Urgent! Chicken Egg, No Incubator!

[Hopefully]

Walked outside, one fell and broke. My dog ran and ate it. It was all yolk (but I suppose it was too early to tell anyway). Got stressed and gave an egg to each dog. Glad I'm done with it, it was stressing me. The 'egg business' was taking up all my time, very complicated and harder than it looks. I'm sorry I ruined this 'experiment' but I'm far too busy with not enough worry in the day to think about some eggs that most likely wouldn't hatch.

 

[Germaine_11.20]

It is good to know when to say "I am done"

 

[tiffanyh]

Hopefully said:

I know this is a huge responsibility, but I am not like other people my age. When I decide I want to do something, I dedicate myself to it 100%. Especially when it involves animals.

Im sure you had the best of intentions, but as mentioned, it is quite a task to incubate that way- obviously was a difficult commitment in your situation right now.

Very glad to see you'll get to try it the old fashion way in the future-or maybe with an incubator-watch for a broody hen! big_smile​

 

[dancingbear]

It's for the best, I think. If you'd had to run in gym with those eggs on you, they most likely would have been scrambled. It sounds like they hadn't started to develop, anyway. If they had, you would have seen at least a little blood, I'd think. They may not have gotten warm enough to start incubating.

When an egg is already near hatch, it's much easier to keep it warm enough, because that almost-finished chick is generating it's own body heat. You just have to maintain it. But a new egg, you can't warm it to 100F with a 98.6 heat source. And that's only on one side of the egg at a time, so you'd have a hard time even getting the egg's internal temp up to 97 or 98, and that's too cool for proper development.

 

[Hopefully]

Yeah, I'm a bit disappointed with myself

but all well. It might have been more successful over summer but I think that in the future I will stick to incubation.

 

[dancingbear]

No reason to be disappointed in yourself. You gave up on what was really a lost cause. The eggs were so extremely unlikely to develop, let alone hatch, and you'd have been stressed out every single day over them.

One was broken, there was nothing there but undeveloped egg, and you knew when to quit. Knowing when to quit, is a valuable skill, believe it or not! It's a sign you might not spend your whole life beating dead horses, or tilting at windmills.

Tilting, if you're not familiar with it, is another word for jousting, like the medieval knights, on horses, huge wooden lances and all of that. Imagine jousting against one of those huge stone windmills like they have in Holland. You see the futility of that, I'm sure.

In other words, it's more productive to spend your time and energy doing things that have some chance of success. There's value in attempting difficult projects, (like developing a new breed of chicken, or garden plant maybe) but usually not so much in doing things in the most difficult, least-likely-to-work manner you can find.

Don't kick yourself, you're doing fine.

 

[artsyrobin]

here is a link to a homemade bator that looks good enough for me to set up!

http://www.minkhollow.ca/HatchingProgram/HANDBOOK.htm#2.3

 

[FenDruadin]

Hi Hopefully--I missed all the excitement yesterday--I was sick--but just wanted to chime in and say not to worry yourself. Sometimes it's the experience that counts, and knowing when to quit is a valuable skill. I used to beat myself up for not finishing my projects (like graduate school--ha ha--three years dedicated to it and I quit without so much as a certificate to show for my trouble! lol), but I've learned (and am learning) that it's just as important to know what you *don't* want to do as it is to know what you *do* want to do. Now you know.

And, now you can wait and watch for a broody hen or even think about making a super cheap incubator. I think someone on here made one for $1.88, using a Walmart styrofoam cooler and a bunch of parts that were just lying around the house. Or maybe you can talk your science teacher into investing in an incubator for the classroom--there are some nice, inexpensive ones that are designed for classroom use and only hatch four or six eggs at a time.

Enjoy your back-to-school days.

 

[Hopefully]

You guys are the best

I feel so much better now!!!

I am so happy I joined BYC!!!

 

[thewarriorchild]

Hey, you tried, realized what you could and couldnt do so you releved yourself of stress and time commitments you couldnt keep. I have a mug that says Note to self, stop volunteering for stuff

We all need to know that sometimes. Next time you just volunteer to make an incubator