Muscovy Madness

Last night we took in two Muscovy ducks, a drake and a hen. They are a disaster! They are filthy dirty and stink horribly. Their feathers are ragged and dull, and look like they have been cut with scissors. They are also overweight.They were not cared for properly at all. :( 

When they got here last night, the Saxony ducks and Indian Runners were already in their coop for the night. They got to meet Mama Muscovy and Figgy. Overall, they all got along well. We tried to get them to go in the pond, but they were terrified of the water, obviously they've never been in a pond before and I would guess didn't even have a kid's pool to splash in :(

Muscovy ducks do not require as much water as the other duck breeds as Muscovies are more geese than duck. However, they still need some water to bathe in! No wonder they stink so bad and are so dirty!

When I let out all the chickens and ducks this morning, the two new Muscovies were a little overwhelmed. They tried to bully some hens which was a mistake; they tried to bully a couple of my old Ontario hens which are giant bitches and don't take anyone's shit.

it's gonna take a couple of weeks for the new ducks to fit in. Thankfully it's gonna rain today, so at least they'll get a shower! I would guess the pair spent the majority of their lives in a barn.

Wishing you all a Happy Canada Day weekend! Happy 150 Canada!

Hugs and love!

Lovin' My New internet

I LOVE my new internet! It is by far the best internet I have had in the 6-7 years I have lived rural. It is so fast I can now upload videos and photos with ease! Rural internet is a pain, it's more expensive than city internet is and generally is slow and unreliable. Finally I have internet as good as city internet! It's super fast (I can actually stream shows!), is unlimited and only $60 a month. Fantastic!

Here's some pics from the weekend

Chicks!

And a Canadian geese family walking up my driveway :)

It's funny, I actually see more wildlife here in Nova Scotia than i did when I lived in Coe Hill, Ontario! I assume having two ponds on my property helps draw in the wildlife.

Have a great day friends! Hugs!

Canadian Geese

Some Outside Playtime

11 Day old Chicks

Mama and Chicks Eating

10 Day old chicks

Duckling and Chicks

Sadly the little duckling made it 70% out of her egg and passed away yesterday. So sad. We buried the poor little sweetheart :( Broke my heart.

So as Hyde the hen has sat 40 days on eggs and still doesn't have a single baby, I gave up and bought her some chicks. I purchased three barnyard mix chicks last night. The chicks are adorable!

I put the chicks under Hyde and she LOVES them! She is such a happy mama and the chicks seem overjoyed to have a mom (They were incubator babies). They are crawling all over her and sleeping under her. They are seem very happy and content :)

YAY! For a happy mama hen. She deserved some babies!

Duckling update

It's 5:15pm here in Nova Scotia, and the duckling is still not hatched; however it has made a larger hole in the egg. I took the below pic an hour or so ago. Sorry it's really blurry, I only had a second to take it while Hyde (the mama Chicken) was off the eggs. As you can see the hole is bigger. I could hear it cheeping and saw a beak stick out!

I'll update again when something else happens! Hopefully good news!

The Duckling is coming!

Duckling Update: The duckling is pipping! She should be out by the end of the day! I could see her breathing, so I know she's alive. It's extremely tiring to get out of the egg, so she's taking a break and will start again soon!

Very exciting!

More updates to come!

Selling Eggs

I've been selling my chicken's eggs ever since I got hens. Back in Ontario, I use to charge all my friends a 2L of Coke for a dozen eggs. Here in Nova Scotia, I'm making it into a business.I charge $3 a dozen chicken eggs and $5 for a dozen duck eggs, and I offer a 50/50 pack of 6 chicken eggs and 6 duck eggs. I have been selling a few to neighbors, from an ad at the County Market, and an ad on Kijiji, but wanted to up my sales, so thought I'd try setting up a little table and selling roadside on the weekends.

In both Ontario and Nova Scotia, a small farmer may sell eggs without being graded on their own property.. So as long as I'm on my own property I'm legal :)

Last weekend, my son and I set up the table and sold out of chicken eggs in about two hours. This weekend, we sold out of chicken eggs in about an hour an half. We made $28 and a can of beer :) We have 17 chicken hens so pull in around a dozen or so eggs a day. I need more hens!I would like to add another 5-10 hens to my flock and maybe another rooster.

In other egg news, the fertilized eggs I sent to a friend in Kitchener Ontario hatched three eggs yesterday! Very exciting! A couple more eggs still may hatch. Fingers crossed. 

