Monday, February 22, 2016

Chicken Math

I am horrible at math.
To give you an example of just how bad I am at math, let me tell you two quick stories:
once upon a time I was doing math and getting quite frustrated. I'm the kind of hard headed person that when frustrated or met with an incredible road block will keep trying and trying to do something over and over again until I get so frustrated and worked up I break down into a frustrated, crying mess.
And sometimes I'll STILL try to do that impossible thing. Even when it's to the point where I need to STOP and try again tomorrow. You'd think I'd learn to stop and reevaluate when I meet a road block but nooo.
Long story short I got so frustrated I slammed my text book down on my desk and broke the edge off.
Fast forward a year later and again I got so frustrated I hit the table I was working on with my book so hard the vibrations broke the hard drive in my computer.
Yup I have a hard time understanding this thing called "algebra."
But you know what kind of math I am good at?
Chicken math.

For those of you not quite so engrossed with chickens as I am let me explain this term that actually has grown quite popular on chicken forums.

Basically, chicken math refers to the way you count your chickens and is usually broken down into a couple of rules . The rules vary depending on the individual situation but the outcome always equals room for more chickens!
My Rules for Counting Chickens:
1. Eggs you are planning to hatch don't count because you can't count your chicks before they hatch.
2. Hen's don't count because they're laying eggs which we sell.
3. Chicks don't count because they aren't fully grown yet.
4. Roosters don't count because eventually you're going to eat them.
5. Roosters kept for breeding purposes don't count because they don't lay eggs.

I'm a total pro when it comes to chicken math so let me show you baby chicks that I don't have! 
Last week 25 babies popped out of 31 eggs that made it into lock down. 25 babies out of 31 eggs left us with an 80% hatch rate, our highest yet!
They're about 2 weeks old now and are shaping up to be BEAUTIFUL birds, I can't believe how beautiful they are turning out to be and I hope they'll keep this sort of color into adulthood.

This pretty boy/girl is Chipmunk! We diviated from food names to name some of the cute chipmunk striped ones after Alvin and the Chipmunks. But check out those FEATHERS!!!! I love it!! That kind of mottled barring is the sort of thing I'm looking for, I really hope they keep it into adulthood!


This one is Alvin, he/she is not as rufous as Chipmunk but he/she is definitely the next one up when it comes to color!


Close up of Alvin's mottled wing.


Another interesting cross we got out of this hatch was two buff crossed chicks. This picture is from last week but you can see this little chick is going to have some interesting spins on the buff coloring, she's started to grow feathers that have brown speckles and her neck is getting buff feathers but they seem darker, perhaps a Rhode Island Red has snuck in there made the buff coloring darker? We'll just have to wait and see!!

No way were we just going to do one batch of chicks this year so 6 days after everyone had finished hatching we set more, tomorrow will be day 7 and they should hatch on the 8th of march. Chick season is only just beginning!