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Moose Manor Farms

Sharpsburg Poultry Swap & Farmers Market, Fall Edition

9/20/2012

1 Comment

 
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Sharpsburg, Maryland is a picturesque landscape of rolling hills and farmland with a very charming and nostalgic downtown that looks like it was lifted directly from a snapshot of the 1800's.  The town is near the West Virginia and Pennsylvania borders, tucked in beside the Antietam Battlefield and Historic Harper’s Ferry; it's a rather beautiful and bucolic 2 1/2 hour drive from my tiny farm in Southern Maryland.

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Speaking of charming, this swap is hosted at Green Hill Farm by Erin Moshier, a delightfully sunny gal with an infectious smile.  Twice each year (summer and fall) she hosts a fun poultry swap at her family farm just minutes from the center of downtown Sharpsburg.  But once you turn down that gravel road leading to the poultry barn and the horse stables where curious pony's whinny hello's over the fence, you feel miles and miles from anything but the countryside.

My MooseHerders and I arrived early in the morning with a modest selection of ducks, chickens and geese and quickly put up our canopy, table and portable poultry pen.  The feathered flock was soon nibbling on Erin's pasture and getting rehydrated after a long car ride.  Folks were milling about prior to the 8am "selling start time" and were very curious about what poultry or farm related product each vendor was preparing to sell out of that day.

I had 2 extra Holderread Penciled Indian Runner boys from my spring order I was preparing to sell.  Those birds were as nervous as ever and abjectly refused to stand at ease; they chose instead to peer nervously at their growing audience and sort of dance from foot to foot like a 5 year old who needs to use the potty.  The young Sebstapol goose was taking everything in stride (I could have sold him 10 times over!), and my affable juvenile Welsh Harlequin was attempting to charm the chickens into being his pals for the day (since he was raised by a chicken mama and didn't know he was a duck) and those Marans cockerels were not having any of it.  All in all it was shaping up to be an interesting day at my booth.


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Browsers stopped by to ask over and over again what the heck kind of birds those Penciled Indian Runners were ("are those some kind of goose?")  and before too long a somber and truly gentlemanly young man hailing from West-By-God-Virginia quietly asked me if I'd be willing to sell him those lovely Runner ducks (he said it just like that).  I was more than happy to negotiate a price for that gracious, young aspiring farmer and help him carry his new waterfowl to his car.  Such a peach, I wish him well.

Tons of folks stopped by to chat with me at length, get advice about waterfowl, and tell me about their own flock. I gave out many business cards and collected a few as well.  What a great place to network!  There was so much to see and hear at the swap:  Craftsman selling poultry housing and nesting equipment, crafty-crafter ladies peddling so many wonderful handhewn wares, local feed stores, chicken farmers, duck farmers, guinea keets, peacocks, muscovy, turkeys, pheasants, chukar, bunnies, goats, and pigs (ADORABLE)... I even saw guinea pigs! 

And - holy moly - Someone had the nerve to bring some gorgeous German Shorthair puppies... O My GOODNESS!  Those hounds were absolutely snugglicious!  I barely contained myself at that booth.  I reminded my hard farmrgirl heart that hunting dogs and ducks were not the best bedfellows. *sigh*

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We had such a good time at the swap!  There was live music and great giveaways.  I bought a few things, sold a few things and met a bunch of interesting and fun folks.  You just never know who you might make a good friend out of until you go to one of these events!  For the upcoming spring/summer swap I'll be loaded up with hatching eggs, eating eggs, baby ducks, geese and chickens to sell in the early summer at Erin's next poultry swap... this event is too good to pass up!  I hope you'll join us all next year - especially at the early market when all those spring hatches will be ready. 

For more information or to be added to her mailing list, Erin's blog can be found here: http://mdpoultryswap.blogspot.com/. 

Don't forget: When you're in the area be sure to have lunch in one of the local establishments.  We did (twice - once in Boonsboro) and were NOT disappointed mmmmm... good!

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The Goslings Have Hatched!

4/18/2012

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On Easter Sunday 3 little baby goslings were coaxed from their satin shells into the world.  My mama Muscovy, newly named Gåsmer or "Mother Goose" in Swedish, has been such a wonderful broody, and now caretaker, of these fat Buddha goose babies.

Of the 6 eggs I put under her she hatched 3, and based on the notations Kim wrote on the shell, I now have 2 Sebastopol and 1 American Blue goslings.  It would appear that the golden baby pictured above is a white Sebbie and one of the dark & yellow fluffers is a Saddleback Sebbie.  The other dark gosling is my new little American Blue.

