Ended 2013 Easter Hatch-a-long "Short Story Contest!"

[DURR]

Does the story have to be fiction based or can it be like an essay form?

 

[Sally Sunshine]

Does the story have to be fiction based or can it be like an essay form?

Not sure what your asking exactly.... all you need to do is write about “Why you love hatching chicks”
or why u WANT to hatch them....

 

[chickenpooplady]

A faint peep could be heard as a tiny Rhode Island Red chick struggled to break out of the
brown egg which had been her home for the last 20 days. Just a few weeks ago, the chick had felt content in her warm egg but now she was cramped and uncomfortable. She pushed, wiggled, and chirped but after countless hours she lay completely exhausted inside the egg. Her once protective home had now become her ruthless enemy. With one last shove the egg split and the tired chick rested her aching limbs. Life! How wonderful it is to witness God's perfect design in a tiny, frail chick! He loves all the animals but this one was special to Him so He gently placed a sign on her head to mark her different from them all.

 

[DavidILoveYou22]

Woo-hoo! Finally finished my entry, it's exactly 749 words... I've always been more of a novelist than a short story writer. My creative writing class teacher once asked for a "short story" and while everyone else's was 7-8 pages mine was 31... :| As it is, the orginal version of this was about 2000 words... I got carried away...

So, first off a warning to anyone who might read this: It is a bit of a sad story. I would have written a happy one but as mentioned below, I have only hatched one chicken in my life so there wasn't another story to write about.

Anyways, without farther ado:

David's Story​

​

I have hatched exactly one chicken egg in my life. Not two, not three, but one. Just one lonely little chicken egg.
It was the best thing I ever did… and the worst, too.
I first laid eyes on “David” the Golden-Laced Wyandotte when I removed her egg (and the extra sent along with it) from the box in which they were shipped. I laid them carefully in the incubator and replaced the top. Then I began to wait.
For days I counted down the time until the egg was due to hatch. Sometime near the twentieth day of incubation, I noticed a small oddity on the shell. Upon further inspection I found that it was a tiny crack, bulging out of the egg’s fragile wall. I also noticed tiny tremors in the egg. It would rock in minute movements, very gently. After dozens of the tiny vibrations, I finally couldn’t stand the anticipation of waiting there, and wandered away to occupy myself.
I returned to watch the egg often. I would sometimes peek at the other one to see if it had moved, but it hadn’t. Yet I never became disheartened because, yes, one appeared dead, but the other was so very alive! Every time I came back to watch the egg, the crack had grown bigger. It had soon formed a ragged, half-complete line.
But night came. I stayed awake as long as I could bear, then I slept.
When I checked on it in the morning, the chick’s line had progressed underneath the shell and out the other side, but the baby was still hidden from sight.
Another day of anticipation began.
Late in the morning I was rewarded. The line was almost complete, and I could see the tiny bird’s beak poking up through shell like a freshly sprouted seed! The excitement was building in the air, the electricity from it almost tangible.
Then there was the moment I had waited and worked so long for! The baby struggled, pushing its head fervently against what had been its prison, eager to be free-
POP! The shell cracked and revealed a tiny wet body that tumbled out onto the incubator’s floor. The chick was a scrawny thing, too wet to be described as anything but “a muddled blackish color.” It rested for a few heartbeats, then attempted to stand. We pulled it out soon after it began its stubborn attempts to move and dried it off lovingly.
And thus began the life of David. She was first thought a rooster due to her behavior and proud stance, though she later proved to be a hen. Despite this the name stuck.
David was beautiful, and feisty too. She proved herself a hen by the way she looked, but beside that she acted like a rooster. She would always “challenge” my boots if you dared walk into the hen yard, as it so obviously belonged to her- How could I not see that?
Sometime after David reached adulthood, we moved to a new house on a five-acre property 8 miles from civilization. The new property was heaven in all respects but one: the predators.
And thus, like all good things, David’s story, only just begun, reached its end.
Two days earlier a bear had devastated our flock. We had lost half of our birds, and we were still reeling.
That night, everything seemed fine… until the next morning, when mom woke me up and said gently “The bear came back. David’s gone.”
My first thought was, What ? Then I realized what she had said.
The chicken coop was a disaster zone. The south wall had been half-torn away. And my mom was right: David was gone.
I prayed that David had somehow flown away and survived. I even thought it likely after we didn’t find a single feather of hers.
A day later, our dog Dakota brought us David’s wing from the forest.
All I have left of David is my memories.
I try not to remember what the coop looked like after the second attack.
What I try to remember is that tiny little newborn chick; a scrawny thing, too wet to be described as anything but “a muddled blackish color.” That tiny little creature that I fell in love with the first time I lay eyes on it.
Someday I plan on trying to raise more out of my incubator. Someday in the future.
But I don’t think I’ll ever forget the first one I raised.






P.S. It took me three hours to draw and color that... I tried to go for a realistic face but I gave up after a lot of erasing and went for my "cute" style. I do apologize for the terrible coloring job, I recently lost my expensive set of colored pencils and had use some $2 Crayolas.

 

[Sally Sunshine]

 

[DavidILoveYou22]

 

[kimslack]

Oh that was so sad. We all get so attached to those little feathered animals. I loved your story about watching in anticipation. I don't have an incubator...I use broodys and they usually are pretty protective so I seldom see the chicks when they are born.

 

[Chickenfan4life]

That was such a sad story, but so wonderfully written, too!

 

[Chickenfan4life]

I faintly recall the magic of watching Belle's chicks hatch... maybe I can write a story... I hope so.

 

[mychickensneaky]

Here it goes.

The eggs were lined up right next to each other with the mother hen laying on them. As one chick started cracking her shell open the mother hen started clucking with joy. As the new baby chick took her first step out her mother was welcoming her. Then the baby chick steped back. And music started playing from the distance and then it suddenly stopped. Then it was time for the mother hen to here the prietiest song she could ever here the music that only a mother hen could here. The music of all of her other eggs cracking at once. The mother hen was so happy when she saw all of there little faces. She started clucking even louder with joy. And then all happiness left her as she saw out of the corner of her eye that there was one more egg sitting in the corner of the cage without a crack on it. So she layed down on the egg and waited and waited as time went by she finally desided that the egg was dead inside. So she took all of her chicks out to graze for some bugs and grass. But as they walked away little did they know that the baby chick was still alive in the egg but in a deep sleep she was dreaming how butiful the world would be on the outside of the shell. As she woke up from her dream she started cracking her shell and as she took her first step out her dream came true. She saw the butiful flowers the green grass that looked like a green velvet carpet. She felt the warmth of the spring sun. Her mother hen looked up and she saw her one other baby chick in the distance and all joy rushed back. She ran over to her baby chick and they all walked walked into the sunset the mother hen and all 12 chicks.
The end