trouble in the hen house...

ok so they're not yet in the hen house, still the incubator but my house sounds like the inside of a hen house.
Science world is doing awesome, the little diva she is, she really likes to snuggle up in your hand and pinch your finger web to get your attention, if a chicken could snicker, she'd be doing it.

Yesterday we had a pip, and a little bit of progress on egg #2...sadly that egg didn't progress, her little beak hung out the hole and there was plenty of shell broken but the membrane was exposed and started to harden...I let it go all day, then this morning she still hadn't progressed so I preformed an emergency chicken egg cesarian. CAREFULLY with clean hands, paper towel and clean tweezers I picked off pieces of egg and membrane and the chick didn't help me in the least which is worrisome. I could certainly see that she was very much alive, just lazy and weak,

at 8:01 Goldie flopped out of her shell, weak and useless.

So like a true crazy chicken lady I held her in my hand to regulate temperature, monitor her breathing, and give her little squeezes to get her blood pumping, I held her until I could no longer hold her, 

and when I could no longer hold her, I put her in my bra, good thing my boobs shrank.

She was quite happy in there, burrowing and snuggling but it was a pain in the ass to have this invisible force field around the chick with pending toddler snuggles, so after a few hours she started to kick and squirm and peep and open her eyes, so I put her back into the incubator where she immediately stood up and her sister Scienceworld stood on her.

So far so good, she's peeping away in there and driving me mental like her sister (assuming they're ALL FEMALES, *not so subtle hint) 

Looks like things will be good for little Goldie

BEBE CHICKETH!!

We have been pretty quiet, patiently and cautiously incubating these eggs, being absolutely anally retentive about the humidity levels and temperature and coddling these eggs, I have candled a few times, not daily, but enough to be confident of development and movement, yesterday was the due date for the first egg to hatch....and, well, we were in Vancouver visiting friends so we had to get updates from my husband. I face timed him in the morning, about 8:30 to be sure he added water to the incubator reservoir, and he had forgotten, so he did it when we were on the phone with us, then he mentioned something about the chick beeping all night, I'm like "WHAT!?" BEEPING?! (good news) they beep in the shell before they hatch, and right on time she was making noises which was confidence instilling to say the least. When he opened the incubator to add water I asked him to show us the egg and BLAM, a pip. SHE PIPPED THROUGH THE EGG! We were very excited but left her be to bust through that cursed shell, it can take 1-2 days for a chick to fully emerge from a shell, think of it as the birthing process and the first pip being a contraction, they pip, wait a while, gain their strength, then pip again, then so on...

first pip in the morning, RIGHT on target as she hit the date I wrote on the egg shell

So off to Science world we went, we had tons of fun and sadly found this chicken egg information thingy as the car meter was on it's last few minutes, but I managed to snap a photo and talk to Winter (My daughter) quickly about where our chicks were at as far as development...

Totally cool to see them, I'd be tempted to make our own formaldehyde dead baby chick display but I'd have a hard time murdering embryos with intent aside from to eat, so we'll stick to coloring pages for now

So yay, science world, it was Winter's first time and zomg she had fun, so did I. WINTERLOOKATTHISWINTERLOOKATTHAT I felt like I had a sensory overload, I can't imagine how her tiny self felt.

Anyways, we got back to our island at about 7pm or so and I immediately checked for more pipping...

She'd done some damage, but that's a days worth of pipping, still her little beak sticking through there, she was breaking and beeping away, so I let her be and we tucked the kids in. I posted a progress shot on instagram and people expressed interest in the fact that it was taking her so long to crack the rest of the shell , (which is normal) but I guess she has internet access and wanted to show them up, because a few minutes after I posted that, she knocked a sizable chunk off of the shell...

take THAT nay sayers! You can see her little beak still on the left hand side, and the membrane has been nicely sliced through there on the bottom. So After this photo was taken, I went back into the room with the kids, fell asleep on the floor (Seriously, I was wiped) and woke up to a flurry of very loud chick beeps. 'BLEEP BLEEP BLEEEEEEP" I rushed out of the room and sure enough, there she was, all exhausted and spread eagle--err chicken out of her shell..

life, it is the hardest.

