I’ve had chicken fairy eggs here before, but this is the first one from the quail. It’s so tiny! Here it is compared to a normal-sized quail egg. Fairy eggs can occur when a bit of reproductive tissue breaks away and the quail’s egg producing glands treat it as a yolk and wrap it in a shell. Thus these eggs are usually yolkless.
I was a little unsure about adopting this guy, the previous owner had him housed with pigeons and doves, who he got along very well with. However, once she added a quail to her aviary, he decided to scalp her. This really upset the owner, and although the quail recovered, she had lost her taste for Bert.
It was around this time that I was having issues with my Muscovy drake trying to rape my Black Copper Maran hen. Apparently one duck wasn’t enough for him and he was getting very aggressive. I was worried about adding more male energy to the pen, not having any experience with pheasants.
Well, Bert is now my favorite bird here (hence acquiring a name) and his gorgeous colors are finally starting to come in! I think the intensely hot weather that we had been having for the past couple of weeks really fast-tracked the moulting process.
Some of Bert’s moulted feathers and a calendula bloom
I’ve read lots of conflicting opinions about whether or not pheasants can be housed with chickens and ducks. Some sources say that chickens carry diseases that can easily be passed to pheasants and kill them. Other people say that’s a load of puckey and they have housed them together for years with no issues. I’m not surprised he was aggressive with the Coturnix quail in his pen, since they are both game birds and a single quail is a tempting target that can’t really escape to higher ground. Here though, he is as placid a bird as you could imagine.
I’ve been finding a few of Bert’s moulted feathers around and they are just beautiful. I’m glad to see his broken tail feathers falling out because that means that new ones are coming in. His color change began with just a little red spot on his left breast and a few small red feathers under his chin. Now he has two scarlet stripes on each side of his chest and a few yellow bits on his head.
He will be two years old this summer which is around how long it takes for adult plumage to come in, even though he was fertile by his first year. It won’t be too long now before I find out if there will be a lady pheasant available for him, and that’s an exciting prospect. He is such a calm and non-spooky type of bird. he doesn’t react to sudden movements like most birds do, he just stands his ground and observes. He will happily come eat out of my hand every day now and seems to have no concept of human beings as dangerous. He gets along very well with the chickens and will eat alongside them. They will sometimes tell him to buzz off but he just saunters away and does something else. Not bad considering he is about the size of a large pigeon. He is also my quietest bird here so far, and I have only heard his distinct metallic call once or twice. The rest of the time he makes musical little chirps.
I think Golden Pheasants are a fabulous bird to have as a pet, and I would love to hand rear some chicks so they can grow up to be easily handled and free-ranged. I feel like when he finally gets his striking red, blue, white, yellow and green adult plumage, it’s going to be like living in some tropical paradise.
Although I’ve had cats all my life, I always had girl cats. I don’t know why, I guess I didn’t want to deal with spraying or cystitis. Of course now I have three girl cats who spray and Fred, the former stray, who has cystitis issues.
Then mama cat and her kittens showed up, and Fred moved in and all of a sudden I had three boy cats.
I love my boys. The two kittens, Jeffie and Fluffy One, are almost a year old now. They are a constant source of joy for me and are always by my side. Fluffy One will start up a meowing fit if there is ever a door between us, and can basically jump about five feet into the air if he sees a bug. He is strange little cat, and insists on eating all my cucumber peelings when I make a salad. He gets excited when I call him for his “green spaghetti”. If I forget to give them to him in a bowl he will sneak on the counter and eat them when I’m not looking.
Jeffie sleeps with me every night, and when I wake up and lean on one shoulder to check my iPad, he climbs up and lies down on the other one with his paws hanging down, touching my cheek. If I have been playing too long he will come down and try to eat my fingers. I will also get my fingers eaten if I have been typing at my desk too long when I should be playing with him. He doesn’t really meow, instead he just has a high-pitched “meeeeeeee”.
The two brothers love each other very much. Aren’t they sweet?
Here are some shots of the Rex/Creme litter kits at about three weeks old. I don’t see any silvering yet but it would be harder to see on these lighter toned kits. I’ll be interested to see if the high-strung nature of the Rexes infiltrates these little guys, or if their mom’s calmness will win out.
I sold five rabbits today, which was awesome since I’ll need my grow-out cages very soon. I usually bring my rabbits out for customers in the little two-hole traveling cage I made which opens from the top. I’ve never had an issue before, but I think today the sheer number of kids around spooked the Rex kits and one of them jumped out. While I struggled to wrangle the little blue doe back into her cage I was slashed on both hands and wrists, stomach and legs. Not only that, but the little stinker screamed the entire time. I don’t often hear rabbit screams around here, but let me tell you they are not pleasant. So here I am now, covered in Polysporin, hoping these bloody scratches and welts heal fast. I have gardening to do!
