Don't Count Your Chickens...

This post has Affiliate Links.

Don't Count Your Chickens Until They Hatch

     I never really understood what that meant until this week. Due to a series of unfortunate events, we will have no chicks from our eggs in this experimental hatching. While extremely sad, we realize this is a part of a learning experiment and we are hoping our remaining 5 eggs will have a better outcome. 

Let's Recap The Last 3 Weeks-

• Week 1- We used the flashlight 'Candling' method to see into the eggs. Since most of the eggs had dark thick shells, it was hard to tell if what we were seeing. At this stage, you mainly see the veins of the fertile eggs and possibly a dark speck that is the chick embryo. However, we did get a lovely little video of a chick moving around inside of one of the eggs. You can see the video HERE. 
• Week 2- While we started out with 3 of our own eggs and 5 from our neighbor, we realized after Water Candling at Week 2 that 3 of the eggs were not going to hatch. Two were ours and they had blood rings of an early death. One from Bree turned out to be infertile. We were very sad to loose Prissy's egg. If you remember, she is our FFA hen that was not supposed to live past a few months, lay eggs, or mate. We also lost one of our Jersey Giant eggs as well. 
• Week 3- On the eve of day 18, we water candled again. All of the chicks wobbled in the cup and everything seemed to be right on track for LOCKDOWN. However, we had an over achiever decide he wanted to cheep on day 19 and start to pip on day 20. Unfortunately, Zoey and I had to be at work that day. Some friends came over while we were gone. Thinking the chick was in distress, someone (not naming any names) opened the incubator a couple of times to help. By the time I rushed home from work, Bree's blu egg had hatched and there was no cheeping from any of the other eggs. We waited anxiously on day 21 for any signs of hatching. On day 22, we were still hopeful but at the same time, we knew it was very doubtful they would hatch. On day 23, we water candled again just to make sure they were gone. No sounds, no movement, no hatching, no baby chicks for us. Zoey took it like a trooper. 

  

  The 3 eggs that did not hatch. 

    

So How Is The Lone Ranger?

     He is doing very well! After nearly falling in love with this little thing, we sent him over to be with our neighbor. It was her egg after all. She would have let us keep it, but Zoey decided it needed to go live with Bree. My daughter is waiting patiently for February 21st for our next batch of eggs to hatch. I have taken off of work on Friday, the 20th so that we will be here for the hatching. We hope to catch it on video. 

     ALSO, our local farm and ranch stores, (3 of them) will have live chicks on Valentine's weekend. Will we be buying chickens even though we are hatching them? Well, heck ya! :D We hope to get some different colored eggs in our flock. Some of THESE would be lovely. Zoey would like a Polish hen; she likes the feathers on top of their heads. 

Here are some pics of the Lone Ranger's hatching and first days. 

   There is still one egg from the first batch that is due today. It is one of Bree's Bantam chicks. There has been no cheeping or pipping coming from it this morning. I have not given up hope, but after loosing so many, I will not be counting this chicken before it hatches. 

So as always, stay tuned and wish us luck!

Disclosure: I am Amazon Affiliate and may receive a small compensation for including links on my blog. Buying through my links is not necessary, just appreciated. Amazon does not charge extra for linked items recommended by their affiliates.  I only recommend products that I use and trust OR plan on using in the future. Please buy responsibly and do your own product research before buying anything online. 

OPERATION: Chicken Hatch- Water Candling Week 2

This post contains Affiliate Links.
 

     It is almost that time! The magic of watching eggs hatch before your eyes! Our Amazingly, Awesome Neighbor Bree had shown me a video on 'Water Candling Eggs' and we decided it was something we were going to do when our eggs were close to hatching time. This is not something you want to try earlier in the egg development. 1. They might not be big enough to move the egg. 2. You do not want to remove the 'bloom' before it is time.
      'Bloom' is a natural coating on the outside of a fresh laid egg. Egg shells are porous. The bloom keeps bacteria from getting into the egg and helps lock the egg's moisture in. Eggs you eat that have not been washed until time to eat are fresher and the bloom also allows for your eggs to be stored for longer. 
     In an incubator, the bloom is naturally removed with the humidity. This allows air to enter into the egg and provides some of the air the chicks breathe before hatching. Our eggs are due to hatch in 3 days. They no longer need the bloom coating and they are large enough to wobble their egg. 

     Here are the photos from our first water candling. To water candle, you get a short glass of warm water and gently place the egg inside. It will float based on the size of the air sack inside of the egg. After the water settles, you should be able to see the egg move in the water as the baby chick moves in the egg. My phone did not take a good video so we waited a few days and re-candled the eggs using Zoey's tablet. 

     These eggs did not wobble. We candled them using an LED flashlight. Thanks to The Chicken Chick, we recognized the eggs had blood rings in them. It is a clear indicator that the embryo died. We were very sad to see that we would not be having a baby chick from our beloved Prissy in this batch. We also lost one of our Jersey Giant chicks and one from our Amazingly Awesome Neighbor, Bree. With this batch, we only have one egg left to hatch. Bree has four. 


     Here is our new eggs into incubator on 1/30. Unfortunately, our Amazingly Awesome Neighbor, Bree, could not bring her eggs over until the next day. She only brought 5, because, she decided she was not sure she wanted too many of half standard/half Bantam chickens. The only rooster she has is a Bantie. 

Homeschooling The Well Prepared Child Presents:

Water Candling Eggs!

