Relaxed Farming - our farm in your classroom

This little chap is one of our quail. He is one of nine that have hatched so far out of over twenty eggs but unfortunately two died shortly after hatching and another two died during their first night. This is NOT a healthy set of poultry. We are not at all sure what the problem might be. You may remember that the adult females who laid these eggs all died of what we thought was a bacterial infection in their guts (see 23rd May). In theory if this bacteria had got into the eggs they should not even have developed into chicks, let alone hatched. Maybe whatever killed the parents was passed into the eggs genetically, a bit like a human with poor eyesight having a child with poor eyesight!! BUT if this was the case why did the parents live for a few months and the chicks die straight away? Our vet agreed that sudden death at a few months is likely to be caused by something in the 'environment', such as nasty bacteria.
Hatching inside an incubator can be difficult. Modern incubators are quite advanced and in theory you can set the temperature and humidity exactly as you want them BUT the best incubators will always be the broody bird. Broodies will keep their eggs at the right temperature and humidity no matter what the weather and in some cases they will chuck bad eggs out of their nest so they don't pass on germs to the others.
In happier news we have a good half dozen new ducklings and several more eggs pipping under Banana (no photos yet as we don't want to disturb them); our chicken egg numbers continue to get better and we are now back to the fun of having chickens laying in the rabbit hutches. What do you imagine is the conversation going on here between one of our Indian Game chickens and this seven week old white rabbit???