Which came first the chicken or the egg?
Well in our back yard the chicken! Or really the hen house.
Being from Texas growing up in the 70's who doesn't Love Best Little whore house in Texas? So I made Best little Hen House .
Then came the Girls
uhhh not That Girl, that is Lookie Lou, my bearded dragon 
The girls Maude, Claude and Willie
three Dominiques, Claude and Maude turned out to Roosters, so it was just Willie, then we got Ling Ling Australorp and Pheobe my little Barred Rock. Late November Ling Ling pulled all of her feathers out of her belly, I ask the good folks on BYC why and they said she was going to be BROODY!!
I said YEAH so I got some eggs
put them under Ling Ling and we shall see.
Well I did not pay attention to what I read about keeping the broody hen seperate from the other hens and giving her a quite place to stay and Ling Ling left the nest about day after someone kicked out the eggs.
The girls stopped laying from that point in December when the days got short then started back up Jan 9th
I wanted to try again with Ling Ling and this time I was prepared. I made a great broody box with a seperate run
As you can tell she fits very nice lots of privacy
These are the lovely eggs I got from a gentle man in Roenoak TX for only $3.00 a dozen remarkably all but 1 were fertilized. I placed them under her March 24, 2012.
I waited until day 4 to start candling and it was very exciting. Early on the air sack was very evident and so was the fertilized embryo. I made a video with my phone of a egg 9 days old but could not get it on line. The little embryo was just moving all over. I candled the whole batch about every 4 days just make sure they were all still living and maturing. The Moran’s (dark eggs) a very hard to see but once you find a spot for the light to get through you can see a nice dark out line and watch it wiggle!! The green Americana hard to see through as well but about week 2 the blood vessels were darkening and had great contrast . Later I would just take one or two of the light tan eggs and one green just to make sure they were maturing. 
The girls Maude, Claude and Willie 
I said YEAH so I got some eggs
Well I did not pay attention to what I read about keeping the broody hen seperate from the other hens and giving her a quite place to stay and Ling Ling left the nest about day after someone kicked out the eggs.
The girls stopped laying from that point in December when the days got short then started back up Jan 9th
I wanted to try again with Ling Ling and this time I was prepared. I made a great broody box with a seperate run
As you can tell she fits very nice lots of privacy 
These are the lovely eggs I got from a gentle man in Roenoak TX for only $3.00 a dozen remarkably all but 1 were fertilized. I placed them under her March 24, 2012.
Later and later it was harder to see anything because the chick was taking the whole egg up J the air sack got bigger. Out of the 12 one was thrown away at beginning because it was definitely unfertilized. One egg Ling Ling sat on it too hard and it broke all over the eggs. Scare for a little bit did not want infection to spread from that yoke into the other eggs. On the 17 day Ling Ling had a accident and pooped all over the nest, so I had to remove the soiled bedding and add fresh, after I added fresh it was too puffy and as Ling Ling was getting repositioned she apparently broke another egg. It was a unfortunate incident but I did get to observe that the chick was almost completely formed. J bummer though I think it would have been a Australorp.
So here it is April 13, 2012 and the eggs should start hatching tomorrow. I am so eggcited! Early Saturday April 14th I went to check on the girls and peeked in at Ling Ling and saw her head and some one else!!!! The eggs started hatching I ended up with 8 including this funny looking little naked neck
In the morning when I first saw the chicks I could smell something rotten and dead, but did not know what it was. I believe the first egg at hatched either hatched or exploded, I found a dead chick that Ling Ling had been sitting on it was sqaushed and smelly but it was downy and fully formed. It had a really long neck I believe from talking to the farmer that it was a cross with a turken, half turkey half chicken, but that was not the biggest news, later that day I found a 2nd!!!!! Smaller and not completely formed a twin!!
