Farm Update

It has been a slow week here on Gael Glen Farm.  While temperatures have gotten a bit more mild, we're still in Old Man Winter's clutches with a forecast for 15cm of snow today.

Everyone on the farm is doing fine.  The chickens, ducks, fish and bees are all status quo.

Happy chicken.

  Charlotte is great and Emily is still wearing the blue cone; however, her ear is on the mend.

Em is still grumpy.

  Avery has started another shed; to date she has shed the skin on her ridge and is currently working on her face.

Avery is working hard on her brand new skin.

The baby and I are doing fine; though I do have multiple pregnancy aches and pains that I am happy to share with anyone who will listen.  The worst of which right now is sore hips.  Apparently completely normal but still quite painful.  If I sit for too long I end up hobbling around like a very, very old woman.

The baby has been kicking up a storm this past week.  Ian finally felt him kick for the first time a few days ago.  He said it felt to him like an irregular heart beat.  He said it was really weird to feel something kick from inside me - I think the baby has been kicking me so much lately I am used to the strangeness of it by this point.

Ian came back from his trip to Mexico with a bad case of Montezuma's revenge.  So bad, that Ian (who hates going to the doctor) made his own appointment to get some antibiotics.  Luckily they worked like a charm and he is on the mend.  Maybe next time he will think twice about eating meat tacos from a food cart on the streets of Mexico City - very bad idea, even for a man who usually has an iron stomach.

Street taco stand.

Mexican street meat - good decision at the time...bad decision  three days later.

Egg Anomalies

The vast majority of our hen eggs have perfectly smooth shells, display the typical egg shape and are the standard "large" size - ideal specimens.  These are the ones that go to market.  However, sometimes things go awry.  I'm not sure exactly why but occasionally we end up with a few very unsaleable eggs.  These go in "Ian's Carton" and become fodder for his breakfast.  Ian often jokes that he never ate so many unusual eggs until we became egg farmers.

Luckily, in addition to the freak eggs, Ian also gets to eat the abnormally humongous eggs that are so big they simply don't fit in an egg carton.  These gigantic eggs are usually laid by our older hens and are very much a crowd pleaser - who doesn't like a simply enormous fried egg (except a vegan, of course)?

Normal sized egg vs. itty bitty egg (quarter to show  scale).

Huge, oval shaped egg vs. normal egg.

Some oddly shaped eggs.

Egg with very weird, wrinkly shell.

 Regardless of how they look on the outside, the insides of these egg anomalies still taste delicious.  Just ask Ian!

Avery's Big Adventure

Sometimes you just need a break from the ordinary; whether this is in the form of a road trip across North America, an impromptu visit to Mexico City or a climb up the ficus tree.

Today Avery was in the mood for adventure.  Take a look as our brave explorer makes the arduous (albeit closely supervised) trek through the ficus jungle!

I'm free!

Navigating the arm chair.

Making progress.

The wire jungle gym.

Destination in sight!

Halfway there.

Up and up and up we go.

The top is near...

Avery: "Changed my mind...on second thought this is a bit too high."

And with that, Avery headed home - back to the safety of her terrarium.  Quite the adventure for a little chameleon.

Emily's Dunce Cap

Since her grooming appointment last week, Emily has had a sore ear which she insists on scratching incessantly.  It was starting to look very scabby and irritated so some minor medical action was deemed necessary.  Polysporin is our farm "cure-all" treatment - antibiotic cream available without a prescription: the farmer's best friend.  In the past we have used Polysporin to treat everything from chicken eye infections to various cuts and scrapes; today we used it in Emily's left ear.

Unfortunately, putting a foreign substance with a distinct odour into a dog's ear is enough to drive them crazy with the desire to scratch so Emily also inherited the scratch prevention cone.  While the intention of this cone isn't  to humiliate a pup, the dogs clearly think of it as the "cone of shame".  They hate wearing it, look miserable the entire time it is on and pretty much refuse to function until you take it off.  True to form, Emily is not a happy camper with her sore ear and the blue cone.  Poor girl - hopefully her ear heals quickly and the cone can go back to the cupboard to await it's next victim.

A very surly Emily refusing to move from this spot
on the floor in protest of the blue cone.  What a scowl!

Avery's Eccentricities

I have been working on my computer lots lately and so have been spending some quality time with Avery in my office.  She is generally a calm, still creature but she does have some interesting behavioural traits that I thought I'd share with you.

Behaviour #1: Puffing

Any time you get very close to Avery's terrarium she will freeze and puff out her throat in order to seem bigger and more intimidating.  She continually follows you with her independently swiveling eyes and will only unpuff and begin to move a long time after you back away and she feels safe again.