I finally bought a bunch of tomato cages today, which were sorely needed in the container garden. When I returned from the garden shop and had emptied the car, I noticed a threesome of wasps building a tiny nest on the overhang near my back trunk handle.
This isn’t the first time wasps have tried nesting on my car, I don’t know why they choose to do this. There must be a hundred better places around here. They must have been wondering where their nest went today and weren’t too happy with me for running off with it. When I tried to lock my trunk I was swiftly attacked and stung on the hand. They wouldn’t let me get my key anywhere near it.
I stormed back inside nursing my painful hand and did a quick online search. Then, armed with a container full of hot water and dish soap, I went right back outside, took a deep breath, sloshed it at them as fast and hard as I could and then retreated, quickly. When I inched back to check, the nest had been dislodged and the wasps were nowhere to be seen. I hope they’re either dead or don’t have good memories.
Parsley (the cat) in the container garden
I was a little on edge using the pure organic fish compost I had purchased, unamended in my giant container garden, but so far tests have been positive! You can distinguish it as the very black stuff in the photo above as compared to the lighter material which is my homemade compost. I think potting soil is a bit of a ripoff so I’m looking forward to the results of this experiment.
I was initially worried about drainage, so I added a 4-6 inch layer of homemade compost to the bottom of each pot, since it’s really light and chunky. It’s pretty much a mixture of kitchen and garden waste mixed with wood chips and rabbit and chicken/quail manure aged for about a year. I have two piles going and I alternate between piles; one gets emptied while the other gets filled. I don’t mind using compost that is a little unfinished, or chunky; but sometimes that isn’t ideal for seed starting.
So far I haven’t noticed any problems with compaction or burning or anything with the fish compost and it’s been a week or two since things were planted. I’ll be interested to see how the growth compares to my homegrown compost pots. Those pots have some fresh chicken pen floor as their bottom layer. Pure folly? We shall see.
My tomato garden
A few tomatoes are in. These are my first attempt at cold sown tomatoes, so I have big expectations of them. Ideally, they should be as vigorous as any volunteer tomato in the compost pile. I will have a few in the ground and a few in pots. Maybe a total of about 15 plants. It’s a good thing I restricted myself this year because inevitably I found another tomato plant I wanted at the farmer’s market. It is a Striped German and is reported to taste like candy. I also picked up some Moroccan Tea Mint, Chamomile and a Mouse Melon plant. Not to mention a giant Black Bamboo and Sunset Glow Bamboo which will be used for privacy hedges.
I recently got out my shiny, beautiful, All American Pressure Canner to can some rabbit meat and I’m raring to go on the tomatoes, once they arrive. Tomatoes are one of my favorite things to can, they taste so good. There are a few flowers already, so here’s hoping for a bountiful harvest this year. I plan to try to keep suckers pruned and keep things tidy.
My arugula, started from seeds I collected last year, is growing like crazy. It’s ready for harvest after just a week or two. I’m glad these were the seeds I brought to the swap this year, I love imagining other beautiful plots of arugula all over the island. My red and yellow onions are getting big and my leeks no longer look like invisible blades of grass. Beets and carrots are coming in, although some creature (slug) has been helping themselves to part of the rows. Volunteer potatoes are huge already and calendulas are threatening to bloom. The yacon is bursting out of its pot and there are jalapenos and eggplants sprouting. It’s going to be a busy month!
Mushrooms (the cat) in the container garden
Yesterday I drove out to the Quennel Lake Livestock Conservatory and picked up these two beautiful ladies. They are a pair of Welsumer (or Welsummer) hens.
Since lately I’ve been selling a lot of eggs to my neighbors, I needed to increase the production around here. Although these girls are in their third year, they are reported to still be laying well and were only $5 each. They are in lovely shape and will be laying eggs the color of wet terracotta. I was also told that they may go broody, so in that case I’ll probably find some fertilized eggs to put under them and see how they do.
Poor white chicken is going through a hard molt, the first hard molt I’ve ever seen here. She looks pathetic and her egg production has slacked a bit. Since she was at the bottom of the pecking order, she was delighted to have the two Welsumer girls show up so she could give them a few good pecks and move up the ranks. Other than that there seems to be no real squabbling amongst the hens. The new girls are sticking together and respectfully keeping their distance for now. The duck and the pheasant seem particularly interested in them.
The pheasant cock is still doing very well. He is a very calm and happy bird and makes delightfully musical little chirping noises. I have read that he will probably go through a molt this summer and that’s when his adult plumage will really come in. I’ve also read that it’s common for their tail feathers to get wet and freeze in the winter and get stepped on by other birds, causing them to break. I’m hoping that since he is now being kept in a covered run, that this will prevent further breakage. The tails are very impressive so it would be a shame for him to break it again. I’ve also hopefully lined up a lady pheasant for him this summer, from the same breeder that he originates from. Very exciting!
