Don't Count Your Chickens...

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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!

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