I was expecting peeps to hatch on Tuesday, but one of the two eggs was already pipped Sunday night. Monday morning, I woke up to the sound of appliances suddenly turning on. Looked at the clock, which was flashing 12:00. C*@P!!! There was a blackout! My first thought was whether the kids were late for school. When the cable box clock showed the correct time, I saw that it was still early. But then it hit me like a ton of bricks... The incubator!!! I rushed to the bator and my heart sank when I saw that the temperature on the digital thermometer read 76F. Then I felt even worse when I saw that the second egg was pipped. Well, I figured I might as well wait a bit to make sure they were thoroughly dead before tossing the eggs. After a few minutes, the temp jumped right back up to 100F. My daughter got up and asked about the eggs. I said they probably didn't survive the blackout. She went over and shined a flashlight into the bator. She said that one of the eggs shook. I went in and heard peeping! YAY!!!!! I guess the power hadn't been out for very long.
Early afternoon, out of the smaller of the two eggs popped a beautiful little perfect chickie. As the day progressed, I was losing hope for the second egg. It wasn't progressing at all and the first chick was body-slamming the heck out of it. I eventually moved the first chick into the brooder and checked the egg to see if there were any signs of life. There were! I quickly put it back and soon after the kids had gone to bed, second chickie hatched no problem.
I took these photos last night:
Rocco and Rumpus:
Here, they're napping in my daughter's hands:
Rumpus, showing off its cute, fluffy posterior:
They are SOOOOOOOOO cuddly!!! And I hatched them out of a fellow BYC member's eggs. I was sent a dozen from clear across the country, but clearly they were mishandled by postal workers, seeing as how one egg broke and a lot of air cells were ruptured. They were packed extremely well, too. Still, two is my record for shipped eggs. Never broken that number yet, even with in-state shipped eggs. Maybe I'm just really-really bad at this. It's sort of a good thing, though, seeing as how we have a tiny yard and no coop
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-Naomi
Early afternoon, out of the smaller of the two eggs popped a beautiful little perfect chickie. As the day progressed, I was losing hope for the second egg. It wasn't progressing at all and the first chick was body-slamming the heck out of it. I eventually moved the first chick into the brooder and checked the egg to see if there were any signs of life. There were! I quickly put it back and soon after the kids had gone to bed, second chickie hatched no problem.
I took these photos last night:
Rocco and Rumpus:
Here, they're napping in my daughter's hands:
Rumpus, showing off its cute, fluffy posterior:
They are SOOOOOOOOO cuddly!!! And I hatched them out of a fellow BYC member's eggs. I was sent a dozen from clear across the country, but clearly they were mishandled by postal workers, seeing as how one egg broke and a lot of air cells were ruptured. They were packed extremely well, too. Still, two is my record for shipped eggs. Never broken that number yet, even with in-state shipped eggs. Maybe I'm just really-really bad at this. It's sort of a good thing, though, seeing as how we have a tiny yard and no coop
-Naomi