Journee's Critters

Tomorrow Quinn and I are going with a van full of our fellow CAP cadets to a lake to participate in some water sports and chillin'.

I say "chillin'" with some literal sense. It will probably be cold!

-

 

 

 Well. The plan was to not get any hatching eggs after my parents first deterred me from ordering eggs just a day or so ago. Whenever that last was.

Then this afternoon, while I was doing school, Mom came up to me and mentioned that she owed me money for babysitting, and that if I wanted it could go towards hatching eggs. I said it could go towards chicken feed, but she said that wasn't a big deal, so I figured I'd think it over, and wait a while. Three of my five currently incubating eggs are due to hatch in two weeks, and the rest roughly a week later. Those later eggs will have to be hand-turned while the first half go into lock-down. The thought of  buying expensive eggs, and then having to carefully hand-turn them while the later mutt eggs were in lock-down was at first daunting; although I could easily handle it, I wouldn't want to mess them up by accident. So I proposed that I'd wait on buying eggs, but would accept my Mom's very kind offer.

That plan wore quickly, and is now off like a dirty shirt.

 

 

I ordered 12+ eggs from a chicken breeder in GA. It was a "buy it now" listing, and those words played like a Jedi mind-trick on my...you know...mind. I cracked. The eggs are due to ship sometime soon. I'm not sure when exactly, which is somewhat unusual, but my first guess is that they'll ship Monday.

Anybody want to know what I got? I mentioned above that I ordered a dozen eggs, plus extras "if available". (This is a large, reputable breeder, and I'd be shocked if there was not a single extra egg with the bunch. That's just courtesy.) That dozen will be a mix of three different types of Marans chickens. This includes BBS (black, blue, splash,) French black copper, and wheaten. All look fantastic. Even the BBS have darker eggs than most Marans.

 

Below are a few pictures of two of the types (from her breeding pens) and each type's respectable eggs. All pictures and stock are copyrighted, and belong to their owners!

The breeder mentions that their BBS pen consists of splash and black copper marans, which means I'll get either splashes, or blues from the BBS eggs. Or both! (Hopefully both...)

These are some of those birds:

 

These are the wheaten marans:

 

I don't have any pictures of the black coppers, but below are the egg pictures. Any eggs I receive should match these standards.

Wheaten Marans:

 

~

~

~

 I took some pictures of Leia scratching her belly on a stick today.

 She was really getting into it.

 And it felt good! :)

~

 Every southern porch must have guardians; it is a proven fact. Without porch guardians, who knows what intruder may sit in your favorite rocking chair, or lounge about the rails and stick half-chewed bubblegum beneath their planks? I should add that deck guardians are also a must.

I should also add that not all guardians are suitable. Some guardians may sleep, or chat too eagerly with their cohorts, or read the newspaper---if, of course, a newspaper is on the premise. Since we are discussing porches (and decks) we must assume this is a likely possibility.

 Without a qualified P/D Guardian, unsought visitors may appear. Strange solicitors, pet chickens, crazy people, exiled cult members, or pet chickens for example.

Do the sensible thing: get a porch or deck guardian today, and save yourself the hassle of dealing with these undesirable habitués!

~