Experimenting with a Broody Hen. Warning: Contains Graphic "Eggtopsy" Photos

We have two Buff Orpington hens. The one my girls call Goldilocks has been broody since right after Thanksgiving. A broody hen is one that wants to become a mama. They sit on eggs with rabid determination and oftentimes will aggressively repel any hand that seeks to remove the eggs they are sitting on.

Broody Goldilocks

Goldilocks is a pretty laid-back broody, but she is extremely dedicated. To the best of my knowledge, she gets off the nest but one or two times a day to sneak a quick drink and snack. I've employed every trick in the book to break her of her broodiness and coax her back into egg production, but it has continued for over two months now. Broodies stop laying and they are of little use to a person who doesn't need eggs incubated.

While this drama was unfolding in the chicken coop, all of my Ancona ducks came into lay. When I started to see some fertile eggs in the mix (here's how you can tell if a duck or chicken egg has been fertilized), it finally dawned on me that I could use Goldilocks to incubate some duck eggs. We weren't planning to hatch a bunch of ducklings until after our Cream Legbar chicks leave the brooder, but surely a handful of ducklings wouldn't hurt anything, right?

I put five freshly laid Ancona duck eggs under Goldilocks on February 20th. Their potential due date would be in 28 days - March 20th.

Brr! Snow didn't stop this mama

The next day we had a huge snow storm and snow sifted in through the cracks around the nest box door. It didn't stop Goldilocks, but I did brush the snow off her tail.

I paid a close attention to Goldilocks over the next week. She seemed to do a good job, though sometimes she would get back into the wrong nest after one of her short food/water/pooping excursions. That is why it is best to separate a broody hen into their own coop, but we were just winging it. I also wondered if she was turning the eggs appropriately since they really didn't seem to change positions in the nest.

I candled the eggs after seven days had past. I was pretty sure that two of the eggs were infertile as they showed no signs of development, but I decided to give them a couple of extra days just in case my candling skills weren't up to par.

Eleven days after I put the eggs under Goldilocks, I walked into the coop to find that four of the eggs were pushed out of the nest box and lay cold on the coop floor. Sometimes a broody hen will discard eggs that she knows are dead, so I took them indoors and candled them.

Two of the eggs were the infertile ones. The other two had some development.

I had to open those eggs and see what I could learn. I steeled myself for something really yucky and smelly, but I shouldn't have worried. I found it really interesting to see how much had changed inside those eggs in just 11 short days.



WARNING - IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE DUCK EMBRYOS, DO NOT SCROLL DOWN ANY FURTHER.


I have opened other eggs in the past that failed during incubation. All of them had blood rings like in the photo below.

A blood ring indicates an early death of the embryo
Image source: http://animalscience.ucdavis.edu/avian/pfs32.htm

A blood ring means that the embryo died early on in the development process.  I knew that there would be when I opened these two eggs because I saw a lot more than just a ring when I candled them.

This is what was inside egg #1. Click on the photo if you would like to see it up close.

Duck embryo after 11 days of development. You can see the eyes, beginnings of wings and legs, and
where the veins attach to the abdomen.

The embryo is encased in a membrane and had an extensive blood supply network

The second egg had obviously died a bit earlier than the first one. It had less veining and appeared to be decomposing a bit.

Egg #2 quit a bit earlier than Egg #1

This was absolutely fascinating to me. I wish the ducklings had developed properly and hatched, but at least I learned a little bit about their development. Goldilocks is still sitting on one egg, so we'll see if she becomes a mother yet!

Morning Glory the Attack Duck

It is the time of year when drakes can start to misbehave. The lengthening daylight tells the drake it is time to sow his wild oats and fight off any competitors.

I knew this so I've been keeping a careful eye on our flock of ducks. All had been peaceful and quiet. At least 5 of my 6 ducks have come into lay and the three drakes were busy trying to make all those eggs fertile.    Happiness reigned in duck-dom. 

That all changed yesterday. 

This is Morning Glory. 

This is Hyacinth

This is Morning Glory attacking Hyacinth

Morning Glory decided to ruthlessly bully Hyacinth and keep him separated from the rest of the flock. I have been checking on the ducks frequently to make sure this behavior doesn't get out of hand. So far there has been no blood shed, but Morning Glory is so focused on Hyacinth that he has neglected his conjugal duties. 

Interestingly, Morning Glory doesn't seem to care about Freckles, our third drake. 

Normally Hyacinth is one of the flock's leaders and often leads them all to bed in their duck house at nightfall. Last night Morning Glory chased out poor Hy and wouldn't let him back in. That behavior backfired on Morning Glory, though, because I scooped him up and put him in "time out"(our quarantine/hospital pen)  for the night. 

Needless to say, we are building breeding pens so we can get our drakes separated ASAP.  That way everyone will stay safe and we can further our breeding goals. We've bought the materials so now it is just a matter of putting it all together. 

Gust Front Farm is now NPIP Certified!

Our flocks were tested by the Kansas Department of Agriculture today for pullorum, typhoid, and avian influenza as part of the National Poultry Improvement Plan (NPIP). We are pleased to say that they tested clean and that Gust Front Farm is now NPIP certified. Our NPIP number is 48-372.

