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

[Jmanvanatta]

Hatching eggs, a miracle of life!


Hatching eggs is one of the best experiences of my life…. so far. I enjoy it for many reasons, but there simply is not enough time in the day to explain them all! So I will tell you of the main five reasons. Firstly I love watching the development of the embryo through candling. Every time I see the chick kick and wiggle inside of the egg my heart does a flip-flop than flutters a little. This reminds me of how amazing life is and how lucky I am to witness this. Secondly the ability to see the product of your own chickens is very appealing to me. I also feel that it is very fulfilling to raise your own animals from eggs, as this, I feel creates a stronger bond between the chick and myself. Thirdly I love and appreciate my chickens and all the eggs they give me, so I feel like I owe them and should do something for them. I feel like I do this by letting them fulfill their life purpose of spreading their genes. I know they do not understand what I am doing for them or that the chicks are even theirs, but I still feel I owe this to them. Fourthly I feel much more secure knowing where my chicks came from and that they have been treated properly through out their time leading up to being part of my flock. They also will inherit immunity to disease common in my area making, them much hardier. Lastly as the chick hatches, and I watch a miracle of life, I really makes me appreciate my animals more, as I see all the things they go through and the struggles they have to endure at such a young age. This is why I truly LOVE hatching eggs.

This is the first chick i ever hatched, HER name is Grandpa!

 

[Jmanvanatta]

Wow just read the other entries they were all so good! Good job every one!

 

[OldWinters]

SMALL WONDERS

Let’s be frank. You’ve seen the inside of an egg: big yellow bag of pus awash in a sea of slimy snot. No chick in there, nothing even remotely resembling a chick. Nothing but glop and goo. But put a fertilized egg under a setting hen and three weeks later watch what happens: out pops a wobble-legged chick, wet, blinking, bedraggled—now dry, fuzzy, fluffy, ready to run, scratch and come to mother’s call. It boggles the mind.

It’s the miracle of becoming, the wonder that anything at all comes of it. That it happens hidden from view, inside, in silence, over time, under steady heat—this is part of the magic, a re-ordering of the world as it is, was, will be. Life emerges, asserts itself: hopeful, hungry, here.

Small wonder I find in the chick’s hatching lessons for dealing with dark days. Small wonder I love hatching chicks. Small wonders—every one of those little peeps— each sounding out a super-size message of hope in hard times.

Properly tended, a fertilized egg can go from glop to ooh! in three weeks. In the time it takes for me to run out of clean socks and get around to doing laundry, a miracle occurs in the coop. The broody hen takes to her nest and once again the Great Mystery unfolds: Jesus is sealed in the tomb; Persephone returns to the underworld; the black bear curls into her long sleep. All is death, destruction, disappearance. But no, look again and life comes peeping out all around: bright sunlight cracks the Easter sky, daffodils poke through cold hard ground, roly-poly bear cubs waddle the woods.

The chicken version of this sacred drama involves a hen dead-set on hatching a clutch of eggs. A near-fanatical glint appears in her eye. Approached by rooster, hen or human, she raises her hackles and utters a cry of righteous reproach. The call to motherhood is serious business, requires dedication, steely resolve, trance-like focus. Once she goes to setting, the broody hen stays on her nest for three weeks. Three weeks straight. If the eggs go cold, the life inside will die. She isn’t about to let this happen. She plucks feathers from her breast so as to apply direct body heat. Several times a day she turns each egg, using her head and beak. This keeps the developing embryos from sticking to the shells’ inner membranes. Once every 24 hours she gets up to eat, drink and take her daily constitutional. Otherwise, she stays put.

When a hen starts setting I make a note on our kitchen calendar and write “Hatch Day” in the square three blocks below it. Then I listen. A few days before the blessed event, the eggs start peeping. The hen answers back with soft clucking sounds. Scientists say she’s giving her chicks specific details about the world they will soon face. Me, I suspect she having them synchronize their internal cell phones so they’ll all hatch out about the same time. Wouldn’t surprise me if the chick with nascent leadership skills volunteers to go first.

Whump. The chick uses its egg tooth, a sharp temporary nail at the tip of its beak, to poke through the air sack at the end of its world, then scribe a rough line round the egg’s middle. It thrusts with its feet, pushes with its skull, at last pokes its head out of the shell. Whump. More wriggling, squiggling and finally the chick extricates itself. Whump. The entire process can take up to 14 hours. But at last a wet bedraggled ragamuffin appears—an unassuming conqueror who has dared split the known world open at its seams and step into a vastness beyond imagining. When privileged to watch this process, I feel compelled almost to take off my shoes. Like Moses on the mountain, the place I stand is holy ground.

I was 35, very religious and very repressed when I came out to myself and others as a gay man. Whump. The only world I knew fell apart around me; one I’d never imagined opened up before me. I think of this now, and of the hen setting on her nest, those times when all’s gone dark and broody, when it seems nothing will ever change. I tell myself I know better. I’ve been witness to wonder. What looks—feels, tastes, smells—like muck and mire may very well be a miracle in the making.

