Please pray for this egg to hatch...

[Sunny Side Up]

...and pray it hatches a healthy pullet.

It's an egg I took from the dead, torn body of my favorite little bantam hen, Finch. To my great sorrow this evening I found her under a bush at the edge of the yard, apparantly the victim of a hawk attack. The hawk only ate away some of her side and when I picked her up I saw a fully-formed egg ready in the chute.

A friend of mine has been collecting fertile eggs from my hens to incubate. Our Chicken Club tends the Poultry Tent at our county Fair which begins in a few weeks, and we set eggs beforehand so each day of the Fair about a dozen chicks will hatch in the brooder for Fairgoers to see. So I've marked Finch's last egg and will bring it to the incubator tomorrow, to add to the ones that will come to the Fair. Please pray that it will successfully hatch, and be a healthy chick, and even that it will be a pullet as nice as Finch.

I laid Finch to rest under my peach tree, so she can nourish its growth and in that way, continue on.

 

[19hhbelgian]

Sending well wishes your eggs way!!

Sorry to hear about your little girl

 

[Mahonri]

Dang hawks.

here's a prayer for a successful hatch.

 

[Darlasmum]

OH what a sad find for you. I am so sorry for your loss and wish your egg a successful hatch.

 

[cluckcluck42]

I'm so sorry to hear that. I not only hope that the egg will hatch, I know that it will. Keep updating on this special eggs journey.

*hug*

 

[newchickenfamily]

Awwwwww shoot! I'm so very sorry!!! I sure am hoping that that egg hatches for you! I hatched eggs for someone else under similar circumstances.

 

[DDRanch]

I am so sorry for your loss. Prayers for the hatch....and do keep us posted.

 

[Sunny Side Up]

Finch's egg didn't hatch.

The friend with the incubator said the egg was clear, it never even began to develop. Which actually was more comforting to hear than if it had begun to develop, but then died. Maybe it really wasn't completely "finished" when I took it from her. But it did have a hard shell & was right in the chute ready to be laid. Maybe she hadn't been on enough "dates" with the other bantam roosters in the yard. Although she hung around with the bantam gang that free-ranges the yard all day, she was still fairly independent. I would always look for her among that group and would panic when she wasn't to be seen. Then I would find her off by herself a ways. That was her preference, and sadly, that was the reason for her demise.

I miss Finch. But the peach tree she's buried by is beginning to blossom. I'll think of her, and the fuzzy lil' chicks she brooded, when the peaches grow & ripen. At least I have a little rooster I know is her son. His name is "Squeezy" because I watched Finch as she labored to lay his egg. She stood up almost vertical a few times, and each time would make a high-pitched "EEeee!" sound. After a few times of this she squeezed out an egg. I marked it & a few days later, when another hen went broody, I set it under her. Squeezy doesn't look at all like Finch, he looks like his dad Sonny Boy, but he sure has his Mama's oversized attitude.