She lay like that panting for a bit, then kicked a few more times and managed to get herself onto her feet where she proved she was pure silkie on diva attitude alone. She snuggled the other eggs and eventually fell asleep in her food dish. Some people say you shouldn't touch them until they're dry, and those people will be upset to see this video but my soft mom heart felt like she needed a loving touch to be born into, so I held her for a minute inside my hand so she felt the comfort of something warm and egg shaped and it calmed her down, then I put her back in for the night.

She fell asleep and my heart melted. She's already so fancy with her fluffy feathers all mcdreamy style.

Silkies are cool chickens, these are bantam silkies so that means they're a small chicken, but their skin is black, and they have black bones too I'll have to borrow an image from the internet to demonstrate this, as I'm not willing to skin one of my silkies.

I find their temperament to be a lot milder than other breeds, they're sweet and ours snuggle, I guess they're more delicate and they must realize it, they absolutely need unicorn horns and tiaras.

Also: silkies have an extra toe:

So after her first night, she dried out a bit, fluffed up, and she's getting cuter.

She's a little annoyed that she is alone in all this but will make a good big sister to her hatching siblings (hopeful that she's not a rooster, can you tell?)

Winter was SO EXCITED when she got to meet her this morning, all attention is on the incubator this morning, but we're letting her adjust as much as we can.

The next door neighbors even came to visit the new arrival, they checked in several times, they're good neighbor also are cousins so that's a plus!

7am visit from her new cousins! This is a very excited and tired Makenna

And this is a very excited Saige, you can see how small the chick is in her hand! 

Oh! I almost forgot, Winter named the chick already, so this post is to introduce our new baby chick to the world, her name?

Science world.

Yes, Winter named her Science World, fitting only because her parents are named 'Cedar' (rooster) and "Star with 3 magic wands and 3 moons" (hen)

So welcome to our home Science world!

Here is a video of her beeping up a storm

(Video of Conrad and Winter viewing a video of the video I just posted)

big fat sadface

Both chicks didn't make it, I suspect it was having too much faith in our old humidifier that worked without incident on many a hatch and now may be running a humidity issue, I was worried that development was stunted for the second egg, but the first one looked like it was going strong until day 19 when I noticed the air pocket was big, but there was no movement, no piping no nothing, so a day late I did an autopsy and neither had broken the membrane, so I think that would be humidity. A new humidity monitor will be found and the next hatch is set for halloween! We're not super sad, we're actually ok with it because we still got to see baby chicks that we grew, just didn't get to see them alive and fluffy! Still educational and we can still look forward to buckle up's next clutch, she's STILL broody, poor girl, but she does have a fancy new coop to call her own, complete with doilies and wallpaper. She will move into it once I get the trap door done on the floor and skirt the bottom, but for now, here is a picture of my daughter Winter with the new silkie coop...

The inside is a little ridiculous, I have to do something with the roof as it being exposed wood like that is making me crazy, and well, I may or may not have built them a soon to be solar powered chandelier...I'll update with that once I finish it.

Sorry to disappoint with the eggs, more chicks on the way so I'm sure we will have better luck on the next hatch!

Going to have to replace those photos ASAP! 

Adventures in egg incubating

DAY 18!! 

Scroll down to the bottom for the lastest update!

WHOA it's been a long time since I updated *sorry* but I've been posting daily progression of our incubating silkie eggs and I thought this would be a cool place to share it.

I used to have chickens before we had kids, I guess I was the broody one, we had them again last year but I busted up my back and we wound up re-homing them because Mike *husbandperson* was over stretched in his daily duties with my being a cripple as it was, the chickens just added to it.

ANYWAYS, a few months ago we decided we would get some chickens, we started with day olds, well, I think they were more like five day olds, polish crested, they were ridiculous and lived in a makeshift brooder in my bathroom. Every morning Winter would wake up asking how they were and making sure they had their morning snuggles, we had a hard time leaving the house because she wanted to hang out in the bathroom all day. When the very distinct chicken smell became too much to  bear, they moved into the shed, and Winter would have slept in there too had we let her. Since then we have re-homed the crested rooster, his name was potato.

