Our 1st experience hatching eggs under one of our broody hens & in the incubator.
Its June 25th, 2010
Our granchickie arrived last Monday for her summer break stay.
I had started some eggs under one of our broody hens hoping to be able to experience a hatch with the granchickie.
We ran into a problem marking the calendar for "Hatch Day" since the pencil got worn off from the hen setting and turning the eggs.
Due to my lack of know-how, I didnt collect a clutch and put them under the hen at the same time so by not having the penciled notes on the eggs I was lost. *sigh*
We candled the eggs the first night our granchickie was here and we were surprised to find ALL 5 eggs were alive and very active.
Wednesday night we had a "candling party" in our closet, Papa, Grama, Jadabug and 5 eggs.
Thats when we saw that one of the chicks had broke thru the air cell.
BYC experts told me that meant pipping should begin shortly and hatching not far behind.
By 8am Thursday there was a pip!
At 8pm we caught a peek under the broody of the chick breaking thru the shell and by 8am Friday we had a teenie dry fluffy chick under Mama.....
....one very excited Granchickie....and one very very happy Grama!
Being concerned that our broody might leave the other eggs, we got an incubator prepared.
We checked on the hen this afternoon and she was setting on the other 4 eggs, fulfilling her duty very nicely.
We decided to candle the eggs to check for progress and found another chick had broken thru the air cell.
We put this one in the incubator so we could watch the entire hatch process.
It was 2pm when we first placed the egg in the incubator and within the hour it had pipped!
We've been watching the chick peck at the shell and heard it peeping.
Of course we'll be having a camp out in the back room with the incubator tonight!
This is one of the most memorable things we've done together.
We've named the four remaining eggs "The Patriots" and we're hoping to have all 4 hatch healthy so we can give them all patriotic names.
The one pipping is already being called Liberty.
