Chickies are Coming!

We candled the eggs again two nights ago and this morning it was time to take the eggs off the egg turner.  They're suppose to stop turning for the last three days before they hatch so that the chicks can get lined up and ready to pip and hatch.

I candled them this morning as I took them off the turner and set them in the incubator again and I saw signs of life in all of the Silver Laced Wyandottes, which is great news.  There were three New Hampshire eggs that were clearly bad so I pulled them out and one New Hampshire egg that I think is bad but I'm not completely sure, so I left it in the incubator but off to the side.  

 

It won't be cool to have all of the New Hampshire eggs be bad, I'm wondering if they were even fertile when they were sent to us.

The best part is that I got a video of a candling and you can see movement inside the egg.  Watch this clip and pay careful attention at about the six second mark.  I hope other people squeal with excitement like I did.

Still on Day One

When I woke up this morning I checked the incubator and it was only at 80 degrees and 80% humidity.  I got some of the water out and turned the heat up before running off to the gym.  When I came home an hour later the temperature was finally almost right!  99 degrees and 60% humidity meant I just needed to bring the humidity down.

But then I looked at the second thermometer that was inside the incubator.  It was well over 100 degrees!  The humidty gauge was obviously broken on this one, but which thermometer was right?!

Who knew eggs could cause this much stress?!

The oldest text me to say the eggs had arrived today.  I believe my response used the word "CAREFULLY" several times when I told him where to put the boxes.

When I got home there were two boxes waiting for me.  One of them was decorated so cute.

It was like opening a present.

When you want to hatch special eggs

I have promised myself several times that I would not get more birds unless they were purebred birds. I did a little research and thinking and decided that having chicks now, in the winter, would be a good idea because when they are ready to start laying in 6 months, it will be spring. The problem is that our eggs are "barnyard mixes" and local breeders have let their birds all roam together for the winter and so their eggs aren't pure bred either.

Someone recommended that I buy some on Ebay, and that is how I found myself in a bidding war for various chicken eggs tonight. I haven't been on ebay in at least 8 years!

We won 6 (or more) New Hampshire eggs from a German bloodline.  These were two of the pictures that the sellers had posted.

And we won 11 (or more) Silver Laced Wynadotte eggs from the Foley bloodline.  These were the pictures they had posted.

I can only hope that they all arrive in one piece, that I am smart enough to handle them carefully, and that between the broody hen and the incubator that we have a good hatch rate.  If we can get just half of them to survive that would be about 9 chickens, and so maybe 4 hens to add to the flock.  

I'm also planning to pick up some other chicks from a local seller next weekend.  

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