Behaviour #2: Swaying

Sometimes when you look over at Avery she will be sitting on a branch, swaying like she is a leaf in the breeze even though there is no wind at all in her terrarium.  In fact, that is exactly what she is mimicking - a leaf in the breeze.  It turns out, chameleons can't actually change colour as dramatically as many people think to match their environment so they use mimicry as one method to help blend into their surroundings.  Avery is very good at swaying.

Behaviour #3: Tail Curling

Chameleons are the only lizard that have a prehensile tail (like many monkeys) that can be used as a fifth limb to twist around twigs for extra stability.  When she is not using her tail for added grip, Avery likes to rest with her tail curled up into a spiral.  She often sleeps like this at night.

Behaviour #4: Hissing

Avery is an expert hisser.  Hissing is a common behavioural trail of female chameleons when they are frightened.  Avery doesn't hiss often but she can sure let 'er rip when you try to move her from the ficus tree back into her terrarium.  While I know her teeth are small and her bite is non-toxic (she has never actually bitten me), her hiss is enough to make you think twice about annoying her.

Check out this four second You Tube video of the hiss a chameleon makes.  It'll make you shake in your boots!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIYVMGstFQI

Even though Avery is a bit of an unusual creature and certainly not a suitable pet for young children, I think she is a wonderful office companion.  Here's props to Avery for being a very cool lizard indeed.

What's in a Nest?

Everybody knows that chickens lay their eggs in nests.  A lesser known fact is that chickens will also sleep in their nests if you let them.  Don't get me wrong, the chickens have a lovely roost to sleep on at night that I built for them out of old stairway railing.  However, apparently sleeping in a nest is more comfy than perching on a wooden rod.  Go figure.

Chickens sleeping in their nests doesn't sound like a bad idea until you become aware of the fact that chickens poop while they sleep.  Seriously, they can poop and sleep simultaneously.  What a talent!

Regrettably....

Sleeping in nests + pooping in nests + laying eggs in nests = poop filled nests + poop covered eggs.

Ew.

The solution, you ask?  A nest blocker, of course!  We place the nest blocker in front of the nests at night and then move it to the side in the morning to allow the chickens free access to the nests throughout the day.

This has completely solved our problem of chickens sleeping in the nests with very minimal effort on our part.  Now most chickens sleep on the roosts where they ought to be while a few choose to sleep on the floor with the ducks.  Hey, each to her own.  Who are we to choose the bedfellows of a chicken?!

Grooming Day

I must admit, a few members of our family here on Gael Glen Farm have been getting a little bit out of hand - in the hair department.  It has been a long time coming, but today was finally grooming day.  A few minutes with a clipper and some drastic changes have taken place; mounds of curls have been replaced with sleek shaves.

Here are some before and after shots I think you'll enjoy.

Charlotte before.

Charlotte after.

Emily before.

Emily after.

You didn't think I was just talking about the dogs, did you?

Ian before.

Ian after.

My family sure cleans up nice, huh?  Just in time for Valentine's Day!

Calling in Reinforcements

We had another dump of snow over the weekend and with Ian away at winter camp, I needed a bit of help with the shoveling and snowplowing.  Luckily my parents were quick to offer assistance and respond in my time of need.  Not only did they do all the manual labour but my Dad sweet talked our neighbour with the giant orange tractor into plowing the driveway for us.  It usually takes us about fifteen passes with our small snow blower to do the driveway; whereas, it literally took the orange tractor three passes to clear the entire laneway while shooting the snow halfway across our front lawn.    Many thanks to Dad, Mom and our wondeful neighbour for their assistance in digging my way out of "Snowmageddon"!  You are the best!

Today; however, is a whole different story.  It is still morning and the temperature is already above 0 degrees C!  Woohoo!  I can literally see the snow melting.  The sight of "drip, drip, drip" off our back deck warms my heart.

A few more days like this and maybe we'll have no snow at all...please, please, please...

A Cool Cricket Gets Invited to Dinner

Chameleons can eat a variety of insects (e.g. wax worms, meal worms, super worms, fruit flies, flies, moths and grasshoppers) but since worms gross me out (a lot) and the other bugs aren't available for purchase in the pet store, our chameleon's diet consists of house crickets (called Acheta domesticus).

I'll explain more about the lives of our soon-to-be-dinner house crickets in a future post, but today I noticed something quite neat happening in the cricket cage - a cricket molting.

Crickets have direct development (gradual metamorphosis) in which the larva (immature insect) resembles the adult (mature insect) except for being a smaller size and having a lack of wings.  There are three stages of development in the life cycle of the house cricket: egg, larva and adult.  Only the adults have wings and can reproduce.

