And so it begins again...

I was just thinking back to this time last year, when I obsessively checked both Bridgit and Sheila every morning for two months at 6:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. in the dark with the flashlight, studying vulvas, feeling pin bones and judging udders, unsure of when their calves would come and yet certain it would be any day.

That time was entertaining for my readers and frustrating for me. I have no idea how the cows felt about it, but they must not have minded much...they were good sports and didn't hurt me, at least.

This year I'm physically in the same waiting realm, but mentally in a whole different place. I can fully appreciate now how difficult it is to know when a cow will calve. Based on the dates of Tabor's visit, Sheila could calve anytime between November 16th and February 8th. Bridgit, since she didn't take with Tabor and had a visit from the back-up (but mighty fine) boyfriend, Umberto, should calve between April 8th and May 17th.

How do I know this? The handy dandy gestation calendar. Full term for cows is 273 days, plus or minus 10. (Big plus or minus, huh?!) Sheila's calving window is obviously much longer because Tabor "stayed over" a long time.

I'm not obsessing, but I am keeping my eye on both girls. I went so far the other day as to pull photos from the same week in 2008, looking at Sheila's roundness then and now. Prior to that I was certain she wouldn't calve until December this year, but the photos seem to indicate she's about as big and pregnant right now as she was with giant T-Bone. Her crankiness, too, seems indicative. She doesn't appreciate me standing behind her with a camera, trying to take photos of both sides of her at once. I swear the other day I saw her right side moving and swirling as if a calf was tumbling around inside. It could be my imagination, though.

What I do know is we can be prepared with our calf kit and emergency instructions, but predicting delivery dates is a game I already failed memorably at. I'll just watch and wait (patiently), navel dip and bathroom scale at the ready. Regardless, I can't wait to see what our new calves will be like...bulls, heifers, colors, size, personality...it's all so exciting!

Sheila of the Big Belly, 2009

Green eggs and ham

After a loooonnnnggg wait, I discovered my first egg out of the new flock this morning!!! Can you feel my glee? I mean, AmysFlock the First died on May 16, 2009, and we consumed what remained of their (non-incubated) eggs by the end of the following week. It's been five months since a chicken has laid an egg at Skookumchuck Farm.

The egg is light green with brown speckles. I suspect Mama, one of the Wheaties, is the layer; firstly, she had six 3-month old Wheatie Jr. chicks at her side when I bought her and secondly, I'm pretty certain none of my three black pullets out of AmysFlock the First had an Easter Egger mama. (I do want to research the heritability of feathering and color (and egg color) more, though, because perhaps a pullet could be black and lack the EE "cheek" feathers and still have an EE mother.)

I am just tickled. The nesting boxes were moved to their new location under the West-facing window just last week, but lack the darkening roof and back panels I had planned to work on today. I thought for sure those two things would need to be completed before a little miss decided the nest boxes were ok for laying. Perhaps the fluffy clean shavings, the perfectly-dimensioned vented file box nests, and/or the grit-filled fake egg did the trick. Regardless, the egg is spotlessly clean. It now sits in the fridge in half an egg carton...no need to get too optimistic yet, right?

Now the other kiddos just need to catch up! My three black pullets are now 18 weeks old so laying could commence at any time, although likely won't start until around week 21. The three Red Laced Black Wyandotte pullets I purchased are, I think, a couple of weeks younger. The other two Wheaties wore the same leg bands (denoting hatch #) as Mama, so hopefully two more green eggs will join the first before too long. Perhaps I've purchased my last carton of (flat, pale, flavorless) store-bought eggs for awhile!!

Meet the Wheaties

My flock is finally complete! Yesterday I visited a mixed flock that was being sold - every last one - by a woman outside of Tenino, and came home with three new ladies! They are a wheaten color, mixes of whites, grays, taupe, brown and red (thus the nickname "The Wheaties"). They're Easter Egger mixes, meaning somewhere in their lineage are mothers who laid blue or green eggs and had cheek feathers that stuck out. These are mixes because for one I have no idea what the parents looked like, having been given away some time ago, and secondly because about 40% of the entire flock had feathered legs, which is not an Easter Egger trait. The legs harken to a Brahma or perhaps Cochin parent somewhere in there. One of my new ladies was a mama, having set and hatched out six beautiful chicks. The other two are the same age; supposedly they were hatched late last year but all three (in fact most of the flock wearing the same leg bands) are fairly small. Maybe a parent in there had some Bantam - the mini breeds.

The new ladies are in quarantine in the former Boy Jail (the boys were taken to the auction in Chehalis on Saturday to spare Paul and me the duty of having to butcher, which we were unprepared to do). I want to be sure they are healthy AND don't have scaly leg mites, which four of the six much-older Rhode Island Red hens at the same farm seemed to have. Each new girl got her legs slathered with Vaseline on her way from cat carrier to Boy Jail and I will treat them every few days with the same (the thought being one could smother mites if they exist). In a week or so I'll smuggle them into the barn coop under the cover of darkness, so they can have a chance to sleep near their new coop-mates before everyone wakes up and freaks out about the new residents.

Provided all three of the Wheaties end up healthy (and none of my still sexless Blue Laced Red Wyandotte chicks are boys), the flock will contain 9 hens to one rooster...a nice egg-producing number!

In other chicken news, my still-nameless rooster has nearly mastered his crow and sounds much more grown up...and is attempting to mate with one of the pullets, much to her dismay. This guy is quite precocious, as roosters aren't supposedly sexually mature until 24-25 weeks of age, and my little flock is only 16-weeks old! He apparently didn't get the memo. However, as he practices his voice multiple times per day he has caught the attention of our previous predator, the coyote, who came waltzing in with a crooked, limpy gait, along the north fenceline this morning at 7:30, listened awhile, and then ran off again. Bad news for the chickens...they will not be free-ranging unattended...or maybe at all. If that is the case, we'll need to increase the size of the outdoor run to give the kiddos plenty of room to scratch around.