Poultry Proliferation and Problems

Security detail by Herb. He adapted the dogs' old crate for the bantam chicks that Mickey gave Emma.
Emma named the mama Butter Cream. So now I call them Butter Cream and the Dixie Chicklets.

The day we brought the mama and babies home, Emma discovered that our one little banty hen, Zsa Zsa, is setting on about 10 eggs in the front-end loader of Herb's tractor. I say "about" because some of the other chickens, who are all big and heavy, force her off the nest every day and add a new egg to her clutch. These eggs are about twice as big as Zsa Zsa's. Emma is fretting because she's afraid little Zsa Zsa won't be able to cover all the chicks if they hatch.

Emma says the chicks in the incubator should have legs as of yesterday. That number is down to five after she culled the "yolkers" yesterday, a process she described as "extremely stressful". She checked and double-checked before cracking them open. Thankfully, she was right about each one and now has the added relief of not having to worry about "exploders". I'm relieved about that myself.

Today I noticed a bad smell in the garage. I checked my big freezer and found everything OK. Then I checked the freezer section of our old refrigerator. It had quit working. I found three large turkeys in there, all room temperature. They were the expensive "all natural" kind. They had a pungent, all natural stink, too.