 

[Jmanvanatta]

Great job!

 

[Sally Sunshine]

You guys are ALL amazing! Keep them coming!

 

[DURR]

The Journey to Hatching

At first chickens weren't my "thing", of course I always thought they were beautiful animals. But I just wasn't into them like I am now. It all started when I had moved to my new rental property in September 2012. At that time I had only 2 chickens that my husbands friend had apparently begged him to take them home with him because he could no longer care for them. These guys were unknowingly my gate way into the chicken world. Come to find out I had an American Gamefowl rooster and hen of hatch decent. After the move, and a few weeks later we noticed our neighbors had some chickens that were free ranged. And slowly we had begun to throw scratch out for them when we fed ours because we felt bad for them ( and as we never witnessed the neighbors doing so. ) Slowly they began to hang out at our place and follow me around like lost puppy dogs, I'm talking bout a small flock of about 20 head of birds here. Anyways the neighbors had ended up moving and leaving the birds behind so me and the hubby had willingly took them in. After a month long escapade of playing cat and mouse with the chickens we had almost all of them penned up except for a few. After penning the majority we had found out that they had begun to lay, excited I begged the hubby to help me build a homemade incubator, which I had stumbled upon through a google search that led me to Sally Sunshine's brillent plans for a cooler-bator; and not to mention it led me to joining this wonderful community of fellow chicken enthusiast at BYC. Even though I did do it completely different


TO BE FINISHED I'M ON MY PHONE! NO NET ON THE LAPTOP.

 

[Sally Sunshine]

ENDING in a few days!!

KEEP THEM COMING!! ENDS SOON!

 

[Gardengirl73]

Short Story: A GardenersThoughts on Hatching​

I am a gardener. Flowers, herbs, vegetables, fruit. I feel connected to the earth when my hands are in the soil and when I eat what I grow. Each day of the growing season is Christmas. A miracle every day. The first tender shoots of lettuce; the last deep Crimson heirloom tomato. "Look what I have done. I have surrounded myself with life and beauty." Hatching chicks is an extension of this for me. The miracle. From the moment the new eggs are in my hands, I feel their potential. They vibrate with it. The first candling; the first tangible signs of life.. This is beauty. Then the hatch. New life emerging from seemingly nothing. Only the faith that life is present, belief in it's potential can bring us to this moment. As does a tiny seed that in the end fills our plates and sustains us, so will this amazing little creature that will give to us it's eggs, sustain us also. These sweet little chicks will only add to this gardener's life and landscape. They will entertain me, even when my gardens are bare and sleeping. They will be living flowers. They will feed me. I will cherish them. I am so grateful for this life that I have. This connection to the earth. I am a gardener. I must surround myself with life and bounty. The miracle. This is why I hatch.

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[Sueg4332]

short story I am not to good at writing so here goes

This a story about Little Henny Penny a Quail Belgian Breaded D Anver. Henny grew up with her two mean brothers and two sisters. My daughter purchase them for me in 1994. I am not much of much of a batam person but she said they were a birthday present. What can you do.
They were so tiny that they slept in my room with me for weeks. As they got bigger they got put outside with the big chickens. They were great foragers and very friendly especially Henny Penny, the smallest of all 5 of them.She just loved people. She would follow you into the garden to look for bugs while her brother and sisters were fall doing what chickens do. She perferred human companionship.
When we sat outside Henny would come and sit with us at the picnic table. She would sit and try to join in to the conversation making funny little noises. She also developed a drinking habit. She would very nicely say ( cluck, cluck) asking permission to get on the rim of your glass to get a drink of the beverage of the day. After a while she would jump down and go do chicken things.
I was at work and my boy was working the horses and gardening in the garden. And of course drinking his favorite drink (screw driver) He a Henny became good afternoon buddies. he said she came and ask very nicely for a drink so he push the glass out there she got her drink very calmly. A few minutes later she wanted another taste but this time the (clucks were allot closer together) He again set the glass down she very quickly jump on the glass and had 2 or 3 drinks. Jumped down to join other chickens. He went to work on something when he returned to his drink Henny was right there, she didn't ask for drink she just jumped up on his arm Walked down his arm to the glass and proceed to help herself to as many drink as her little heart wnted. He laughed and just left the glass there for her. Went to work on the garden Henny flew up on the fence watching him and just singing all of a sudden she fell off the fence. He ran over the pick her up. He said she was dead. He thought she died of a heart attack.
When I got home he told me Henny had died and he had set her in the wheel barrel so no one could eat her little dead body. By this time I had grown quiet attached to this little chicken. So I went to bury her. I went to the wheel barrel and she wasn't there. Oh darn I thought some had lunch. As I turned to back to the house here she came just running toward me. She flew up on the fence and on to my shoulder. I walk into the house with Henny clucking her happy little song.
Boy friend totally amazed that she was alive and singing. All we can figure out is she had a few to many afternoon drinks and passed out. and yes many of us. She was real ready for a drink the next day. She just never over indulged again. She always joined us and sang us her cute little song....
The end

 

[chickenpooplady]

I can't edit my post.