kidandkid

Most of the eggs looked empty when I candled them. 3 seemed to have a good sized chick. I had one temperature spike up to 106 degrees (way too high), after transporting the eggs home from a baby sitter. I was nervous about transporting but didn’t want the eggs to go 3 days without turning while we were out of town.

1 chick pecked through the shell. They are suppose to peck an airhole and then rest and let their lungs acclimate for 8 hrs. The chick peeped all day and then the next day was dead.

We opened up the shell to look, and the chick had not fully developed. The last thing to happen before hatching is the chick’s intestines migrate from outside the body to inside the body. Our chicks intestines were still outside its body and its eyes were not fully developed. We examined 2 other eggs that had a partially developed fetus about 1 inch big. I have 1 more egg to examine.

NEW BATCH

I started a new batch of eggs. I’m hoping for better results. I think the rooster is doing a better job this time. I have some where around 15 eggs and am on day 12. I candled the eggs last night and all were developing nicely. I only had 2 empty eggs that I threw out. I was able to see movement in all the eggs that showed a chick. It’s very exciting to see the chick moving around in the egg.

Here are some pictures of our chicks a couple days old and now a month old.

Back Silkie

1 month old

The Silkie almost looks like it has hair.

Dark Brahma

Buff Brahma

cochin

I decided to try hatching eggs. I happen to have fertilized eggs, anyway, so I put in an order with my hubby to build an incubater. He found one that cost less than all the parts…that was easy.

Here are some eggs I collected from my girls. You can store them up to a week at room temperature, before incubating. Make sure not to wash them.

Here are my eggs in the incubator. Before putting the eggs in, adjust the incubator to the right temperature. We spent about half a day adjusting the temperature. If you look closely there is a little nob above the red light. The temperature needs to be between 99 and 101.

Here everthings all lined up. We poured a little water in the middle channels to keep it humid. My husband wrote numbers on different sides of the eggs, so that the children could turn them. They turn the eggs 3 times a day. By the end of the day the eggs should be back to the number 1 if nobody forgot! OOOooops I forgot to tell hubby not to use marker! The marker can go through the shell. 5 days in. I can’t wait to see if it works.

We ordered show birds. Last year little hands had trouble maneuvering full sized birds in 4h, so we decided to try some bantams. Our poultry 4h is not very competitive so we ordered chicks instead of full grown show birds.

black silkie bantam

dark brahma bantam

cochin bantam

buff brahma bantam

Next month we will be getting Turkeys. My favorite. And then the month after that Cornish-X.

I’m also planning on trying to hatch some eggs for the first time! I’ll post as it goes along.