What started as a single mom's simple desire for her kids to be away from the city and to be surrounded by more trees has turned into the drive to have a more self sufficient life-style
We have lost about 1 chicken a week for the past couple weeks to a predator. I thought it was a fox again, but was surprised that the birds were being left behind.
We pulled up to the house a couple days ago and even from across the yard I knew that Norma Jean was gone. I saw the mix of her colored feathers in a pile and knew it was her. And that's when I saw a hawk flutter away from her body and rest on a nearby tree.
I had no idea that a hawk would kill our full-sized chickens but now we know that is who the culprit is.
In order to keep the birds safe they have not been able to free range since then, they aren't happy, but they're alive. Hopefully when the leaves come back on the trees that will provide enough cover for safety and they can have their freedom again.
Well, it looks like the odds are against me with the Silver Laced Wyandottes. A couple weeks ago I tried to see if I could determine their sex based on their combs. The brighter red and larger they are, the more likely that they are boys. At that time, I thought I had 6 boys and 6 girls.
Today, since they are now three months old and a few are larger than NormaJean and her siblings, I decided to move them to the new coop with Clyde Jr., Silkie Sue, and the smaller hens. After I got them all moved over, I sat down with them and started looking closer.
Norma Jean is a very different mom compared to Silkie Sue. Each time that we go down near their area in the basement she plants herself in front of the chicks and puffs herself up as large as she can. She's definitely protective and will attempt to attack our hands in order to keep us away from her babies.
Luckily, I was still able to get her and the babies out of their pen and into a storage tub so I could clean everything up. She could easily have hopped right out of the tub, but she wasn't about to leave her babies.
We ended up having 12 chicks hatch, which is amazing. We only had 2 bad eggs out of the 14 Silver Laced Wyandottes which I think is great odds. All of the New Hampshire eggs were bad. I did send an email to the seller and she said that she would send me more in the spring if I paid for the shipping. I'm not sure if I want to do it all over again with the same seller, so we will see.
Yesterday morning, the incubator went on "lock down." For the final three days of incubating the humidity needs to be increased and the temperature needs to remain constant. Chicks can stay in the incubator for 24 hours after they've hatched and if they need to be removed at 24 hours because there are other eggs hatching, it needs to be done quickly.
The eggs aren't due to hatch until Friday morning and I thought they would hatch from Friday morning until Saturday during the day since they won't all hatch at the same time.
This evening, I started dinner and then went over to check the humidity and temperatures, which I tend to do several times a day.
I immediately saw a pip!
I screamed!
Then I heard it peep and I screamed again!
I searched the eggs as best as I could looking for signs of other pips and found more!
The egg on the left has a pip at the top right edge
There is a pip next to the number 2 on the 3 egg from the top
There are six eggs in all that have pipped that we can see.
Pipping is where the chick will break it's beak through the shell and create a hole.
I even took video of the eggs because you can hear them peeping at us and the eggs will rock around. It is so amazing!
I am hoping that they will hatch before I fall asleep because I'd hate to miss it! :)
The first video is the first egg that we saw that had pipped. It is shaking all over and just a few seconds into the clip you can hear it peeping.
In the second video I set the camera down on top of the incubator and you can hear peeping and see two eggs shaking around.
We did go downstairs to see how Norma Jean was doing with her 4 eggs and I couldn't hear anything and she still looks completely mad at us.