     Now that it is day 18, our incubator will be on lock down. Tonight we will remove them from the turner, add a little more water and wait for the magic to happen! We hope to catch the chicks hatching on video. Wish us luck! 

Disclosure: I am Amazon Affiliate and may receive a small compensation for including links on my blog. Buying through my links is not necessary, just appreciated. Amazon does not charge extra for linked items recommended by their affiliates.  I only recommend products that I use and trust OR plan on using in the future. Please buy responsibly and do your own product research before buying anything online. 

Operation: Candling Week 1

This post DOES NOT contain Affiliate Links.

OPERATION: Chicken Hatch is well under way! 

     We candled at day 4. We saw some spider web looking things in a few of them. It was still hard to determine if our eggs were developing. A couple of the egg's shells are so dark, we can only see the yolk part expanding. Since we do not know exactly what we are looking for, we have been checking back with The Chicken Chicks page to see what a developing embryo looks like at each stage. It has been so hard NOT to check them on a daily basis. I think this is one of the most exciting adventures we have embarked upon thus far in our journey. 
     We had our Amazingly Awesome Neighbor, Bree, come by to help us candle on day 7. We made our garage as dark as we could and I held the flash light tightly on the top, with the egg cupped in my hand. Bree took pictures of our eggs and then a video of one that moved around quite a bit. I can't wait for you to see it! At this stage, the chicks wings, comb, beak, and legs have began to form. We swear this little chick looked like it was swimming. Want to see? I was going to wait till the end, but I can't help but to show you now! 

     It is not as good as watching it live and in person, but still an amazing video! Thank you to my Amazingly Awesome Neighbor, Bree, for all your help and support, (and great camera!) Bree has 5 eggs in the incubator so far. Zoey and I have 2. Our experiment to see if the eggs could be incubated was a success! We are gathering more eggs to be incubated. We will put the newly gathered eggs into the incubator on the 30th. Those will all hatch together. I am not sure how many we will actually have of our own vs Bree's. Our chicks are not laying as well as hers right now. 
     Here are all of our candled eggs. You can see most of the dark embryo areas within the eggs. Some of the shells were too dark to see into them. Others, were as clear as day. 

Stay tuned for next weeks post on Water Candling Eggs!

(It is safer for the light sensitive chicks!)

Disclosure: I am Amazon Affiliate and may receive a small compensation for including links on my blog. Buying through my links is not necessary, just appreciated. Amazon does not charge extra for linked items recommended by their affiliates.  I only recommend products that I use and trust OR plan on using in the future. Please buy responsibly and do your own product research before buying anything online. 

Operation: Chicken Hatch

This post contains Affiliate Links.

     We have hatched chicks at the childcare center I work at for years, but we have never actually hatched chicks ourselves. Definitely not from our own eggs! Are we a bit ambitious? Perhaps, but learning is what we do best around here. Even fails are not looked upon as regrets, just opportunities to learn. 

     The other night, Zoey and I were talking about chickens. We had gone by a local feed store to pick up feed for our chickens and the pig. We were really excited for spring and new spring chicks. No one in town has chicks yet. So I thought, why wait? I have a rooster, my Amazingly Awesome Neighbor, Bree, has a rooster... So why not? I also have some awesome connections at our local Ag Extension office. I gave my friend a call and asked if we could borrow an incubator. 

The very next day... Tadaa! 

Operation: Chick Hatch is underway! 

Funny side story, she told me to fill the bottom reservoir, and we did. BUT, I thought the whole bottom was the reservoir, and filled the whole bottom. Yup, I pretty much flooded the garage floor. 

     One of my nephews, Collin, came to stay the night and he helped us set up the incubator. I explained we were going to hatch our own chicks. I'm not sure he knows what to think of us. I have heard the words 'strange' and 'cool' come out of his mouth on several occasions. He is 10 and pretty much a city type kid. 

     Now to figure out if our eggs were actually fertile. We headed on over to The Chicken Chick to see how to tell if our eggs were going to produce some babies. Lots of great info there. We learned about blastoderms and the difference between an incubated fertile egg and an un-incubated fertile egg. This morning I cracked open one of our eggs laid by Little Red, and guess what we found? A BULLS EYE! 

     We have long suspected our Jersey Giants were laying eggs, but our rotten little stinker pup, Bo, was finding them and eating the eggs as they laid them. Today, we found an egg from one of our Jersey Giants. We marked it with a JG, for Jersey Giant, and the date we put it in the incubator. 

     Bree came over later and put in 4 more eggs, marked with her initials and the date. These are just our tester eggs. According to these instructions sent to me by a friend that swears by the Farmer's Almanac, we need to wait a few days to start incubation. Like I said, we are just testing to see if our eggs are truly fertilized, and what they look like when they have been incubated for a while. We watched a cool video from a Wiki How tutorial about candling eggs. We plan on trying it in about 4 days. If we see signs of fertilization and growth, we will place the eggs we gather between Jan. 22nd and the 29th into the incubator with the others as well. 

Yes, we fixed the upside down eggs very carefully...

Wish us luck and stay tuned for updates! :D 

Have you hatched your own chicks? 

Disclosure: I am Amazon Affiliate and may receive a small compensation for including links on my blog. Buying through my links is not necessary, just appreciated. Amazon does not charge extra for linked items recommended by their affiliates.  I only recommend products that I use and trust OR plan on using in the future. Please buy responsibly and do your own product research before buying anything online.