It got warmer and we moved them into the chicken tractor in the garden...Winter still got up daily to go see them, I managed to get my hands on a pair of Silkies, one rooster one hen, they are the sweetest snuggliest most ridiculous birds ever, we adore them, after the silkies I got 4 guinea fowl, we use them as an alarm system for predators, they make a horrendous noise when threatened, and during the day they groom the chickens, so any threat of mites or ticks is prevented with the guinea fowl, good that they're useful as they are the DUMBEST animal on earth. Seriously, remember that game Lemmings in the 80s? They're THAT stupid.

So now we have 4 araucanas who lay lovely green eggs (well, they did, now they're all hypersensitive about being moved to a new home and I'm waiting for them to get used to it so they can lay again, 12 birds and not a single egg isn't really great numbers, so we're waiting for another enclosure to be built for the silkies, oh wait, on Sunday we picked up another silkie hen, and the enclosure they're currently in is too small for the birds to sleep in, it was meant for 2 and we built an extension, so as far as a run goes, they're golden, but sleeping, some sleep on top of eachother, well, at least it's warm.

We will ultimately have three enclosures, one for the silkies and a guinea fowl, one for the auricanas and two guinea fowl, and one for the polish and likely another hen mate and guinea fowl. The silkies will be separate as to not mix the breeds if I'm incubating eggs.

Let's stop for a second so I can name all the birds, well, I can relay the names Winter has bestowed upon them...
 Polish crested: Annie and Potato
 Silkies: Buckle-up, Cedar (rooster) and, wait for it "Star with three magic wands and three moons"
 Araucanas: known as "the supremes" or Squirts, Bottle, Sock, and Unicorny.
 Guinea fowl: Emilee (incidentally the same name as our pug) , Toenail, Silk and Acorn

Ok, so I pulled a silkie egg to incubate, then another, then another, one turned out infertile so it got turfed. Strangely enough, the day I pulled the first egg, Buckle Up went broody, so she was hoarding the araucana eggs, I have since suckered her into using a golf ball, a golf ball that says "practice" across it so if she could read, she would know she was being duped.

Fluffy butted snuggle face. 

Before the egg is laid:

• The egg is fertilized
• The zygote divides and begins to grow
• the cells segregate into groups of specialized function
• the embryo nearly stops growing between laying and incubation.

Here she is face first so you can see the amount of cute we're bound to see upon witnessing her babies hatching, or "patching" as Winter says

Day one in the incubator, I grabbed the eggs on September 19 and 20 so in 16 days we will see the first chick if all goes accordingly and I don't bust an egg while trying to document it's progress.

this is day 1 of the candling, and day 2

this is day 1 of the candling, and day 2 looks pretty much the same so I'll spare you. In the photos you'll see some writing on the eggs (The date) and an X and an O, marking the top and the bottom of the eggs so I can rotate them daily, this keeps the chick from fusing to the shell

During incubation:

• The area pellucida and area opaca of the bastoderm develop

Day 1 - 2

things start to develop quickly, as chicken egg gestation is 21 days!

• at 18 hours: the alimentary tract appears
• at 19 hours: the brain crease begins to form
• at 20 hours: somites appear
• at 21 hours: the brain and nervous system begin to form
• at 22 hours: the head fold begins to form
• at 23 hours: angiogeneic clusters appear (heart tubes)
• at 24 hours: the eyes begin to form *squee*

day 1-2

Day 3

• The head begins to turn onto it's left side
• The tongue starts to form
• The amnion completely surrounds the embryo
• The tail has appeared
• Wing and leg buds are visible

day 3

Day 4

• The somites extend to the tip of the tail
• the toes begin to form
• the allantois is visible 

day 4

Day 5

• The reproductive organs begin to form *please be girls*
• The bones of the legs begin to form
• The crop begins to form

Day 5

Day 6

• The beak becomes visible
• The wings bend at the elbow
• The allatois begins to fuse to the chorion
• The gizzard begins to form
• The intestines beign to loop *oh great*

Day 6

Day 7

• a row of feather germs appear on the tail
• the sclera of the eye begins to form (sorry about the daily flashlight)
• feather papillae appear on the thigh
• the leg now bends at the knee

day 7

Day 8

• Three rows of feater germs are visible on the tail
• The inner eyelids begin to form
• The egg tooth (small bump on the tip of the beak) begins to form
• The bone marrow cavity of the femur begins to form

The candling is still showing a silhouette of a chick but soon it'll become harder to see as the chick will start to fill the entire egg cavity!

