Candling

I think I am going nuts with worry and thinking I am doing everything wrong... This morning when I was going to turn the eggs, they felt cold although they had been in the incubator all night.
During the days they kind of keep around 37.5 by themselves it seems, but during night with the same settings for air conditioner and the incubator the temperature drops to 35 for some reason.
I have had as low as 33 even for periods of couple of hours, so I am not sure if the hatching is completely ruined or not. There has also been 3-4 short, maybe 5 minute periods of too hot temperature, and I am not talking 38 or 39, I am talking up to 42.... Super worried and starting to stress. At the same time when I google things half of the people say it is super easy and eggs hatch even with lots of mistakes and mess ups, while the other half say it is like rocket science and even the slightest deviation will kill the embryo. I want to believe the first group because partially it is easier and partially I cannot believe farmers could have been successfully hatching eggs artificially for ages without all the technical advancements if it was this difficult.
Did not get my finger out to make a candling box, so still using flashlight. But nothing can be seen... only that makes me want to abandon the whole thing.

Hmm.. seems homogeneous to me

Day 5 for this egg...maybe not much to be seen?

This one has a yolk...

7 days old egg...

Again... Not sure at all if I am supposed to see anything as the eggs are araucana eggs. OR what I am supposed to look for. But at least I can see the yolk. First I thought it is just the shadow on the side that is farther away from the light source, but it slowly floats to the top when I turn the egg, rather than just moving immediately. So I guess it is something inside the egg and not just shadow.

The only thing I am certain about is that I am worrying way too much.

And then they were 3

I was watching the coop like a hawk all Saturday to catch the eggs as soon as they came. But the stupid birds had decided it was not a good day, so I didn't get a single egg. Plus I spent all day just hanging outside of the coop like an idiot. Great.
At least for Sunday I was sure to get 2 eggs. So I set out and started watching the nest like crazy form morning. And managed to pick 2 eggs as they came. I even could take a photo while one of the birds was laying egg.

Go away, I'm busy!

I don't think she minded being photographed. But I think she did mind me being in her way before she went to the nest. She was outside eating and I had just brought in the poop board after cleaning it as usual, and was about to put in in the coop, when she came from behind and flapped kind of aggressively with her wings and made lots of noise so I gathered she want to go in. I gave way by putting the poop board down outside and standing myself on the side and watched as she jumped in and headed directly for the nest. Good girl.
So, took in the eggs and put them in the incubator. Then went out to do some shopping and eating some shabu-shabu. At the restaurant I happened to order a raw egg to dip my meat in (huh, huh), and noticed that egg too had a "bulls eye". Hmm, are they serving fertile eggs? A bit of googling after I came home showed that almost all eggs have that spot which I thought was the bulls-eye, but the fertile ones have a more distinct outer circle, so from the picture of the two eggs I cracked on Friday, only one of them was fertile I guess. Oh well, learn a new thing every day.
Actually I also learned that fertile eggs can be stored for days if handled properly, before being put in the incubator. So I actually didn't have to put them right in. Of course the freezing weather outside was not optimal so best to pick them early. But I could have stored them inside after having picked them, and put them all in the incubator at once. The way it is now, if the eggs would hatch, they would be hatching in sequence, 1 or 2 a day over a week's period.
Anyway, when coming home, Chika asked how the hens were and went over to say hi. She opened the nest and found a THIRD egg. Super tiny and kind of triangular shape so I guess it must be a beginner egg. But still, now 3 of them are laying.

Compared with a L size store-bought egg. We bought 1 pack of eggs in lieu of the incubator ones

I didn't put that one in the incubator. In fact I stopped putting more eggs. Now there are 7 eggs in there. The oldest ones are from 22nd, 7 days ago.
I tried candling the oldest eggs, but did not see anything.
More googling reveals that Araucana eggs are supposed to be extra difficult to candle, incubate and hatch. So I probably won't be able to see much using my LED flashlight and fist. Here are a couple of pictures though. Just for the heck of it. Tonight I will try to make a candling box or something and try again.

Flashlight + Fist

Those are not veins in my hands. They are hairs.

Nothing in the egg. Have I failed?

I probably will try to distract myself by working a bit in the garden. I did get 1 more compost bin yesterday and put in place, because the old one was full now and I will just let it rot for a few months while filling the new one.
When the weather allows I will be fixing the coop's water collection system, the short part of the cat fence, the chicken run support and net roof, the slope, leveling the ground, cutting the trees and more.
After the freezing weather last couple of weeks, I think all my beans have died more or less...

God damn!

Or maybe they are just sleeping...

God damn?

