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Moose Manor Farms

The Exposition of Light: an Art Show

3/28/2012

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Bryan Applegate is an accomplished and wonderfully artistic photographer, writer, human-being, and sometimes cook.  And as a right-brained farmer-gal I appreciate his craftsmanship, his style, and flair which he serves up without pretension.

You can see his work at www.BryanApplegate.com

I highly encourage you to attend his first solo art show hosted throughout the month of May at the itty-bitty but big-hearted Chloe's Coffee Bar & Gallery in the Kentlands. 

'Meet the Artist' night is Thursday, May 3rd from 7PM to 9PM.  So squeeze in if you're able to swing by... grab a beverage and maybe an autograph from the artist.  If you can't make it on Thursday, visit anytime in May to enjoy Bryan's photographs, electric sculptures, and illustrations created just for the 'Exposition of Light': which he's describing as "science pushing art pushing science... of Light"

Are you excited?  I am!

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Candling Goose Eggs

3/18/2012

4 Comments

 
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It's been nearly a fortnight, so this evening I candled my goose eggs for the second time since setting them in the incubator.

For those of you unfamiliar with the term, "candling" is a method which bird breeders use to verify that eggs incubated for hatching are fertile. To candle an egg, a very bright light is held behind it to illuminate the shape of the embryo inside the shell. Fertility is determined based on the color, shape, and opacity of the contents. When no veining is present and the egg is very bright inside, we call this a "clear" egg, meaning it's unfertilized or otherwise not viable.  It all usually starts with a dark spot, which grows veins, then the little baby inside begins to take shape and you can often see it moving when you shine your light on it.

Here are pictures of the eggs.  These are not my best work, I haven't gotten the hang of ultra low light photography.  At least they're not blurry, which requires a lot of steadiness and holding of breath for such a dark room.

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Sebastopol Goose (bonus egg): you can see the faint but sure "spidering" and the large dark spot indicating fertility
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American Blue Goose: This one looks "clear"
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American Blue Goose: This one also looks clear but darker, you can see the definition here between the large mass and a much brighter back-side. Another scramble? :-/
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Sebastopol Goose (bonus egg): This egg also has all the signs of a developing embryo
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American Blue Goose: Looks clear but darker, there's a large mass but no spidering... scrambled perhaps??
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American Blue Goose: This one looks pretty clear also
Shipping is very hard on hatching eggs.  The post office is fairly rough with the boxes and no matter how well you pack them, sometimes you end up with broken eggs or detached air-sacks, or otherwise "scrambled" eggs on the delivery side.  Plus, it's impossible to tell whether an egg is fertile until it's been incubated for about a week. 

The right temperature and humidity conditions must be reached before all the eggs in a clutch sort of "click on" and begin growing.  This ensures that when the hen finally lays her last egg for a clutch that they all hatch within 24 hours of each other.  An egg laid 6 days prior to her setting the nest begins growing at exactly the same time as the one she just laid.  Right up until those perfect conditions are met, a fertile egg looks exactly like an infertile egg.  Many people believe that a blood spot on the yolk is an indication, that only means that a bit of blood was trapped inside the egg when it was being formed... hens with no male to fertilize eggs lay those just as often as the ladies who have a man around.

I'm crossing my fingers on those two questionable American Blues.  I've never hatched goose eggs before so I'm going off of past experience with chicken, duck and Muscovy eggs.

Speaking of which, that Muscovy girl that looked and sounded like she was considering setting a nest is a confirmed broody.  She's been keeping a couple of wooden eggs warmed up and has created a beautiful nest for them, lined with downy feathers pulled from her own chest.  Tonight I took these goose eggs out of the incubator and put them under her warm bottom.  If they're gonna hatch at all, they'll do it under her expert care.  Then she can raise those babies instead of me.  I love babies but everyone will benefit from this pretty little Muscovy doing what she does best.
4 Comments

The American Goose Egg

3/9/2012

2 Comments

 
American Goose Eggs

Today my American Blue Goose hatching eggs arrived from my friend Kim Kelly!  She even tossed in a couple of bonus Sebastopol eggs...

This will be my first time attempting to artificially incubate goose eggs.  I have a Muscovy girl who looks like she's giving a great deal of consideration to going broody but hasn't really committed herself to it full time yet.  That's a bummer because I was hoping to remove the wooden eggs from her nest and slide these wonderful works of goose art right in under that warm, feathered bum of hers.  Wouldn't she have been pleased to sit 5 days less than her own would've confined her?  Oh well... I can certainly put that fluffy bottom to work on other duties once she gets herself settled.

These eggs are HUGE!  I had to take some pictures just for posterity. I knew they were big but until you actually hold one...

This is one of the goose eggs next to an average sized, grade "large", chicken egg -  one of my Marans eggs to be exact.  Just look at the size of that goose egg!  Wow.

I can see how it's often said that a goose egg is a meal for two - LOL! What an omelet, eh?  And I know, I know... when you compare the size of a gooses body to the size of a chickens body it does make sense - it's just - how often do you hold an egg that size?

Cross your fingers for me that I get a good hatch so that I'll have a reliable supply of these enormous eggs of my own.  I'm hoping for a minimum of 2 girls from the Americans and a pair from the Sebbies (that'll be a wonderful stroke of luck!)  A girl can dream...

What a fun project I'm embarking on tonight... I'll try to post pictures of their progress over the next 30 days. 
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Goose vs Chicken
Yes, that's actually the true color of the chicken egg. French Black Copper Marans lay a pretty chocolate brown egg. Neat, eh?
And, of course, there will be a meeeellion photos of the babies once they hatch out.  Who doesn't love baby goose breath?
Egg Comparison
Egg comparison: American goose, Muscovy, Cayuga duck, Campbell duck, Marans chicken
2 Comments
    Dana

    About Farmrgirl

    Small town Calif. farm-girl leaves the ranch behind for many years of adventure at sea, travels the world, then moves to Washington DC in 2007 where she finds the perfect homestead to settle down: acres of secluded Southern Maryland woods where she goes granola by raising her quality of life, Mastiffs, ducks, chickens, and tomatoes {& one Bengal kitty}... sustainably.


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