I finally bit the bullet and ordered a few yards of mulch and fish compost today. Boy I love a big, black pile of dirt! While spreading fresh mulch in my front gardens I noticed this little green fellow sitting on a rhubarb leaf. He looks like a tree frog. I wonder how he got here?
I do know that the only reason he can exist here is because of my new garden. There are many more cool hiding spaces, bugs and worms now. Before I moved here there would have been nowhere at all for him to stay. It’s nice knowing that my gardening efforts have attracted admirers! I hope he sticks around.
Even the frogs have cat hair on them around here
These little guys are four days old now and their colors are coming in. This is my first time breeding Esther to Timmy, and I’m a little surprised with the results. Four of the nine kits are a dark agouti or wild type, which is not a shock. The other five look for all the world like purebred Creme d’Argents!
Although his phenotype is black otter, I know that Timmy carries some light genes because he produces a lot of blues and has even sired a tort. This breeding confirms that even further. I’m not sure if these fawn kits will show silvering like their mom, though I do know it’s a dominant trait and almost always shows up when she throws blacks, although does not appear on the agoutis.
If the fawn kits do grow up to look like purebred Cremes, I might hold on to a couple. It’s not an ideal situation, but there’s nowhere else to get a Creme d’Argent around here and my first effort to breed pure Cremes failed, with two kits that were both ultimately infertile and no further access to the buck who was owned by another breeder.
Of course breeding these kits would likely have some recessive traits show up like Rex fur, but I can weed those out. I’d be interested to see what a sibling breeding would produce. Maybe I can create my own Creme d’Argents?
Every commercial rabbit breed today began as a mix of breeds. Occasionally people will toss a different breed of rabbit into their purebred program to improve some trait or reduce another. As long as everything is recorded on the pedigree I don’t see a problem.
I wish I had more cages so I could do more breeding experiments. It’s a great, first-hand way of understanding rabbit coat color genetics, and I like being surprised by interesting kits. With solely purebred bunnies, you pretty much get the same thing every time.
Look at those cute little teeth!
Esther’s kits next to my lupines and mint
Well my girls came through. Esther kindled nine bunnies and Tuna kindled ten. That’s what you call a twenty-nine rabbit long weekend.
Esther’s kits had already arrived when I went in to check this morning. She had a combination of half light ginger kits and half what looks to me like black otter. I can’t wait to see how they turn out. As usual she pulled enough fur to line a hot tub.
One of Esther’s ginger kits
I was so busy getting excited over Esther’s kits that I barely noticed that Tuna was in labor. She ignored her fresh bunch of grass so that should have been the first indication. As I watched her over about a half hour period, she methodically gave birth to her large litter of healthy kits. Here they are just moments after being born, you can still see some placenta that hasn’t been cleaned out yet. These are some big litters so I’m hoping the predominantly fresh diet will keep all the kits alive. We shall see.
Tuna’s litter
New baby rabbits and new baby plants
The garden this year has been doing very well. I’m sure the constant application of rabbit manure over a two year period is mostly responsible. I was lucky enough to score about 25 giant black plastic containers for free from a neighbor putting in a hedge, I think they’re about 10-15 gallons each, and so I’ve been filling them with compost and planting everything my heart desires. I have yacon, sunchokes, mammoth russian sunflowers, dill, tomatillos, baby doll watermelon, and delphiniums right now waiting to sprout. In my smaller flats I have phacelia, pickling cukes, red and green shiso, jalapenos and sweet peppers, celeriac and eggplant. I plan to put a few tomatoes of each kind in a pot full of compost as well to see how they compare to my tomatoes in the ground.
Last year I planted too many tomatoes and ended up not getting any, really. I got a lot of tasteless yellow cherry tomatoes that had self seeded, and most of my heirlooms went to rot before I could gather them. It was a sad time.
This year I am more disciplined. I have restricted myself to three types of tomato and started all the seeds in early March, outdoors in a cold-sowing operation. By that I mean they were started in plastic milk jugs. They did well and sprouted, now I have a good dozen seedlings of each kind: Aunt Ruby’s German Green, Japanese Black Trifele, and Brandywine. When it comes to tomatoes, I don’t care how they look. I want ones that taste good.
Grapes turning pink
Volunteer lavender plant in the asparagus bed
Blue columbines
Bachelor’s buttons
Patio peach tree
Peonies, finally!
More columbines
Edible violets
Perennial pansies
Lovely rhubarb
Double white lilacs
Celery
Valerian flower, such a sweet fragrance
Blue Veronica, getting ready to bloom
My asiatic lily patch, getting there!
My yellow climbing rose
The coop and hop vine
Backyard veggie garden progress
Poor white chicken is moulting
Old heritage rose
Love these big red poppies
Smaller white poppies are good too
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The more I studied beekeeping, the less I knew, until, finally, I knew nothing. But, even though I knew nothing, I still had plenty to unlearn. Charles Martin Simon
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