By the way, the estimation on making 3 walls in the backyard slope came. Pretty expensive... and I am not sure if the result will be safe. So I am still thinking.

Fertility test

Came home a bit early to check the nest. Two eggs were there waiting for me, both as cold as the wind outside. As I thought, no point in incubating them when I have the chance of fresh ones in the weekend. Plus I wanted to check if the eggs the birds lay now a week later still are good for incubating...

Right, slender and light. Left, chubby and dark. 

As I was cracking them I noticed the shells were exceptionally hard. Really never seen eggs so tough before. I had to hit them hard twice to crack open. I wonder if little chickens really can manage breaking through on their own. Worry worry.

right, slender. left, dark. Insides are opposite though

I could only spot the bulls-eye on one of them. Oh well, one of the hens is preggo so 50% chance if I incubate all eggs.
But just as a last try, I took a fork and gently turned the "non-fertile" egg around.

Voila!

The spot was hiding below. So, both hens are laying eggs with bulls-eye. I hope that means they are fertile.
If I'm really unlucky, these were the last ones, and the eggs from tomorrow and Sunday will be dummies... Guess I can only know by cracking eggs on Monday and check.
You can't make an omelette without.

Added a bit of spice. Yummy

Getting older or fatter?

Just got my new passport, and was about to toss the old one when I compared the pictures.

left: 2013, right: 2018

I see a double chin coming up. I was way more out of shape in 2013, so probably the reason for the double chin is the long hours I spend with my head lowered with smartphones... Also my hair is thinning I suppose.
We got a new air conditioner as the old one was leaking gas apparently and didn't warm or cool anything. The replacement was free thanks to the insurance which came with the house, and since the old one is no longer being manufactured, we actually got a much newer updated version with people sensor and lots of functions which I probably won't use ever. While the service guys were working I put the cats in the tatami room and closed the door. Of course not before Chubby managed to completely freak out and attempt to kill me.

She's a pro!

Outside the weather was terrible, cold and strong winds. For the first time ever the water in the coop had frozen solid so the birds drank the remaining snow when they came out. And hot water pipes were of course frozen until the record time of noon. After that I replaced their still frozen water with hot water, and also covered all the holes with old blankets to keep it cozy and less drafty. The air conditioner guy was working outside too and kept moaning loud about how cold it was and that he couldn't feel his fingers. Poor guy. After the air conditioner was all installed and being tested he stood right under it and enjoyed the warm air. Myself, I was mostly inside with my jacket on...
The ground outside had frozen into shards... the top soil was all full of holes and full of probably 10 cm long crystals.

The backyard-sicle

The empty patches were worst, which can be seen in the middle part of the backyard picture. To the right, it was also frozen but not as much thanks to the vegetation. The beans all looked dead though, or just sleeping. On the left side the two Yuzu trees are still OK. I am still not sure why they planted them so close to each other. When they grow bigger they will surely interfere with each other's growth rather than help. I guess I will just have to keep pruning them best I can. Behind the Yuzu, my Jasmine bush is spreading slowly now that I have removed a lot of weed. To the left of all that, there is a patch of dirt where I spread the lilac seeds before the frost. The frost is supposed to kick start the germination so let's see if anything comes out in spring.
Outside was freezing but inside the eggs and incubator were nice and warm.

Incubator version 1.2

I made a few changes. Put more pads in to avoid the eggs rolling around and bump into each other. Also moved the thermometer to allow more space for the eggs. (the picture was taken before this move, now all 5 eggs are on the right in the same row)
Also added an adjustment lamp which is smaller to quickly raise the temperature by having it on together with the main lamp, or to slowly reduce the temperature by only turning the small one on. Gives me a little better control over the temperature. The humidity is still kind of hard to control but I do my best. Mostly it is around 40 which is supposed to be perfect during the first 2 weeks. Temperature is between 37 and 38, a couple of times it got too hot or too cold, but I read that it is not that important to keep the temp perfectly still at all times.
The eggs keep the temp for a while, even if they are left by the chicken, plus the temperature reading is the air right in front of the lamps where the thermometer has been moved to, not 5 cm further away where the eggs are so I have to take all that with a grain of salt. Apparently people have succeeded hatching eggs with much more random temperatures.
I am still not sure if the eggs actually are fertile so it could all be for nothing. End of this weekend I may be able to tell by candling them. Yesterday I kept watch and got the egg in the morning around 10 A.M. right after it was laid. Warm and nice, hopefully best chance to hatch. Meaning that today's egg which I will collect around 5 P.M. will have been out in the cold for 6 hours...
So for today's eggs, I will eat them. That way I can also check inside for fertility. I got 5 eggs in the incubator, and hopefully during the weekend I will pick 4 more. That will make full capacity of my incubator. More updates later.
By the way, here is a picture of the fourteen trees which I will be cutting down to make way for the levels and construction in the backyard.

