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Moose Manor Farms

Hurricane Sandy: The Frankenstorm (Day 1)

10/29/2012

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Twitterpic: @warrenellis
Hurricane Sandy has made landfall on the East Coast and it's colliding with a NorEaster to wreak havoc over 7 states.  Most of us are getting heavy gushers of rain, and if you're anywhere near the waterfront then you're experiencing amazing storm surge and crippling flooding.  Western Maryland, parts of Virginia and West Virginia are having white out blizzard conditions and at the time of this writing there was already 3 feet of snow in WV.

Last night and this morning in Southern Maryland we had buckets of rain and some high winds.  for the last couple of hours we've had a lull in the wind.  The worst is supposed to arrive at 2am tomorrow morning.  While the wind was down and I didn't have to worry about sideways rain, I went outside to take some video.  It's not the best quality since I have my phone shoved in a ziplock baggie and it's also getting speckled by raindrops.- plus I'm tromping around in my rubber boots making it a bit unsteady.  But so far, we've not sustained any damage.  There hasn't been (knock wood) any trees down in my yard or large branches.  We heard some loud cracking and crashing in the neighboring woods, but there isn't anything that will be crushed in those parts of the property.

I'm happy to say that these video's are very boring :)  Here's the front yard:

Then I went back to the barnyard to take some video of the animals.  The waterfowl are acting like it's just any other day (rain? what rain?).  They're staying inside the small duckyard and not venturing out into the rest of the barnyard, but otherwise they're acting like it's nothing to worry about.  The Muscovy are less thrilled and look a little miserable out there with their necks scrunched down just sitting like a bunch of dummies in the rain.  Some of my smarter Muscovy hens are hanging out inside their loft staying dry and, clearly, much warmer.

The chickens are pretty unhappy about the deluge.  They're mostly keeping inside the henhouse.  A few of the juvenile girls are making runs back in forth from one protected area to another, and a few brave souls are going on with business as normal and looking like a bunch of drowned rats.

Here's the barnyard:
Ocean City MD storm surge
AP News Pic

This is why I like to visit the beach but I don't want to live at the beach.  This nasty mess is a combination of surf foam and wet sand flying around like cotton candy and coating everything in sight.  Gross.



I'll keep you posted as new pictures or video are taken.  Like I said, so far we're doing quite well, just a lot wet and without power but I think we're set to deal with that just fine... at least until we run out of beer.

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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

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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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    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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