Thursday, April 23, 2015

Photos from the Farm #29

Welcome back!

We have a chicken that is eating eggs! That can be a big problem. If she doesn't stop eating eggs we'll have to get rid of her.

We have already tried giving the chickens some minerals. That has helped. Now the chicken isn't eating the inside of the eggs, but she is still pecking through the shell. That means she has a bad habit that we need to try to break.

Here is one of the eggs I found on Thursday with a hole pecked through the shell. 

We are trying to break her bad habit by putting plastic eggs in each nesting area.

We hope that the chicken pecks the plastic eggs. If she does, the shell won't break.
We are hoping that she decides it isn't any fun to bang her beak against a hard, plastic egg.
I hope that breaks her bad habit so we can use those eggs!

Here is my egg count for this week:

  • Friday, April 17 I collected 7 brown eggs, 4 green eggs, and 0 duck eggs
  • Saturday, April 18 I collected 0 brown eggs, 6 green eggs, and 0 duck eggs
  • Sunday, April 19 I collected 3 brown eggs, 2 green eggs, and 0 duck eggs
  • Monday, April 20 I collected 3 brown eggs, 3 green eggs, and 1 duck egg.
  • Tuesday, April 21 I collected 1 brown egg, 2 green eggs, and 0 duck eggs.
  • Wednesday, April 22 I collected 2 brown eggs, 2 green eggs, and 0 duck eggs.
  • Thursday, April 23 I collected 3 brown eggs, 3 green eggs, and 0 duck eggs.
  • Friday, April 24 I collected 4 brown eggs, 3 green eggs, and 0 duck eggs.


Here is my graph!
Does yours look the same or different?
I counted the eggs I collected each week, then entered the data into my graph.
Week 1 doesn't have as many eggs collected as the other weeks. I started counting eggs but I didn't start on a Saturday, I started on a Tuesday. Look under the graph and you will see the dates that are included in each week.

Look at Week 5. Fewer eggs were collected during Week 5, as well as Week 6. There are fewer eggs during Week 5 because that is the week we had bad storms. Chickens can get scared, that means that they don't lay as many eggs for the next week.

Week 6 has fewer eggs because we have a chicken who is eating eggs and I only count the eggs that we can eat, not the ones that are wasted.

Did you notice that there are fewer duck eggs towards the end of the chart? I'm sure there are duck eggs, but the ducks have decided to move their nest and I haven't found it yet. It usually only takes me a day or two to find their new spot. But I still haven't found it!

If I find a big nest of eggs I'll take a picture and post it for you to see.

I thought you might like to see what my tracking paper looks like.
This is how I collected the data and kept track of it each day.
The graph above looks much nicer!

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Would you like to see some pictures of Harry, the kid goat?

This is Harry the day after he was born.
Here are Harry and Quin. Harry is 2 weeks old. 

Did you notice the marks on the top of Harry's head? Baby goats often have their horns removed. Their horns can be dangerous to themselves, to other goats in the herd, and to people. Would your mother let you run around with a knife in each hand while you play? Probably not. Horns are a little bit like knives, they can be dangerous even when the goats are playing.

Here is Harry and his mother, Annie. Harry is almost 3 weeks old.
He was born on April 5, 2015.
Look on your calendar and see how many days old Harry is.

Baby goats are called kids. They stay with their mom for 6-8 weeks. After they are 8 weeks old we send them to their new home if we have sold them. If we are keeping them, we separate them from their mother. They are old enough that they don't need their mother's milk anymore.

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Do you have any plans for the week?

We do! It's time to clean the barn yard! We try to clean the barn yard each spring. We clean up all the trash that has blown in through the winter. We clear out the branches that have fallen down. We put away all the water heaters. We sweep out the barn. We clean out the stalls. There is always work to be done on the farm!

Have a great week!

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