There is cheeping coming from underneath my broody. She, of course, is being a nerd, and acts very offended if I so much as look at her, so I guess I'll have to wait a while before I get to figure out how many her eggs hatched. Technically, it's two days early. I thought that only happened with incubators.
I had the opportunity to spread some learning yesterday. During a conversation I was having with several coworkers, knowing that I keep chickens, one coworker made a half-joking comment about pregnant chickens. I casually mentioned that chickens don't get pregnant; a comment that was met with blank stares, then the hesitant statement from said coworker that of course they must, because they have babies. My reply, 'Yes, they have chicks; they lay eggs, and if the eggs are fertile, they can hatch them out' lead us into the conversation of how a hen doesn't need to mate in order to lay eggs, and then into misconceptions around what can and can't happen with fertile eggs. One coworker routinely had been throwing out any store-bought, refrigerated eggs older than 2 weeks, for fear they might start developing. It's always a surprise to me when I find myself in these types of conversations; so much of this seems like plain common sense now. It does make me wonder what misconceptions I carry around that I could use some correcting on.