I emailed Rose, W’canton telling her to send her Giant Easter egg to us. We would well tuck into it, and it must be some thing to do with when Thornton was born, as he has managed to find some chocolates from time to time. The last one being just over a week ago when he was found in one of the Cottages, with a box of posh chocolates that had been part of an anniversary present. Thornton had reached up on his rear legs and pulled the chocolates down from a cabinet, and was found stuffing himself. Thornton does like his chocolate.

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Starting from number one there are five new photographs on…

Starting from number one there are five new photographs on the Photo Page.

3 of our new Chickens.

Another three. Well at least you can see another ones head.

Our incubator.

The Higher car ferry, Dartmouth. In June this year to be replaced by a much larger ferry. This one takes 16 cars, the new one will take 32!