Fom Hatch to Harvest

Pipping

We did it. After several years of raising chickens for eggs, then adding meat birds to the mix, we finally accomplished a self-sufficiency goal: hatching our own chicken eggs, raising them to adulthood, filling the freezer, and replenishing the laying stock. (Previously our meat birds and new layers were bought as day old chicks from a hatchery.)

It was a sometimes disappointing, but overall exciting process. And I feel so satisfied opening the freezer to see 14 lovely birds, knowing what they were fed, where they lived, and how they were handled.

What a blessing to have the confidence to serve safe, healthy chicken throughout the winter. No recalls. No added yuck. Just pastured, organically fed chicken. Woo hoo!

So, to recapture the process, let me begin at the beginning. Which in our case started with the chicken, not the egg.

We are raising several breeds, trying to find the right mixture of egg layer/meat bird to food conversion ratio. (The most meat and eggs for the least amount of grain food.) Leghorns are fantastic egg layers. But as meat birds they just aren't worth the trouble, averaging out at about 2.5 lbs at 20 weeks. On the other hand, Cornish x Rocks make lots of meat in just a few short weeks, but trying to get them to propagate their own species is a no go...they need to be artificially inseminated. Plus they are just plain gross frankenbirds. (In my opinion.)

For the past two years we have worked with New Hampshire Reds, Barred Plymouth Rocks, and Ameracaunas. So that is what we hatched. (I tried some Leghorn eggs, too, but only had one hatch and grow to adulthood....an Ameracauna Leghorn mixed rooster.)

I'll not go into too much detail about incubation — there's lots of info on the web about incubating eggs. But here are some of the highlights:

I collected the eggs over 8 days, placing them in cartons then putting the cartons in a cooler in my basement. One end of the cooler was propped up on a brick. Two or three times a day I switched the position of the cooler, simulating the rotating that a mama hen would do. Simultaneously, I started up the incubator to get it warmed up and at a consistent temperature.

Emerging

Let me just say that my incubator sucks. It is one of those square styrofoam jobs, about 15 years old. A friend gave it to me, for which I am grateful, but it still sucks. It is hard to regulate the temperature, and there is no humidity gauge. So, I went to my local hardware store and bought a thermometer/humidistat, in addition to using the included mercury-style thermometer.  After a few days the temperature finally hit 99.5 steadily. Time to add the eggs.

The eggs were situated in the egg turner, which is in the incubator. I really didn't want to have to hand turn the eggs several times a day. Mostly because that means opening the incubator, and mine is so hard to regulate. One thing I learned — put the incubator in a place that has a constant temperature. In February my house warms nicely during the day, but gets pretty cold at night, since we use a woodstove. My basement proved to have the steadiest, albeit coolest, temperature.

On day 10 I candled the eggs. (Yes, I had to open the incubator!) I made a homemade candler with a toilet paper tube and a bright Christmas tree bulb. As I candled I marked my observation in a notebook. Any egg I thought was not developing received a penciled "x" across its shell. Everything you read tells you that unfertilized eggs could potentially explode in the incubator, but since I am new at this, I put everything back whether I thought it was growing an embryo or not. (My percentage of "guesses" was about 80% correct...determined at hatch.)

And then I left them alone for 11 more days, just checking to make sure the temp and humidity were ok.

And finally...they hatched. And I left them alone for a day, although I spent many hours just watching.

After removing the chicks to a brooder, I completed the very unpleasant task of opening any unhatched eggs (After leaving them go for another 2 days, just in case.) It was gross work, but I wanted to see 1) how correct I was at candling and 2) what stage the chicks stopped developing so I could adjust whatever was needed.

Cute and Fuzzy

I found that I did a decent job of candling, erring on the side of thinking there was something growing when there was not, rather than thinking it was a dead egg when it was live. I now know that in the future I can remove any eggs that I define as "nothing is growing" without too much fear of throwing out a live egg.

I also learned that the embryos stopped developing at various stages. It seemed that the majority died either right before hatch or in late development but not feathered yet. My research has led me to lots of possible conclusions, but nothing definitive.

After two weeks, the chicks were moved out to the brooder in our garage, where they had much more room to grow. And eventually, as the weather warmed, they were moved to an outdoor coop to fatten up on grass and bugs and yummy (to them) tidbits. At that time, I did a basic evaluation, noting which birds I might want to keep and which would go.

Barred Rocks

I evaluated again at 16 weeks, whittling down the keeper list. It was at this time that I realized the Barred Plymouth Rocks were putting on size faster than the other breeds. After much discussion we decided to get rid of all the New Hampshire Reds. We were starting to have difficulty with the rooster attacking us and his hens. And their laying:food ratio was not as good as the Rocks. I wanted to keep the Leghorns, because they are the best layers; and the Ameracaunas for their lovely blue-green eggs; and the Barred Rocks as they proved the best meat birds of my flock. The Reds could go. (Please note: the particular strains of Rocks and Reds that I have may be different than those of someone else, so their results may be different.)

At 20 weeks we separated out the keepers (5 hens and one rooster) and the remainder were packed up for a road trip to the butcher.

Average weight after dressing was 3.5 pounds, with one 2.5 pounder at the low end and a 7.5 pounder at the high end.