The slope looks so mild in pictures, but in reality I can barely climb it

Frozen

Woke up to let the chickens out. Found this.

Everything is white

Heavy snow lying on everything. The weight of the snow had bent some of the saplings. Worst off were the pineapple guavas that were lying all the way on the ground, and had to be shaken to loose all the snow.

cover(ed) crops

The beans and other veggies were all covered and the strawberry tunnel had kind of collapsed onto itself like a set of dominoes. I shook as much of them as possible and got them back in their original form.

The tunnel after I dug it out and stretched it. Reminds me of Star Wars

I think the berries and most of the beans are still alive. It was all dark and cold and snow and water had already sneaked into my clothes and gloves. Of course all of this was not dealt with before I approached where I assumed the chicken run would be and started literally digging into the snow with my hands to access the gate. After a while I realized it was a much bigger task than a mere shaking and brushing off the snow, and went and got a big brush with long handle from the shed.
Once I got the gate open, I was faced with a dark cave, almost 1 meter high, made from the bounding net of the run. The snow had gradually but surely gathered on the run's roof net and slowly weighed it down and stretched it down to 1 meter above ground. Above the net was packed with snow, not allowing any light to enter. I started bit by bit removing the snow and lifting the roof and working my way in to the coop.
It was a large amount of snow, and cold as in a freezer, and every time I made a tiny wrong move I was showered with a lot of snow that went into my clothes. My fingers were aching and all I wanted to do was to fix up the run so the chickens could come out and eat.
The roof net, not being one single piece but rather a number of strips I had connected together, had of course split up in its seams and the strips had to be reattached unless I wanted the chickens to fly away.
The biggest surprise was the metal support beam in the middle. It was bent, almost broken under the snow.

This picture I took after I had straightened it up

Lucky it hadn't given way. Next I have to rethink the run roof and what supports it and remake it. When making it I did think about typhoons and heavy rain but could not at all imagine we would get this much snow, and that snow would so easily gather on top of the net instead of falling through.
After about half an hour and three pairs of gloves later, I had mended and cleaned up the net adequately and also connected one of the trees as extra support for now.

The roof is cleaned and lifted up, not all the way back to its original place but still

And here is a picture of the run from outside, after I was done. The brush is resting next to the gate.

Yeah I took care of the chicken run first and then the veggies and tunnel

And finally could let the chickens out. Inside the coop it was warm and nice, and their water container had not frozen. The sun had just started to come up and warm the garden.

The chicks are out. Their first encounter with snow ever.

The chickens waddled around a bit in the snow and didn't seem to mind playing around in it. They even started eating it. After all my cleaning and their clomping around and the sun suddenly melting the snow, there was this really gooey slippery half frozen mud bath right in front of the gate, probably ideal for ducks, if I had any. Now I just had to take out the poop board, carry it down the slope which by now was icy and without falling into the mud bath. The last thing I wanted in this mess was poop...

2 days' worth of poops

To my own surprise I pulled it off. And could clean the board and put it back without any incidents.

Clean as a poop board can be. And the compost bin is happy

As a bonus I gave the chicks some meal worms and was just about to go in and take a warm shower when Tora started screaming that he wanted to go out and see what all this fun white stuff was. So I let him out.

footsteps

It didn't last long though. After a quick inspection he drew the conclusion that snow was no fun at all and went and waited in front of the door for me to let him in again.

It's so cold...

Incubator

Snowy weather was heading our way so I came home early and picked the day's two eggs before snow started to fall. They were still warm so I guess (confirmed also by the laying time of next day) that it had just come out within the last hour.
Quickly ran in, and put together a home-made incubator within 20 minutes.

Impressive huh?

Getting the temperature to settle on 37,5 was a huge effort though, unless I watched the box constantly and open the lid/turn off/on the light, or move the light closer or farther away from the eggs to adjust. Plus the room was pretty cold and getting colder by the minute so the box temperature was not exactly going to converge. After an hour or so I gave up and put the incubator upstairs in the bedroom, and set the air conditioner to a constant 18 degrees, and closed the metal window and door shutters. I figured if the environment around the box is somewhat kept constant (with the air conditioner) then the lamp and the temperature around it will have a better chance of eventually land on a certain temperature. And lo and behold, it did land on 37,6 !! Lucky me. (Of course during midnight while I was sleeping in the same room, the box temperature fell down and stayed on 36,8 but I guess that should be acceptable?)
In the meantime, the snow had reached us and it had started to fall seriously.