Day 8

Day 9

• The upper eyelids begin to form
• The knee caps begin to form

day 9

Day 10

• Claws begin to form
• The comb is now visible
• Flight feathers appear
• Feather tracts appear over sternum
• Lower Eyelids Develop

The chick is getting a little more difficult to see as she grows, but the pronunciation in veins is amazing, Also, I get the feeling that chicks hate being candled.  11 more days!! SQUEEEEEEE!!

Day 10

Day 11

• The toe claws begin to curve downward
• The bottom of the feet get their pads
• Feather germs on the back and tail look like long tapering cones
• The beak begins to harden
• The comb appears serrated
• The embryo begins to draw calcium from the eggshell to grow her bones and teeth, just kidding, chickens don't have teeth :P

Day 11, good profile there!

Day 12! 

• Scales appear on lower legs
• The embryo grows and moves like crazy
• The ribs begin to ossify (turn into bone)

day 12
  

Day 13

Not much to look at as she's filling the entire cavity, She's getting harder to candle and is a little more lethargic, likely from all that growing, I'll keep taking pics though, times like this makes me wish I still worked in a vet office to use the xray, no wait, I take it back, I don't wish I still worked in a vet office.

• The fingers of the wings are now covered with papillae
• The left and right collarbones now fuse to form the wishbone

Day 13

Day 14

• The Embryo turns its head towards the blunt of the egg, where the air pocket is
• The skull has become to ossify (turn to bone)

Day 14

Day 15

• The scales, claws and beak are becoming firm

Day 15

Day 16

• The embryo turns it's head towards the air pocket at the blunt of the egg
• The chorioallantoic cavity lines most of the inside of the surface of the egg shell (the membrane around the fetus

Day 16

Day 17

ZOMG! How exciting! Whoa! Look how big the air pocket got! So odd how accurate the daily development is! Today is day 17 and the beak is clearly and very turned towards the air cell! Tomorrow the beak will break through the membrane but I think this chick is an over achiever because it looks to me like its already happened!! FRIDAY!! As celebration and a nod to my clear excitement I'm not even going to do any bullets! KA POW! Nice job chicken little!

Day 17

Day 18

• The beak breaks through the inner shell membrane
• The lungs begin to fully function, as I can PROVE as I have video evidence! 

And the video! 

Stay Tuned...

seed bombs, EASTER style!

super easy, super fun, super pretty!

So, instead of glitter or candy, fill real eggs with wildflower and bee attracting seeds and soil, seal them up with some biodegradable 2ply and some watered down flour, let dry and you have gorgeous Easter egg seed bombs!!

iphone 4 4s import to iphone issues

Ok so EVERYONE I know is having issues with uploading their pictures to iphoto, it comes up with this annoying error mid-upload, this is what you do to remedy that

• Quit iPhoto
• Open Activity Monitor (Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor.app)
• In the search window at the top right, search for PTPCamera
• Click on PTPCamera in the list of results to highlight it
• Click on Quit Process (the red stop sign icon in the upper left of Activity Monitor)
• Choose “Quit”
• If you don’t already see “Image Capture Extension” in the list, search for it in the search box. Click on “Image Capture Extension” in the list of results to highlight it
• Choose “Quit”
• Go to Macintosh HD > System > Library > Image Capture > Devices and open PTPCamera.app back up
• Unplug and re-plug the iPhone 4. iPhoto should open, if you’ve set it to do so when a camera is plugged in. Otherwise, open it. You should see your media available for import from the iPhone 4 when you click on the iPhone 4 in the devices list.

That'll do it!

kids vs technology.

Ok, here's the jist (what does that MEAN anyways?)
At a glance, I wasn't interested in the hubbub about the LeapPad Explorer for kids, yep, essentially an ipad for kids, it's rugged, takes pics, you can download apps and track their progress, etc, they're essentially safe from online creepies and that kind of thing, but before xmas, I hadn't even heard of it.

When a product MAGICALLY has a release date that creates a frenzy around Christmas, I throw my nose up to it, I think it's terrible how we advertise to kids, it's sick, even treehouse advertises to kids around xmas, my mom didn't believe me, but yep, there it is, YOU NEED THIS TOY NOW! ASK SANTA!