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Miss Gasmer & her troup

All 3 are very sweet and friendly.  When I open the door of their little house in the morning they meet me right away with their tiny necks craned out and their little baby goosey sounds peep peep peeping through.  One especially, my tiny Curious George, really does like to snuggle a moment every morning and chew on my hair.  GoldenChild is the least happy to be picked up but, honestly, doesn't seem to mind that much.  I've been handling them quite a bit to keep them friendly, although I'm not sure, in my experience, that there's a true correlation to the amount of handling they get as babies and their level of friendliness as adults.  I'll say for sure that some handling is helpful but once they mature I see a big difference between behavior as a baby compared to their level of trust as an adult - in opposing directions most often.  One thing remains constant: their response to the sound of my voice.  All my birds respond positively to the sound of my voice but each respond differently to my nearness.  So, all that said, I think a moderate amount of stress-free handling is important when they're small, but don't expect them to still be eating out of your hand in 2 months.

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I haven't determined the sex of these fluffers yet.  I did an initial gender evaluation but it was inconclusive so I'll have to do another after a short instructive video viewing at the Metzer Farms website.  I'm hoping that my American Blue is a girl so that I can finally have a pair... unfortunately, one of my 2 boys will have to find a new home.  Sad but very necessary for pair bonding.

I'm excited that the babies are finally here, healthy and happy.  I'll keep you posted on their progress!

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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.
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The American Goose Egg

3/9/2012

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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
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Muscovy Babies at 4 Weeks

1/23/2012

2 Comments

 
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No matter how often I watch them grow, I’m always amazed at the rapid bulk this variety puts on daily.  I’ll peek in the window of the Muscovy loft in the chilly pre-dawn to say good morning to mama Lumi and her brood dozing under the heat-lamp and when I return from work in the evening I see her kiddos have sprouted up during the day!  

In the past I’ve noted that for this strain of French White Production Muscovy the drakes put on 12 pounds in 12 weeks… whew!  They just seem to grow while you watch.

As a comparison to the video I took of their first day out when they were only 2 days old, here’s a video I took of them starting their day on December 29th when they were 4 weeks old:


Muscovy Baby
They’re curious, quick, and sassy.  It’s hard to keep an eye on them all the time, but they do have eyes on them throughout the day.  Unfortunately, only 9 remain of the original 13.  I lost one the first week when it climbed into a chilly duck pond.  That prompted me to keep them separated in their own yard until recently when they began to feather out.  One was born with an issue and only made it to week 2.  After letting them out to range the property again with mama, I lost 2 more over several days to cold pond water… as I said, it’s hard to keep an eye on them all day and this is really the wrong time of the year for baby waterfowl.

This is the first time I’ve let a Muscovy mama raise the babies and, mainly because it's winter,  it’s been a lot of work for everyone!  But I’ve learned so much and hopefully Miss Lumi’s lessons benefit future broods.  A new and improved system will go into place this year so that when my girls inevitably go broody on the cusp of winter we can avoid the major pitfalls.


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Christmas Babies... Muscovy Style

12/14/2011

3 Comments

 
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My girl Lumi is a mama!  (“Lumi” is a Scandinavian word for “snow”).  Miss Lumi is only 8 months old now but back at the end of October she and her sister decided to set a couple of nests.  I figured that they'd give up before the required 35 days and I'd planned to gather the abandoned embryos for my incubator... if I got to them in time.  Halfway through, her sister decided she'd rather be playing outside, but Lumi stuck to it (she even rolled her sisters eggs over into her own nest!) and on December 1st she hatched out 13 little babies.

I knew it was gonna be cold when those tiny ducklings hatched out so I was hoping that mom would keep them inside where they had lots of room to run around but temps were slightly more reasonable.  Everyone is doing great, mama Lumi takes her fuzzballs out for a walk about every other day.  But the babies are still unable to climb the long ramp back up to the Muscovy Loft so I usually have to gather them all in a bucket before it gets dark and plop them back inside under the heat lamp.  After spending the entire day trekking all over the barnyard in 40 degree temps, the kiddo’s are pretty pooped and make a big puppy pile under the lamp -  totally crashed out.

Here are some pictures of their outing on day 2:

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When the babies can't make it all the way up the ramp into the Muscovy Loft, Mama Lumi frets back an forth up and down the ramp to show them how, then gives up and gathers them under her to keep them warm until help arrives.  She doesn't like me to pick up the babies but everyone is happier when they're back inside after a long day in the cold!
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Here's a little video of them exploring the barnyard:
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Babies!

8/5/2011

5 Comments

 
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Welsh Harlequin duckling 3-hours old
I've had mixed results in my incubator this year.  The eggs that I'm able to get consistently excellent hatches for are Spot, my single Ancona girl and Blush, one part of my lovely Welsh Harlequin pair.  Those two girls give me an average 85% hatch rate! 

