Jake Esselstyn

For those of us in warmer climates, this is actually the most intensive time of year. There's a lot to harvest from long season hot weather crops (winter squash, cowpeas, okra, and sweet potatoes for me), but there's also an urgent need to get the fall vegetables (mustards, beets, carrots, brassicas, peas, Irish potatoes) in the ground. I am often conflicted about whether I should leave the summer plants in to continue producing at the risk of being too late getting the fall plants in. This year I compromised by harvesting half of my sweet potatoes to make some space. Anyway, my point is that there is no rest season for the garden here, so adding compost, mulch, etc happens at various times throughout the year. I add mulch in the form of poultry bedding or lawn clippings under growing plants or a few weeks before planting heavy feeders. I also chop and drop crop residue at harvest time and this can be a lot of biomass for things like sweet potatoes. It's a constant churn.

Am I naïve to expect that poultry feed should be very cheap in the USA right now? American farmers are stockpiling their crops of all the major commodity grains because prices are so low with the loss of international buyers. So when does the price of a sack of all flock in the USA go down?

Where did the bad DNA come from if it's cloning?

Clones still accumulate mutations, and most mutations are either bad or neutral. Without sexual reproduction, there's no means for the mutations to be removed. Imagine a parental plant that has a deleterious mutation in one allele, but not in the other allele (in other words, it's heterozygous at that particular gene). All of its cloned offspring will carry that deleterious mutation, but only half of its sexually produced offspring will have the bad allele. Selection can then eliminate the mutation in the sexual line.

If you feed them EVERY evening in the same shelter, they will return. Otherwise, they will probably prefer to spend the night outside. Lots of breeds out there. Depends on what you want (meat, eggs, pretty birds?).

J Lovejoy wrote:
I'm currently thinking about finding plants that will grow well in the strip of shade along that side of my house, but also curious about what other uses it might have, other things people do in spots that don't necessarily grow well. Storage or other productive projects.

Your spot sounds perfect from growing mushrooms. A few stacks of small logs inoculated with shiitake or oyster spawn will produce a lot of good food.

Ah yes, the acidity would do it. In the gizzard though, which is quite acidic. Thanks for clarifying.

I would like to also point out that while calcium sources like oyster shells can be used as a form of grit... it is water soluble and will not last long compared to say pebbles and granite shards.

I'm having a hard time understanding how this could be true. Oysters live in water. Why don't they dissolve?

They will kill it if the numbers are right. All depends on how many chickens, how much area, how long they are there, how long your growing season, how much precipitation, etc.

In that case, you should be able to see little goslings moving (a twitch movement) inside the eggs. Geese are harder to candle than ducks or chickens, but you should still be able to see if your light is bright enough. Usually when I see dead eggs at that stage, the material inside the egg moves around freely as you tilt the egg. It is very runny, nasty stuff. If what you see generally stays in place as you tilt the egg, that may be a good sign. In the future, I would candle after one week. Usually those that are alive at that stage continue to grow to hatch or nearly hatch, in my experience.

How long have the eggs been in the incubator? At about a week, you should be able to see a few blood vessels clearly, emanating from a dark spot. If there is black, and especially if the black sloshes around in the egg, it is dead and rotting. I'm able to candle eggs with the flashlight on my iPhone.

The second post in this string (https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/goose-egg-hatching-guide.1620753/) has the best guide to goose egg incubation I've found. It includes good pictures at each stage.