Still the garden is holding up

I thought to myself that it was pretty beautiful. Little did I know what the snow would do to the garden until the next day... but that's another story.

Fertility

Oh hi chicken

So with the roosters gone I could concentrate on the rest of the garden. I am right now fixing some pipes to the outside of the coop, to lead all the rain water from its roof to one single point in front, where I assume I will be putting a water tank.
I also had a couple of guys come and have a look at the slope in the backyard and give me estimates about how much it would cost to make it level. I think I have already mentioned that I want to make 3 levels to plant stuff. Probably lots of flowers..I don't know yet. But it would be a shame to leave it as it is, because it is a place full of sunshine.

Another of my masterpieces

The length of the levels shall be 6 meters. I imagined that burying the block walls 30 cm under ground along with a small base would hinder landslide.
The first guy said that in order to avoid landslide, he would have to bury the bases much deeper than my plan, basically all the bases would be on the same level as the lowest base. Also the width of the bases would be larger so they would have to dig out the whole area, pour concrete and build the walls, and then fill in the holes with soil. They will of course need somewhere to put all that soil while working on the bases, so he said they will need to remove all my saplings and use that whole area as dump. They would of course put the saplings back but there is no guarantee that they would take. Also he would need to remove all the trees at the top of the slope and put them back afterwards if I wanted. Also, he needed to build walls perpendicular to the levels on the ends of the 6 meter length, as the L-shape would make sure the walls would not fall over. All this if I wanted to be absolutely sure about no landslide. Sounded like a huge venture, but I asked him to give me his estimated anyway.
The second guy said he had an alternative, to put pre-cast concrete wall sections of 2 meters each side by side. Unlike concrete blocks, they don't need bases as the two sides of a wall section is buried 1 meter underground, and that is supposed to keep it from falling over. A section's height is 60 cm so the length of the wall will be buried too 10 cm below the soil. He said it should be sufficient, but if I wanted to overdo it I could make concrete blocks with perpendicular bases dug under ground. He didn't need the saplings to be removed as they could probably work their way around them. I asked him to give me the estimate for both cases. Wall sections and blocks.
Either way, I am now thinking about cutting down the trees above the slope. They pretty much cut off all the sun, are hard to prune, and could be replaced with something more productive that climbs the fence.
Also I am thinking about using the leftover soil and also the soil from the border bump (between me and my neighbor, is a long bump of half meter height and over 1 meter wide, all of which is on my side. I just though about leveling it with the rest of the garden to plant something on) and make more distinct raised beds than now. Also I could even the other slopy parts a little bit...
So there is stuff to be done. I also have been very lazy about the last piece of netting which is supposed to prevent the cats from jumping over the lowest part of the net facing the neighbor jungle.
Tora and Chubby go out now every weekend and spend an hour or so on their own in the garden. But I still have to watch Tora and warn him in case he gets too close to that low part net...
Oh, I also paid a visit to the forest plots and removed a middle sized tree that had fallen over and was blocking the road. That whole area is prone to falling trees I guess so I have to take that into consideration when planning for whatever it is I am going to do.
Some idiot had dumped their old and rusty bicycle in my forest so I dragged it out and, yes, dumped it in the public part of the forest. Also in one spot I found lots and lots of coffee and beer cans, as if a bunch of  homeless people had had a party there. I left them as they were. Later when I clean up and cut trees, I will put a garbage can in my plot, so that hopefully the idiots put their garbage there. Also I now see the need of a fence or even better barbed wire to show this land is not abandoned. I guess just seeing the land in the state it is in kind of invites weird people to use it as trash can.
But none of this has to do with fertility.
On Saturday when making an omelette I saw that the egg had a white bulls-eye in it, which I assume is a sign that it is fertile. WOW! The roosters did mount the hens a lot before I handed them back. And it sounds like the sperm remains in the hens body for up to 2 weeks. Meaning that my hens will be laying fertile eggs for another 1 week at least...
Not that I have huge plans to expand but since I have vacancy in the coop, and since I have the chance to get more Araucanas, plus experience hatching little chicks by myself and hopefully learn something from it, I went out and bought a 10 pack of eggs, for our consumption during this week. I would just leave the eggs with the hens, but I am not sure if they are broody, plus it is still pretty cold, we have morning frost, and the eggs might be damaged while waiting for the hen to start nesting on them. I read that hens wait until they have a certain number of eggs gathered in the nest before starting to lay on them.
So, I will start gathering the eggs, build a simple incubator and see what happens... wish me luck.