Like ocean crabs or lobsters who cannot grow their existing shell to make it a bigger size, crickets cannot grow their outer skin either.  As such, in order to grow larger, they molt out of their old exoskeleton and emerge from underneath with a new skeleton.

Our cricket molting - see the white cricket emerging downward out of the old brown skin?

At room temperature, there are ten larval instars (or stages) to house cricket development.  At the end of each larval instar there is a molt to the next larval instar in which old skin is cast off in one piece.  The next instar has a new and larger skin into which the cricket can grow.  Larvae roughly double their size in each molt.  

Our crickets are usually brown coloured but when a cricket emerges from its molt it is soft and milky white in colour - it looks albino.  Interestingly, newly molted crickets require several hours for their new skeleton to harden after which they assume the normal gray-brown colour.

Newly molted cricket.

Too bad being noticeably cooler than the other crickets is a great way to get yourself invited to dinner - not the outcome you are hoping for when you are the dinner.  Down the hatch!

Source: "Fluker's Cricket Biology Guide."  Accessed February 11, 2013 from http://www.flukerfarms.com/pdfs/cricket.pdf

Pregnancy Craving: Nonna Mela Pizza

Ah, pregnancy cravings.  I always wondered if I'd have them and you can ask the staff at the local McDonald's - I definitely do.  The food I crave most - the Big Mac.  No kidding, I am usually a Big Mac once a year kind of girl.  I will not admit how many I have eaten since becoming pregnant...it is embarrassing.    Don't ask Ian either - he is my Big Mac partner in crime.  Why oh why do they taste so delicious?!

Recently; however, I have been craving something healthier - the Nonna Mela pizza from the wood-fired pizza joint in Kingston called Woodenheads.  Some especially crazy pregnant ladies would have insisted on driving to Kingston to satisfy this pizza urge but instead I decided to be creative (and frugal) by replicating this delectable dinner at home.

Luckily I just made a batch of apple butter which is a key ingredient in the Nonna Mela pizza, along with roasted garlic, cheddar, sweet onions and chicken.  So, I fried up some red onions, roasted some garlic cloves in the oven, grated some cheddar cheese and whipped up a batch of homemade pizza dough in our bread maker...before I knew it...tada!...homemade Nonna Mela.

The pizza was absolutely delicious and I was able to completely satisfy my pregnancy craving without having to drive all the way to and from Kingston to do it!  Woohoo!

My Nonna Mela.

Woodenheads' Nonna Mela.

Now if I could just recreate the Big Mac at home...curse that special sauce!

Biology Lesson: the Chicken Vent

When we first started to raise hens we did a ton of research to figure out exactly how these little egg producing creatures work. I can remember sitting at the kitchen table with Adam (a friend of the family who was staying with us while on a business trip) searching Google for things like "Where does an egg come from?" and "How does a chicken lay an egg?"

While most of us are happy to eat eggs, it remains a mystery to many people how exactly a chicken produces them.  Below are five interesting facts about how chickens lay eggs.

Female chicken.

1) A hen (aka female chicken) does not have to have sex with a rooster (aka male chicken) in order to lay an egg.  Hens are similar to human females in that they ovulate (i.e. produce an egg) regularly regardless of whether a male is present or not.  However, unlike human females who ovulate monthly, most reproductively mature hens ovulate daily.

Completely unnecessary.

2) A hen only has one opening (called the vent) where the intestine and oviduct meet in a chamber called the cloaca.  This opening serves as the exit point for both digestive waste (aka poop and pee) and eggs.  In case you were unsure, human females have three separate openings.  An interesting fact is that chickens don't have a bladder because they don't actually pee liquid like humans do, their "pee" comes out in a white solid form called uric acid.

Anatomical diagram of the chicken oviduct.

Chicken vent.

3) Hens never lay more than one egg a day.  However, sometimes an egg will be a "double yolker" which means that there are two yolks inside one shell.  This type of egg could have produced identical twin chicks if it had been fertilized, incubated and the chicks had been allowed to hatch.

Double yolker.

4) To lay an egg, a hen turns part of the cloaca and the last segment of the oviduct inside out, like a glove. The egg emerges from these inverted membranes so it cannot contact the walls of the cloaca and get contaminated by digestive waste. Moreover, the intestine and inner part of the cloaca are kept shut by the emerging egg and their contents cannot leave when the hen strains to deliver the egg. Therefore, eggs are always clean when they are laid.

5) Most of the egg is formed in the early portion of a hen's oviduct; however, the shell material is added towards the end in the shell gland portion of the oviduct (aka the uterus).  The shell is composed of calcium carbonate and takes about 20 hours to form.  If a hen lays brown eggs, the brown pigments are added to the shell in the last few hours of shell formation.

Amazing, isn't it?