Joad Longshanks, the Ameracauna/Leghorn mix and his Leghorn harem.

Sixth Grade Waldorf: Astronomy

Tides and the moon, chalk pastel

We had so much fun with this block; we could've just kept going, I think. Just sitting outside staring up at the stars—wondering and imagining—made for a refreshing, creative block. It was fun, incorporating Greek/Roman myths (constellations), explorers (navigation), and just plain old observation, watching the sky spin 'round the earth. (Yes, I know it's the earth that spins, but it seems the other way around. No wonder early philosophers thought everything revolved around Earth.)

The main resource I used was Kovac's "Geology and Astronomy," supplemented with appropriate library books to expand on the chapter topics:
    Stars, Seymour Simon
    Find the Constellations, H. A. Rey
    The Moon Book, Gail Gibbons
    Sky Phenomena,  Norman Davidson

 Following are some of our Astronomical studies and activities:

The making of Stickhenge.
At noon on the December solstice, we ventured outside to a small clearing to hammer a garden post into the ground. We then marked where the shadow of the post fell, inserting a stick at the topmost point of the stake's shadow. That evening we returned and using the post as a visual reference point, we marked the direction in which the sun set, again inserting a stick into the ground in the line of sight from the stake to the point on the horizon in which the sun set. And then we did it all over again. A lot.

This was a long term project, being updated weekly from winter to summer solstice. Eventually we pulled out all of the markers except the ones marking the two solstices and spring equinox. (Some weeks there seemed to be no movement, others the shadows would just "jump") In this way we "illustrated" the movement of the sun through the months. If I were a morning person, we would have marked the sunrises as well, creating a more circular pattern, like Stonehenge. But I am not a morning person, and neither is the Boy. So we opted for 1/2 of Stickhenge. Good enough.

Movement of the sun from southwest to northwest over a six month period.

Lengthening of shadows over a six month period.

Planetarium visit:
The York County Astronomical Society operates a planetarium out of an old high school,  offering shows once a month. We observed a show about the winter solstice, including some of the history of solstice celebrations, and a show regarding what we should be seeing in our local winter sky.

We also visited our middle son at school during a parent's weekend, where they had a planetarium show about constellations, and tricks on how to find them.

Observation:
My favorite part! We have a fire circle in a small clearing in our back acre. (An acre that we've been naturalizing over the past 10 years). It is the perfect place to light a toasty fire and just gaze up at the stars. That college planetarium show (above) proved very helpful as we looked for the M-shape of Andromeda, the rectangle of Gemini, the belt of Orion, and others. Finding the North Star is a breeze, if you can find the dippers!

We studied the moon phases, tides, equinoxes and solstices, the zodiac (from an astronomical view, not astrological, although some may want to incorporate that), comets and asteroids, position of the planets, and a bit about navigating with stars.

Here are some excerpt from the Boy's main lesson book:

The Moon, colored pencil

Hercules, metallic sharpie

Rotation around the north star

The Solar System, chalk pastel

Atmosphere

Shooting Stars, chalk pastel

The zodiac

Equinox

Ancient Civilizations: Greece Part II History

The year has gotten away from me. It's time to wrap up final plans for seventh grade, and I realized I've not yet documented all of sixth grade. I will do my best to show what we covered in during our second semester, beginning with history.

Greek History. Hmmmm, what fun! Most of our stories came from Kovac's Ancient Greece . Each day I would deliver a story. Using the 3 day rhythm, we would review on day 2 and develop the ideas through artwork on day 3. But this semester, instead of focusing on painting or drawing, I had the boy write, write, write.

I realized about mid-way through the year that I had been rather lax on the writing skills. My goal was to get the child to write at least one paragraph, coherently and completely on his own. I started with having him write his ideas down. Then he formed them into complete sentences, then arranged them into a paragraph. Sounds simple, but for a boy that doesn't care for writing (Can't we just draw this story?") it was fairly exhausting!

 The "big" project was to write a comparison essay, using narrative. He chose to compare Sparta to Athens using the stories of two characters from the Kovac's book to illustrate the differences. (Solon and Lycurgas). The major struggle during this project was the Boy wanting to do it his way, rather than following my directions.

Doesn't look so intimidating, but this was a two week process!

 At one point he made two lists of characteristics, one for each city, handed it to me and said, "I've finished comparing." My response, "Hmm, yes, you did compare the two cities, but I would like you to put these characteristics in story form. Not list form." And his, "Well, I like my way better. "  This is when I had to put on my teacher face and get firm about completing the assignment, not changing the assignment to suit his wants. This time, anyway. It took two weeks of writing and rewriting, working through the draft process, but he finally completed it.  And was so proud of his accomplishment when he had.

During his free time, the Boy read some library books about Ancient Greece, including Black Ships Before Troy, Rosemary Sutcliff. One we thoroughly enjoyed was Wise Guy:The Life and Philosophy of Socrates. The Boy spent the next few weeks tossing out Socratic quotes. (Where were those nosy homeschool quizzers that week? No....they only quiz on stuff we haven't covered yet!) 

We transitioned into our studies of Rome by reading aloud the Aenid, closing our books on the study of Ancient Greece.