This won't mean much to you if you are merely a fresh eggs customer. But if you want to buy hatching eggs or ducklings from us, you can be completely assured that our stock will not transmit these diseases. And importantly, we are now able to send hatching eggs across state lines.

We don't have any Ancona duck hatching eggs for sale at this time. About 1/3 of our flock is laying, but the eggs are not yet fertile. When they are fertile, we'll be ready to go!

2013 Plans

We've accomplished a lot here on Gust Front Farm in 2012 and it looks like 2013 will be another year of growth. 

Ancona Ducks

Our main focus for 2013 will continue to be the Ancona Duck. (Read this article to learn why the Ancona is so special.) 

The Man of the House has been hard at work studying duck genetics. This is just the sort of geeky project he enjoys. That is said with much love because geeky is just the way I like my men-folk. ;) 

Our flock currently consists of 6 ducks (four black, one chocolate, and one blue) and three drakes (two chocolate and one blue). 

The ducks enjoying a little late fall pool time

We are going to construct two additional breeding pens and then divide our flock into trios to improve patterning and increase the variety of colors. We'll be hatching for ourselves, hatching to sell to local buyers, and will ship the hatching eggs anywhere in the US. More information about this to come. 

Chickens

I really had my hopes up for a huge expansion in the chicken department, but I'll settle for something more modest. We are consistently sold out of eggs every week. We will be adding a few extra layers, but not a lot. 

The big news is that we will be adding a flock of Cream Legbars. The Cream Legbar is a unique breed of chicken that is a newcomer to the US, only having been introduced from the UK in 2011. Legbars are crested, lay blue eggs, and are auto-sexing, which means you can sex the birds from birth by their appearance. The Cream Legbar was developed by Dr. Reginald Punnett, the man who created the Punnett square you probably worked with in high school. Chickens straight from Punnett = geek heaven! 

My goal is to breed Cream Legbars towards the UK Standard of Perfection. There is no American Standard at the moment, though it is being ironed out. Hopefully by next fall we will have Cream Legbar hatching eggs for sale.

We are going to construct an additional pen for our legbars, more housing, and some garden boxes to fill with green forage for the birds.


We'll be busy!

~Emily, Resident crazy chicken and duck lady

Why do our eggs taste so good? It's all in the feed.

Our family recently made a trip to the National Agriculture Hall of Fame. The highlight of the visit for me was the National Poultry Museum  located on the Hall of Fame grounds.

The National Poultry Museum was opened in 2009

I don't think the museum is worth going out of your way to visit, but if you are a poultry-fancier and happen to be in Bonner Springs, KS, it has some cool things to look at.

A Jamesway Mammoth Incubator from the 1920s

A collection of chicken catchers. At our house, we call these children.  :)
My 6 year old is the champion chicken catcher of the bunch.

One of the rooms is filled with paintings of many different poultry breeds. I was able to show the family some of the new birds we will have next year.

"See honey, they will look like this!"
We are adding pure-bred Ameraucanas to our flock next year for their blue eggs.

I wasn't surprised but I was definitely disappointed at the pro-Big Ag position the exhibits took. One display discussed the prevalence of battery cages in the US without mentioning the ethical concerns associated with the practice.

And then there was this little gem that made me roll my eyes:

Is the modern poultry industry progressive or regressive?  

Without a doubt, poultry feeds today are much more scientific. They have been formulated to give the exact amount of protein, fat, vitamins, and carbohydrates that a chicken needs to grow at a maximum rate. But does fast growth and pushing your hens to lay the maximum number of eggs mean you'll also get great taste?

We don't think so. If you want happy, healthy poultry and delicious eggs, your birds need green feeds. A customer once told me that she was surprised at how dark the yolks and how delicious our eggs are compared to what she had been buying at the grocery store.

An egg from one of our Ancona ducks. Look at that yolk! 

Our chickens do have access to a top-of-the-line natural chicken feed. They have NEVER been fed antibiotics and are given an Omega 3 supplement to enhance the nutritional value of their eggs. But that's not why they taste so good. The real difference between our eggs and those from the store is because our birds are happy chickens and ducks that eat grass and bugs, scratch in the dirt, loll in the sun, and have plenty of homegrown, organic green feed.

This bucket of rainbow chard will make for some very happy chickens, turkeys, and ducks

In addition to our poultry, our homestead also has an organic vegetable garden, orchard, and berries. Our birds benefit from the culled produce from our garden as well as from the crops we planted just for them.

Black oil sunflower seeds are a wonderful poultry treat.

Fresh food does matter! The better the chickens eat, the better the eggs taste. Period.

Welcome to Gust Front Farm's Blog!

As our poultry occupation has grown from a hobby to a (very) small business, I decided to start writing this blog to get the word out there about what we do. This also gives me an alternative place to post all the duck and chicken photos that are currently cluttering up my personal Facebook page!

When I talked to my grandma a year ago about my desire to get chickens, she pretty much laughed at me. You see, I'm not exactly known for being outdoors-y, or dealing with the dirt and muck that come with livestock. When the chickens arrived, it was love at first peep! Those first chickens led to yet more chickens, then turkeys, and finally ducks. My love of poultry has been contagious and my two oldest children have gotten involved in our egg selling business.

I'll post photos of our birds, articles, and links to useful information for the crazy poultry keepers out there.

~Emily, resident crazy chicken and duck lady