The family who gave me my silkie rooster, Wally, stopped in and bought my last dozen eggs today (she bought them to hatch as all my eggs are fertilized). I had given them 6 eggs to hatch about a month ago and 3 of them hatched. Sadly the other three, died trying to get out of the egg. :( 

My own hatching experience has been dismal. None of my goose eggs hatched, the duck eggs with the goose eggs died, most of Dirty Girl's clutch didn't work out (and then she left the nest so we transferred the viable eggs to Hyde). And now, Hyde's eggs are down to only five left (she started with almost 15). There are two duck eggs and three chicken eggs left under her. We were close to giving up on the remaining eggs, but today we saw hope! One of the duck eggs, a saxony egg, was moving and we could hear a "tap, tap, tap,' coming from inside the shell!

From what Google tells me, the duckling is internal pipping and should hatch within the next 24-48 hours! I'm so nervous! I hope she makes it! I would really love to hatch someone!

I will update tomorrow on the duckling. Hopefully good news!

Hugs and love!

Snakes, cats and Muscovy Ducks

Hello friends! Hope you are all doing great! I happily got new internet today. YAY! I had Seaside internet and they were HORRIBLE. For the last 3 months I have had internet maybe 40% of the time (if I was lucky!). I actually filed a complaint with the BBB about them yesterday. First time in my life I've ever had to do that. I now have TNC Internet. Like Seaside they are also off a radio tower, but they have much newer equipment and the guys who hooked up my new internet said that the radio tower that Seaside uses is actually owned by them. TNC is hugely better. Super happy.

So, here's some pics from the last couple of days:

These two snakes where in my firepit. My son took the photos as I ran away screaming like a little girl :) I'm terribly afraid of snakes.

The next two pics are of my new rescue cats. Their elderly owners passed away and were going to get put down, so I of course took them. They are Manx crosses. The two in the top pic are Muggs and Jenga, and the fella in the bottom pic is Pickles. Pickles has no tail.

And here's a photo of my Muscovy ladies, Figgy and Mama Muscovy.

And a dragonfly :) The dragonflies are great cause they eat the mosquitoes and help keep us safe. 

Have a great day friends! Hugs!

Happy Hippie Haven

Greetings Friends! Hope you all had a fantastic weekend!

If you are on Facebook, please like my new business page for my farm, the Happy Hippie Haven

https://www.facebook.com/TheHappyHippieHaven

Thanks!!

Turtle

Injured Hen

One of my new Leghorn hens, Fern, got injured yesterday. I'm not sure how it happened, but she had a cut under her eye and a nasty tear on her crop. The crop bled huge, hence all the blood. 

We immediately separated her from the flock and cleaned her wounds. We used liquid band-aid on the crop to help seal it. After she had calmed down a bit we gave her a warm bath in the bath tub to get all the blood off her. We used dawn dish soap for a shampoo.

She is now on lock down in the house (she's in the maternity room with our broody hen and eggs.). She is doing much better. We'll keep her on lock down for a couple of days so we can watch for infection.

Honestly, I'm not the biggest fan of the new Leghorns. We've never had the breed before because they are not known for being good quality birds. Unfortunately, greedy humans have really ruined the breed. Here in North America, Leghorns are the breed commercial farmers use. They lay a LOT of eggs. However, they are skinny, have poor foraging abilities and are not very healthy. Their crops are so big, they are more prone to injury and frost bite. They are also really neurotic. We got eight of them for free, so can't complain too much, cause you know, they were free, but I'd never purchase them. They are not hardy chickens.

All looks good for Fern and she should be back our foraging with the flock in a couple of days.

Hugs and love!

Drake and Rooster

Big Egg

One of the Leghorns laid this monstrosity yesterday. Jumbo chicken eggs weigh around 2-2.5 ounces. (we had a brown one a couple of months ago even bigger). We get an egg this big about every two weeks. They are usually double yolkers

Photos from Sunday

A few pics taken on Sunday.

This is Stalin our rooster

Mabel 

The Princess of Powe

And me, waiting for the photographer from the Herald (who was coming over to do a photo shot for my book review; my book "Memoirs of an Exotic Dancer: is being reviewed and will be in the Herald in a couple of weeks) 

Garage Sales and a New Camera

There was some garage sales going on today in Thorburn so we were up bright and early to go shopping. For $47 we got: folding card table; 6 books; three pocket knives (in fancy tins); one extra large pet carrier (perfect for moving chickens/ducks/geese); camera (much better than the one we have); seven flower pots; two decorative eggs; LED book lights (new in box); hat; telescope; video game and a memory card; and a fan.

Best deal was the camera. It was only $10 and works fantastic. Much better than the one I was using!

 So here's some pics I took today with the new camera :)

My sweet Taco 

And the Princess of Power, Skunky Dingus McGee

And this is Mable 

Princess and Buddha