Whatever happened to Lola?

Back on 27th April, I said that I wasn't hopeful for the clutch of eggs being sat on by one of our West of England geese, Lola.

At that stage she had been on the for 31 days. The normal incubation period for geese is 28 to 31 days, and there was no sign of anything happening, although it was difficult to be certain, as she was very defensive of her nest.

I left her on them for another 4 days, but when there was still no sign of any goslings, I armed myself with a dustbin lid, and removed the eggs from the nest. Although Lola was getting off the nest for short periods to eat and drink, I did not want her sitting indefinitely. Besides, assuming the eggs were infertile, they were likely to start going off!.

Meanwhile, I had taken the eggs laid by our other West of England, Amelia, and had six of them in our small incubator. Amelia continued to lay, and I put her later eggs into a nest I had made in their stall, in the hope that she might sit. No such luck. As soon as I had removed Lola's eggs, Lola moved herself onto this new nest, and sat there prepared to wait another 4 weeks. She really did want goslings!

We had timed the incubator for a hatch one week after our return from the Scilly Isles. Candling before we left had been inconclusive, but after our return it was clear that these eggs too were infertile. It would appear that Amos, our gander, was not performing, and the likelihood was that Lola's new clutch would also come to nothing.

So, yesterday I phoned around a few breeders and suppliers I know, and by good fortune found that one was at market, and was expected back at around 3 pm, probably with some goslings. We arrived there at 2 minutes past 3, just as he had unpacked a number of goslings and ducklings, including 6 day old goslings. We bought all 6, and rushed them home, where we put them in with the chicks that had hatched out over the weekend.

Then, once it had started to get dark, and the birds were settling down for night, we took the goslings up to the goose stall, and I gently placed them into Lola's nest. Mo & I watched anxiously, in case the geese attacked the youngsters as unwelcome intruders, but all 3 examined them with incredible gentleness.

I removed the eggs from the nest and put them in the incubator (I'll candle them this weekend), and left them to it.

And when I went out to check on the birds this afternoon, there was Lola, out behind her stall, carefully watching over her babies, and feeling very pleased with herself for at last managing to hatch them out! ( I don't think I'll tell her the truth, she probably wouldn't believe me).

Early Purple Orchid - A Regular Visitor

We look forward every year to the return for the summer of the swifts, swallows and martins, the latter of which have a number of nests under the soffits around Welle House.

But here is a here is another harbinger of summer, who never really goes away.

During our first spring here in East Prawle, when cutting the grass for our self catering accommodation, I came across an orchid growing near to the northern wall. I carefully cut around it, and it stayed with us for about 10 weeks.

The following year, we had forgotten all about it until, in mid-April, there it was again, in exactly the same spot (unsurprisingly). And again last year. So that this year, along with the return of the birds from North Africa, we eagerly awaited the reappearance of this beautiful flower, and it did not disappoint.

There is a bank on the lane that approaches Stokenham, about 4 miles from here, that has a profusion of these, but this one shows no sign of spreading. Nonetheless, we feel privileged to have this one.

A surprise newcomer.

Mo is a keen gardener, and when it comes to rabbits in the veggie patch, she takes the same view as Beatrix Potter's Mr McGregor - put them in a pie!

But we couldn't do that to this little chap. I was moving a pallet we use as a gate, so I could get through to cut the lawn for the self-catering accommodation, when there was a flash of white.

I followed it onto the guest patio, and there was a tiny albino rabbit, trying to hide in a corner. He seems to have been driven out by his more conventionally coloured family. There is no way he would survive in the wild - if our cat didn't find him, the fox that patrols our garden every night certainly would.

We have an old rabbit hutch that we originally bought for broody hens, so I dusted it off, bought some hay and rabbit treats (dried artichoke leaves) and put him in there with a saucer of water.

I would love to keep him, but Mo doesn't (worried about the veggie patch), so feelers are being put out to local families with small children.

And here's Fluffy!

One day old, and straight off a chocolate box!

If you look at the photo closely, you can just make out the beginning of feathers on the end of the wing.

In a week's time, that feathering will be much more pronounced, and tail feathers (and possibly back feathers) will also have started.

BTW, the eggs and birds in this little series have switched between dark and light. I put two types of egg in the incubator, Leghorn (which lay pure white eggs, and in the variety I have are pure white feathered) and Marans (which lay dark brown eggs, and will end up black and white mottled - or "cuckoo").

Out at last!

After hours and hours of struggle, the tiny chick at last manages to push away the top of the shell, and with a twist of its body, emerges to start it's like.

It is still wet at this stage, and very exhausted. I leave it in the incubator until it is dry and fluffy, before transferring it to a brooder pen under a heat lamp.

It carries sufficient reserves from the yolk within the body to sustain it for 24 hours or more, so there is no need for food or water within the incubator, but the brooder has a feeder full of chick crumbs, and a drinker kept full of fressh clean water.

Ready to hatch

Most of the work has been done now.

The top of the shell has been separated. One more push, and the chick will hatch.

Half way to hatching

Here, the chick has been working slowly around the shell, and is about an hour away from removing the top section, enabling it to extricate itself.

It can take 24 hours or more from the first pip to hatching, and the chick will emerge wet and exhausted.

First pip.

This photo shows one of the eggs in the incubator which has just started the hatching process.

The build up of CO² in the egg has caused the chick inside to jerk its head involuntarily.

At this stage, the beak has a small hard protuberance, known as an egg tooth, on the tip, which initially breaks into the air sac in the round end of the egg, and later to start breaking the shell. This is known as "pipping".

