Own up time!

One of these gorgeous girls has started egg eating.... Ummm first of all if you have an egg eater don't panic 9 times out of 10 they can be cured,  I will do a separate page on the subject soon,  needless to say I am off to purchase some golf balls.... And I don't play golf!

Brrrr

Bit chilli this morning and moved this chap to somewhere safer than the chicken run,  or he will be breakfast 🍳

Brrrrrr autumn

A real feel of autumn in the air this morning letting the girls out ... That Wind definitely had a chill to it! It's still August!

'Golden Dawn'

Bath refill time ⌚

A Friend's Quail

If you have ever seen quail eggs they are tiny and feel so fragile!

As the are Coturnix Quail they hatch at around 16 to 18 days.

Different breeds of quail take different lengths of time.

Elegant Quail:22 days 

Blue Scaled Quail:23 days 

Bobwhite Quail:22-23 days 

Button Quail:16 days 

California Quail:22-23 days 

Gambel's Quail:22 days 

Montezuma Quail:24-25 days 

Mountain Quail:24-25 days

10 minutes old

Nicely dry and very very cute! 

 Keeping an eye on the temperature is crucial - they must be kept warm at around 35 Degrees for the first week, this is slowly deceased until they are fully feathered at four to six weeks.

This 50p shows just how small they are, this chick is 24 hours old.

Wow the wonders of grass!

They are growing at a ferocious rate on the grass. They will be old enough to sell the first week of August, as long as they have started to feather up by then,  which they should of done.  As this will be the last year for goslings we will keep one of the girls to bring the grass cutting numbers up to three, which should keep our field in check,  obviously no more goslings otherwise some may be of father,  daughter parentage.. Not good.. But I have an art project planned for the eggs next summer.... So watch this space!

We are growing!

Spot the Double Yoker!

That's got to hurt!

Week old and doubled in size!

It never ceases to amaze me how fast they grow... If you ever want to see really rapid growth hatch some quail!

Goslings sexed and ringed

My leg rings arrived today,  so braved the torrential rain and a cross Honda!  And it turns out we have two boys and four girls,  a great ratio as girls are always more popular when you sell them.   I was going to photo/film it for you,  but the weather was too bad,  but in a week or two they will need the next size up ring and hopefully the weather will be better, I  will show how to sex them and ring them.  Goslings are hard to sex as everything is internal and the boys are very good at keeping it that way!  The younger you do it the easier it is. But everything is so small you need a keen eye.

New safe playground from Sparrowhawk

Morning Bath Time

My favourite

New strategy

New feeding station,  whilst on run arest till they are bigger,  only out time under supervision,  it seems a sparrowhawk has had two and came back for thirds this afternoon,  but between the crows dive bombing it and me we averted disaster no3

Sad news

When I came home from work tonight their where only six goslings two have vanished,  we do get buzzards around here so looks like he got lucky.  I have searched the field but no sign of them.  Honda and Sally where really pleased to see me and left me with the goslings while they went for something too eat. I did explain to them I'm not a baby sitting service!  But it is sad we have lost two. Just hope Sally and Honda can keep on top of the predators.

Senior pool.... Baby pool

Perhaps I should add lockers and showers!

Sally posing.... I think!

She hasn't lost as much weight as last year sitting,  and her legs are starting to pink up again.

And then 5!

Not to close says Honda

Pub visitors

Very friendly pair of mallards

We have at least one gosling :)

Patiently waiting...well almost!!!

Its my own fault for not marking on the calendar when Sally started to sit!

Poor feeder

So between the rat damage and the fact that the chooks seem to think it's a great game to flick mud up and cover it when the weather permits!  Making the evening rinse a messy affair! 

Love it when Mum has salad for tea!

Soon to have gosling's!

Sally is coming off the nest less and now is very attentive to the eggs so we should see some gosling's in the next week!

2 to 3 Weeks in! :-)

We have decided to let Sally sit again! she is is on between 7 and 9 eggs. Once again she has built an exquisite nest.

Morning

Ahhhh

Why would a slug think this is a good route... Across my window!

Spring

Broadband Misery!

Sorry for the lack of posts, but with no broadband at home im struggling to keep up with the blog :(  I am waiting for the wonderful organisation that is BT (cough) to get an engineer up the pole outside our house! waiting a month now!! So bear with me I will be back soon!

New nest .... new egg....

Spring :)

This picture cost me a very muddy jumper as Honda decided that picture taking was not acceptable this morning. Honda seems to have got out of bed on the wrong side! (Or maybe its because I keep removing Sally's eggs!....very tasty they are too)

Spring...SPRING

Mum can we point out you told us this morning that it was the first day of spring ..... So why do we need our wellies again this evening !

Spring :)

Gallery

I am thinking I will start a page on this blog for birds of my readers. So if you would like your birds to appear (anything with feathers !) Email me your pictures to contactvirtualpoultry@gmail.com
tell me a bit about them, name etc and I will start posting them :)

Old Tyres

Old tyres make great feed bucket holders. They love to stand on the edge to eat and the tyres stop them tipping the bucket over !

Morning

Nothing like a morning drink

Spring

Some Daffodils that grew big enough under the radar of the geese. Daffodils as far as geese are concerned are not allowed to grow!

:(

Sad day yesterday...well yes and no really!

Due to a sexing miss hap last summer! (Its harder than you think it should be!) I ended up with four ganders and one girl! not an ideal ratio, in fact a highly tensed ratio! and not much fun for Sally either, although she was an expert at fending off those she did not want! So I came to the conclusion that three of the boys had to go. So after several routes to find them new homes I found a super family that have taken all three to live on a small holding with access to a stream cleaned pond.. So the three boys Finger Print, Tail End Charlie and Fifty Shades have well and truly landed on their six webbed feet!
Honda and Sally were less than impressed at seeing them go and let me know about it for a couple of hours, but letting the two of them out this morning, we had two very chilled out relaxed geese! So Honda and Sally can now enjoy each others company without any distractions!

Probably a two toast fried egg!

Makes quite a sight in a large frying pan!

1st two eggs of 2014

1st two eggs of 2014 will be fried :) in fact goose eggs are very vesatile

To soft boil a goose egg, boil for 7 to 8 minutes, this will give a runny yolk and soft spngy white.

To hard boil a goose egg, boil for 15 minutes and then place in cold water.

To fry a goose egg you will need a medium to large frying pan. One tablespoon of oil and either a lid or spoon to baste the top as otherwise the bottom will overcook before the top!

They are also fantastic in cakes (replace 2 to 3 chicken eggs)

Happy baking!

Mercedes-Benz Intelligent Drive 'Chicken' TV Advert

This is fantastic and if you keep chickens they will do the same! so put on a vibby beat and go dancing with your chickens, one of mine hates this, but the other three line up on the house for their go! I would ask the family to video me dancing with the chickens but it is way too embarressing! So will keep it between the chickens and me, they dont seem so judgemental! So please only do this if your chickens enjoy this.

Breakfast!

As you can see from the photograph the grass is now very short, so twice a day they get a supplementary feed of mixed corn, or duck & goose pellets, which is what they have this morning, both are equally good at keeping the weight on, although I feel the geese would rather just have mixed corn! I feed more at night that the morning, as during the day I still want them keeping the grass down. If I fed them a large amount in the morning they would loose interest in their primary job...Lawn mowers!

Take off!! Hopefully not over the fence!!

This is a wonderful sight that you never tire from, depending on the weight of the goose will depend how high they can fly, the heavier boys can get about two feet off the ground and then glide for a while, the girls on the other hand can get to four or five feet, easily enough to clear the fence, sometimes they will bank round over the fence but always go back into their field!