SB Chicken
Hatching
Hello to my new chicken friends!
I'm new to the group and very excited to be here!
I just wanted to share how my family and I became parents to the funniest, silliest, dirtiest little fluff balls we call "The Girls"
I'll start by saying we hatched our chickens from Trader Joes fertile eggs that my husband brought home one day from work... Per my request.
I wanted chickens, my kids love chickens and I always thought it would be fun to have chickens!
So with a word of mouth and some proof of TJ eggs hatching, I thought what the hey let's see if this works! I borrowed an incubator from my sons preschool got the eggs and incubated 12 eggs...
I Rotated the eggs 2 times a day with the help of my 3 and 6 year old children! What a science experiment!!! We did put a flash light through them at 12 days to see activity. 7 eggs looked good. We tossed the other 5.
At day 21 they started to hatch!!! So exciting! We watched the first one struggle for a good 30 min. She came through, tired! It was late. By morning all but 1 had hatched... So we had six 1/2 wet chickies floundering around. Amazing! By night the 7th was having trouble a tiny hole was not getting any bigger. I think the incubator lost moisture and hardend the inner mucus. I had to assist. I watched a couple u tube videos on how to help a chick out of its shell... Despite warning against it, I did it anyways. Tweezers in hand I slowly chipped away the shell till the baby was just in its hardend inner mucus. I gently pulled it apart and released the chick. She survived and is still one of the chickens we kept.
Fast forward, these rascals lived in my kitchen, in an aquarium for a month then moved in to my bathtub in my master (away from the cat) for about 5 weeks till they started flying out. So my husband built a coupe out of scrap wood and it's perfect! They have a grazing area too. It used to have grass but is just dirt now...
Out of 7 chickens we got 3 Roosters and 4 hens. All white except for Vita she has a couple black feathers and we kept her and 2 other hens Blondie and Lightning. Our Roosters went to live on a German Shepard breeding ranch in Ojai with friends, and are having a great chicken life! We gave the other Hen to another friend who already had a chicken who needed a companion. I feel good about the homes I sent my babies off too!
Today our Girls are just about 5 months old (hatched Jan18,2015) and are surprising us with our 2nd egg on day 2 of discovering the first one! It's really great to have fresh eggs and know where they came from and what the Hens are eating! So far this chicken thing is great!
Hope you enjoyed our chicken story!
I'm new to the group and very excited to be here!
I just wanted to share how my family and I became parents to the funniest, silliest, dirtiest little fluff balls we call "The Girls"
I'll start by saying we hatched our chickens from Trader Joes fertile eggs that my husband brought home one day from work... Per my request.
I wanted chickens, my kids love chickens and I always thought it would be fun to have chickens!
So with a word of mouth and some proof of TJ eggs hatching, I thought what the hey let's see if this works! I borrowed an incubator from my sons preschool got the eggs and incubated 12 eggs...
I Rotated the eggs 2 times a day with the help of my 3 and 6 year old children! What a science experiment!!! We did put a flash light through them at 12 days to see activity. 7 eggs looked good. We tossed the other 5.
At day 21 they started to hatch!!! So exciting! We watched the first one struggle for a good 30 min. She came through, tired! It was late. By morning all but 1 had hatched... So we had six 1/2 wet chickies floundering around. Amazing! By night the 7th was having trouble a tiny hole was not getting any bigger. I think the incubator lost moisture and hardend the inner mucus. I had to assist. I watched a couple u tube videos on how to help a chick out of its shell... Despite warning against it, I did it anyways. Tweezers in hand I slowly chipped away the shell till the baby was just in its hardend inner mucus. I gently pulled it apart and released the chick. She survived and is still one of the chickens we kept.
Fast forward, these rascals lived in my kitchen, in an aquarium for a month then moved in to my bathtub in my master (away from the cat) for about 5 weeks till they started flying out. So my husband built a coupe out of scrap wood and it's perfect! They have a grazing area too. It used to have grass but is just dirt now...
Out of 7 chickens we got 3 Roosters and 4 hens. All white except for Vita she has a couple black feathers and we kept her and 2 other hens Blondie and Lightning. Our Roosters went to live on a German Shepard breeding ranch in Ojai with friends, and are having a great chicken life! We gave the other Hen to another friend who already had a chicken who needed a companion. I feel good about the homes I sent my babies off too!
Today our Girls are just about 5 months old (hatched Jan18,2015) and are surprising us with our 2nd egg on day 2 of discovering the first one! It's really great to have fresh eggs and know where they came from and what the Hens are eating! So far this chicken thing is great!
Hope you enjoyed our chicken story!
welcome to BYC !!