The chick develops in the egg curled up, and as the hatching process develops, it slowly unwinds, and makes a series of "pips", eventually breaking away the blunt end completely (a bit like a soft boiled egg!), enabling the chick to hatch.

More Egg Candling

Here's another photo of a candled egg, taken last night.

Where the last photo showed a system of veins, with the heart showing as a dark spot, here the whole top end of the egg is dark, where it is occupied by the now nearly fully developed chick.

Over the next few days, it will continue to develop, and as it does, there will be a gradual build up of CO² inside the egg.

When this reaches a certain level, it will cause an involuntary jerk from the chick's head, which in turn will cause the beak to make a small hole in the shell, starting the hatching process.

The adventures of my son and the Salcombe 'C' Crew at the 2008 World Pilot Gig Championships on the Isles of Scilly

Egg candling

This is a photograph I took last night of one of about 30 eggs I have in our big incubator. The egg is being held blunt end to a powerful light source, so that I can see what is happening inside.

It's not a particularly good photo, being taken with my mobile phone, but it is possible to make out blood vessels around the shell, and a dark area towards the top right, which is the heart.

I'll try and get more photos as the incubation progresses, to show how the chick embryo develops in the egg.

Lola's eggs haven't hatched yet. She's been on the nest for 31 days now. They should hatch after 28 days, so I'm not hopeful, but I'll leave her there for a little while yet, just in case.

Miracle birds

As planned, I put 40 Leghorn eggs in our big incubator in early March. All went well. After 10 days we candled them (held a bright light to the blunt end in a darkened room). In 30 of them, a system of veins and a small heart could be seen, indicating that they were fertile.

The 10 infertile eggs were discarded, and incubation continued.

Then we had severe gales, and a 3 hour power cut. We moved the incubator onto the Aga to try and maintain temperature, but that is far from ideal.

After 18 days incubation (3 days before the due hatch date), we candled them again. The results were very varied. Some eggs had hardly moved on at all, and in a large number there were large dark areas inside, showing that the chicks had developed, but not as much as we would have expected, One of them was almost entirely dark, but our fear was that the power cut had completely scuppered the incubation.

The due hatch date came and went without any chicks, and we were sure that our fears were correct. Then, the following morning, when I went to check, there was a little damp newly hatched chick.

Normally, we move chicks to a brooding pen under a heat lamp, but just one? It was upset enough on its own in a supermarket basket in our airing cupboard - putting it in an outhouse would have been like torture. So, our bed & breakfast guests had trier breakfasts to the accompaniment of assorted cheeps and chirrups from the airing cupboard.

That wasn't going to continue forever, however, and we were not looking forward to the time we would have to move it out to the brooder on it's own. Then two days later, when I went out to turn off the incubator, lo and behold, there was a second chick! It is very hard work for these little creatures to break free from their shells, and it can take some time, but this was 72 hours after the due hatch date!

It is now 1 ½ weeks since the first chick hatched, and I moved them to the brooder yesterday (the eldest had managed to jump out of its basket - fortunately Mo spotted it). I am hopeful that both will develop into productive birds. If either (or both) turn out to be cockerels, we will try and find new homes for it, rather than cull it. After hatching out against the odds, they deserve all the life they can have.

Lola's moved her nest, and she ain't shifting!

Well, I said I'd wait until I had the goose eggs in the incubator before I encouraged Lola to to use a nest in her stall. Turns out she needs no encouragement, and that she was not prepared to wait.

When I went to let her out yesterday morning, she was sat firmly on a nest she had made out of her own bedding straw and feathers, and she was not coming out. I left her to it, having made sure she was secure and had fresh water.

I checked on her at midday, and she was still there. What's more, Amelia had also laid an egg, although she doesn't seem to have the same nesting instinct, and her egg had been left in the middle of the floor.

Taking my life in my hands, I walked very slowly into the stall, picked up Amelia's egg, and then moved even more slowly and cautiously towards Lola's nest, and very gently placed the egg in the nest. Lola hissed, shifted a wing, and rolled the egg in next to the other.

Encouraged by my success, I collect two eggs from those I had been setting aside for the incubator, and succeeded in persuading her to adopt these as well.

We had a squally and windy day today, but Lola has only left the nest 2 or 3 times for water. All the signs are that she'll stick out the (28 day) course.

There's no guarantee that any of the 4 eggs she's sitting on are fertile, but fingers crossed. A mother goose with her offspring would be such a thrill.

A Nest in the Veggie Patch

This is Lola, one of our two West of England Geese. She started laying in Mid-February, usually in her stall before I release her in the morning, but she has now made herself a proper nest, in a corner of our vegetable garden.

Her chosen spot is in an area which had become somewhat overgrown last Autumn. Mo had killed the grass which had grown up, and the next step would have been to clear the dead grass away, preparatory to tilling the ground ready for planting.

But Lola thinks all that dead grass is perfect for a nest. What's more, we have wind break netting along the side of the plot, so she's nice and sheltered from the prevailing westerlies.

When she's laid her egg (and she lays one once every other day), she spends half an hour or so carefully covering it with more dead grass, before wandering off to join Amelia, our other West of England, and Amos, our gander.

It would be nice to leave the eggs there, and let her sit on them when she feels she has a big enough clutch. But we get foxes in our garden every night, and she would be killed for certain if we didn't put her away in her stall every night.

I'll be putting 40 odd Leghorn eggs in the incubator on Monday, and after they hatch at the beginning of April, I'll put a clutch of Lola's and Amelia's eggs in. Once those eggs are in the incubator, I'll try and encourage Lola to use a nest I've built for her in her stall. If she does, I'll leave the eggs there and see if she will hatch them out.