Day: June 10, 2010

Turkey Tracks: June 10, 2010

Visit to Pete and Rose’s Farm:  a Dolce Vita

The eggs Rose has been incubating started hatching last night.  Rose called me right away.  John and I left first thing this morning to go see them.

Here are the first 6:

The little black one is a Maran/Wheaten Americauna cross.

Many of the eggs in the incubator have big pecking holes in them and the chicks inside make them rock back and forth as they move around in their efforts to get out of the shell.   We stayed for along time watching two in particular that we thought might hatch while we were there.  But, no luck.  Rose will call later today to tell me how many more have hatched.

Rose has about 6 guinea hen eggs in the incubator.  They are much smaller than even our Americauna’s eggs.  And, they take about six days longer to hatch, whereas the regular hens take 21 days.  Rose’s guinea hen is sitting on a pile of eggs in a stand of tall grasses in the middle of the large chicken enclosure.  Merlin, the husband, stays with her and says sweet things to her all the while.  She will not leave the eggs, rain or shine, until they hatch.  Guinea fowl easily fly into the tops of trees, so it’s interesting that they nest on the ground, which is a very vulnerable place to be for a chicken with eggs.  Here is a picture of Rose’s Merlin–named so because he is an escape artist.  Rose got the female not long ago, actually.  Merlin is much smaller than William, Rose’s Americauna Rooster, but William is scared to death of Merlin.

Our meat chickens are 9 weeks old now, and you can see they are getting close to harvest weight.  We are planning on June 27th, probably.  Everyone who got part of the order of over 170 chicks will gather to help each other process the birds.

I will be curious to see if their livers will be good.  The livers of commercially raised chickens are not healthy at all.  That’s why you don’t see them in the stores anymore.  We will also keep the chicken feet, which are fabulous additions to the chicken broth we make from every chicken we roast.  In Italy, one always gets all the chicken parts, including the feet, when buying a chicken at any market.

Rose  recently got some adorable rabbits.  They are true pets, though she uses their feces to make a tea that she uses on her plants.  She calls these rabbits “floppy ear rabbits.”

Jenna, who is part of a program that places young people who are interested in farming with farmers, told Rose yesterday that this pair of rabbits will be having babies in the near future…  Rose and the friend who gave her these rabbits thought they were two females.  Oh well…

Lupines are blooming everywhere now.   The lupines are one of the prettiest wildflowers in Maine.  They are everywhere–all along the sides of the roads, in the ditches, in fields.  I like them best when they have pink and white mixed into the blue.  There was a stand of them back of Rose’s house.

It’s the best I can do today, which is a soft, rainy day.