Anyways, after xmas I decided to look at it, it was pretty cool, I'll admit, but then I took it to youtube, and saw comparisons to the Vtech Innotab, the LeapPad Explorer fell behind the Vtech Innotab in fluidity, but the innotab didn't have the camera, (the only setback as far as I can see). Still, the hype, oh the hype.

Adults buying ten of them and jacking the prices up, parents so desperate to put that gift under the tree that they pay these unethical prices, yuck. No thanks. We stuck to home made gifts (for the most part) and a calm Christmas morning with family.

That isn't today though. I (though not obsessed) though the idea of a tablet may be useful, god knows I can use a break to have a shower or brush my teeth, have a poop without an audience, whatever. I can deny the kids of the inevitable fact that they are going to have an introduction to technology, or I can moderate it. I'm a total technology lover, but I was a little put back by all the kids with a nintendo ds, their own laptops, computers in their bedrooms, yah, sorry, not a fan of any of those, perhaps when the kids are older but under ten? Don't even ask me kids, for lolz, ask your father :P

My husband and I recently upgraded our phones and put our old ones up for sale, I got NOTHING but no shows, stupid trade offers (really? a guitar? a bar fridge? NO!) but then I got an email from a 16 year old looking to trade an itouch for an iphone, I figured without hesitation that we would do it, he seemed like a sweet kid (via our correspondence) and he took the time to research the phone and ask a lot of valuable questions. We met with him and traded, I think we both made out like bandits because after agreeing to trade him I realized I could let our daughter use the ipod touch, we already know the interface because we're long time iphone users, I know that you can put MAJOR restrictions on it (even block the internet) and you can get age relavent apps while blocking in-app purchases.

winwinwinwin

TOTAL win. I googled "kid friendly iphone cases" and came up with pure gold. Engaged featured a case for kids that was drool proof and easy to hold, normally reading those sites and seeing something GENIOUS I figured it would be unattainable until at LEAST 2030 but nope, I found it at my local toysrus, and it was IN STOCK! I got a Fisher Price Laugh and Learn "apptivity case" (clever name)
Popped the ipod touch in there and KAPOW, pure awesomeness. I snuck in and out without my daughter and set the device up while she napped. She was STOKED! Instantly she knew how to do the things she wanted to do, (I forgot to disable email, but I just snuck it into another window to avoid her touching it) I put a movie on there, put some apps on there, found some GREAT learning apps, teaching color, sound, shapes, counting, alphabet, even a compass! And to beat out the expensive ($25+) app prices, the apps on the apple store are normally around 1.99 and under, and MOST have a free 'lite' version that you can try out before you buy it, plus the reviews are an enormous help.

Because we got a 4th gen Ipod touch it has both the front and the rear camera, well the sad thing about the case is that the rear camera is disabled but the AWESOME thing is that with the use of Wifi, she can call her friends on it (provided their parents allow them the use of their phone)
My daughter has called her friend in New York, her grandparents downisland, her Cousins who live next door, and her Uncle on his Ipad, she's over the moon!

You'd think that she would be on that thing ALL DAY (like her parents *cough cough*) but so far so good, I 've been monitoring it closely and only allowing a certain time limit on it, I'm pretty sure you can have the device shut down after certain hours and lock her out of it, but she's been good about giving it up with not much of a fight, and is currently behind me playing with her dolls.

Observations within 24 hours:
Pro: her counting she is paying more attention to, rather than spouting off 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10, she is slowing down and REALLY counting how many 'things' she is trying to count. So she can spout off and count to 20 or to 30, but she is really enjoying seeing just HOW many things are infront of her (she JUST turned 3)

Con: the camera, having had "mommy I'm taking a picture of you!" happen twice today, once while I was on the toilet, the other whilst in the shower. Thankfully we both escaped unscathed, (the camera can be disabled) but she really "got" when and where it is and isn't appropriate to take pictures....well, she 'understood' the second time :P

Anyways, because of the restriction options, I'd suggest this combo over the kid-aimed tablet devices! Plus if you buy used, you can get an ipod touch for pretty cheap, most times under $100

*note* it looks upside down because if you flip it over, there is a little piece of clear plastic that blocks the home button from being pressed :) EVEN MORE WIN!