Spot was in my WH breeding yard until I moved Blush and Duck Dogers into the garden last month.  I added her when she hurt her leg and was trying so hard to keep up with the Runners at a fast limp.  Just so happens that Blush was acting like she was getting ready to set a nest and Spot could keep Duck Dogers company for the month that she was broody.  Since Spot and Blush's eggs look just alike, if I wanted to hatch WH I had to set them both. So after carefully marking their eggs when I collect them each day, I discovered that it's really easy to tell who's babies I have as soon as they hatch.

Both girls throw beautiful, healthy  ducklings but Spot's kiddo's are really interesting looking.  She throws Blues, Blacks, Chocolates, and Lavenders... some splash but most bibbed.   One of the fun things is trying to figure out just what Spot's babies will look like when they get their feathers.  Sometimes they lose their baby bibs and sometimes they don't.

On July 13th I hatched out 4 babies from a batch of Blush and Spot's eggs and this time I got colors I haven't had before: one lavender and one chocolate from Spot all with multicolored legs and feet.  All of Blush's babies are yellow with orange legs and they're growing into beautiful Welsh Harlequins, however, the one in this batch is a creamier color than her usual... I'm interested to see what kind of adults I get.

I plan to keep all the WH girls to build my flock and, while I don't need them, I'm tempted to keep the chocolate and lavender from this hatch.  I bet that they grow into stunning birds.  

The pictures below were taken just a few hours after these babies hatched as I was moving them from the incubator to the brooder.


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4 babies only a few hours old and just out of the incubator
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Black & White Ancona x Welsh Harlequin mix
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Lavender Ancona x Welsh Harlequin mix
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Chocolate Ancona x Welsh Harlequin mix
Welsh Harlequin day old
Welsh Harlequin
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Buffy the Buff Orphington chicken is a mom again!

8/25/2010

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Today Buffy hatched 10 of the 15 eggs I put under her when she went broody (again!).  

She hatched out 6 Welsummer chicks in April (read about that here) and then in August she went broody again.  For a week I kicked her out of the nestbox each day and collected the eggs.  She’d run around the barnyard like she was supposed to until that night when she would sleep in the nest box.  I figured if she was so committed I’d order her more fertile eggs (remember, I have no rooster here).  So I ordered a dozen  from a fellow chicken keeper (Dipsy Doodle Doo) in Arkansas (Clovis Place Garden and Poultry) whom I met through BackyardChickens.com.  She was kind enough to put together a variety pack of colored egg layers of interesting looking birds and sent a collection of 15 eggs of Ameraucana, Silkies in a variety of colors, Naked Neck Turkins, and frizzles.  The colors of the eggs I received were really great!  There were tan, olive green, and two shades of blue.  

I can see that I have one Turkin because it’s the only chick without feathers on its neck.  The others are interesting colors but I’m not sure yet what I’ve got out there.   Once they’re old enough to sex I’ll figure out what to keep and what to sell and look forward to then finding out what color eggs I’ll be getting.  Very egg-citing!

Buffy just loves being a mom and she’s very good at it.  I let the other chickens out to free-range and close their access off to the henyard, then I open the broody box gate and let Buff take her babies out for a private scratching match.  That’ll work great until they’re bigger and she’s ready to bring them out onto the property.  For now they’re snack-size morsels for the Muscovy so I’ll keep them in a safe place until they’re old enough.  Wow… 10 more chickens!  Wonder how many will turn out to be roo’s?

 


 


 


 


 



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Buffy is a new mom!

5/19/2010

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Buffy went broody on me and was fully committed to hatching this crazy purple plastic egg I had put in some unused nest boxes to encourage the girls to lay there.  I don't have a rooster so I got on ebay (gosh, you can buy anything there!) and ordered her some fertilized Welsummer eggs to set.  I built a broody box with her own extra large nest box and tiny outdoor run while she doted on her new eggs and 20 days later she had 5 babies!  She likes having her own private space and I'll like it when she gets off the nest long enough so I can clean it out.

The Welsummer's can be sight-sexed at birth - female's have a distictive triangle on top of their head and clear eyeliner, on the males all these marks are very fuzzy - each of Buffy's babies have well defined, sharp markings so I think I just got 5 more hens!  Yay... what luck!

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Khaki Campbell Ducks Have Hatched!

5/4/2010

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Khaki Campbell hatching in the incubator
I've been incubating these little duck eggs for 28 days waiting eagerly for the hatch... well, they were 4 days late but here they are!

Only 3 made it out but they're running around looking happy and healthy.  Still a little unsteady on their new legs but they are flourishing and have already grown quite a bit... or at least got fluffier :)

Read all about Khaki Campbell ducks here.


Out of the egg & totally pooped


Just resting & waiting to get dry


Hello! I was born today


KC#1 meets KC#2 for the first time


Snuggle bunny


Coast Guard Beanie Bear is a hit!

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    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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