I've Been Holding Out

So something really pretty fantastic has been going on for 18 days and I have yet to breathe a word about it on my farm blog. I have been remiss in reporting our farmy activities and for that I am sorry. But, on the other hand I spared everyone 18 days of waiting on pins and needles (because I just know you are consumed by things we do here). You see, I bought an incubator and put 45 of my girls' eggs on to incubate and they'll be hatching in only THREE days! I can't believe it. It's been a lifelong dream of mine since I was in kindergarten and my parents set up a small incubator in my classroom at school and we got to watch the baby chickens hatch. I had seen it once before at home, and I remember being very grown up and humble about the whole thing and not pushing my way to the front, thus blocking some poor kids only opportunity to witness such a miracle, even though I was MISSING OUT ON THE MOST FANTASTIC THING IN THE WORLD. Thats some serious self control for a 5 year old, if I do say so myself. Anyway, its something that I've been known to lie in bed at night and fantasizing about doing again some day, only this time having my face pressed up against the glass, even fogging it up I'd be so close. I have got so many people wanting eggs from me that I can't keep up, so I have the perfect excuse to hatch out some more chickens. I'm really excited to see what they will look like, let alone what color eggs they will lay being a mix of Silver Laced Wyandotte and Ameracauna, or purebreds of each. It's like Forrest's box of chocolates, you just don't know what you're gonna get!
It's been a bit of a frustrating journey with this incubator, as the temperature has been all over the place. Dustin says if anything does survive all this, it'll probably have a beak growing out of its back. ;) Chicken eggs are supposed to be incubated at a steady 99.5 degrees, but 12 hours after putting them on, lets just say through a series of unfortunate events, they got cooked at a whopping 104 degrees for a full 9 hours while I was at work. Ahhhh! The book said they are particularly sensitive the first 24 hours because it will literally cook the egg. Obviously, I was very upset, particularly because I had been pampering and gathering and meticulously storing those eggs up for almost a week before putting them on to incubate, keeping them at a steady 50 degrees and turning them twice a day to keep the yolk from settling. I wanted them to hatch on a weekend, so I had to start them on a weekend. So here it is Monday and I don't know if every single one of these 45 eggs is ruined or not, but I could not start another batch for 6 days anyway, so I decided to err on the side of caution and give it until the next weekend to see if anything was still viable. They only incubate for 3 weeks, so within just a few days there is significant growth that can be seen by candling them in a dark room (looking through them with a bright flashlight). This is what it looks like after only 6 days, and you can already see the peep and the network of veins that have formed. So, on about day 4 I tried candling them with little success using a shoe box with a hole in it and a regular 60 watt bulb. It was just enough to illuminate the egg without showing me any details. I was almost certain that the eggs had been ruined anyway, so I thought I'd crack one open and see what was going on in there. I figured I'd know immediately if it was cooked, and even on the off chance it was alive, it's not like it would be ALIVE after only 4 days in the incubator; worst case scenario there would be some little spidery veins. Dustin just happened to be out of town that night, so it was 11 o'clock at night and I was home alone, headed into the kitchen, egg in hand. I broke it into a small bowl, and sure enough, there were the faintest little red lines emanating from the bright orange yolk. I looked closer, and there was a little white mass in the center of the yolk. It was about the size of a pinto bean, and it was slightly curled into a C shape, with the top part of the C being a big thicker than the bottom and it had a little gray dot that I thought must be the beginnings of an eye forming. It only took a second for me to notice something odd in the middle part of the C, and... IT WAS A BEATING HEART!!! OH DEAR GOD!!! I could see it just a pumping away, the tiniest bit of red blood filling its little chambers. I immediately tore my gaze away and covered my mouth with my hand to suppress a gasp. I panicked, my only thought being that I could not bare to watch that little heart stop beating, so I did the first thing that came to mind and ran to the bathroom and flushed it. So here I am, it's almost midnight, and I'm home alone with the newfound knowledge that I am a murderer. A tiny little baby chicken murderer. Short of calling the police or PETA, I just did not know what to do. So I called Dustin and let him comfort me for the next 20 minutes. He assured me it was nothing to feel guilty about, and that better to sacrifice one viable egg than to throw the whole batch out thinking none of them were still viable. Here is a very short video from Purdue University showing what is going on inside the egg on day 3 and that is pretty much exactly what I saw.

So, anyway, life has thankfully moved on since then and I have successfully been candling them with my new awesome-possum super bright LED flashlight that I got from Walmart for $5. I've been tracking their development and most have been coming along just fine. There were about 5 that did not seem to be doing anything, just a large round yolk floating around inside the illuminated egg, but I thought I'd give them as much time as possible before culling them, just in case. It is important to get the non-viable eggs out of there, though, because gases can build up inside of them and they'll explode all over your good eggs, soaking them in deadly bacteria that can penetrate the porous shell and kill the living embryos. It's important to wash you hands before handling the eggs for the same reason. Two nights ago I decided to go ahead and remove the eggs that were obviously not doing anything, along with one egg that had dark lumpy spots where something had obviously been growing and then stopped. When we broke these open (I made Dustin do it with me this time) the first 3 were just normal looking egg yolks, one had a pinprick of red in it, and the 5th one with the dark lumpy spots was a tiny gray curled embryo with large black eyes and looked pretty much just like this. It had obviously quit developing all on its own (I had no hand in this one, I swear!) at least a week ago. I thought it was really fascinating to see what goes on inside the eggs, although Dustin would probably disagree with that statement.

So now they're at 18 days and probably look about like this. I've been turning the eggs twice a day every day to keep the embryo from sticking on one side of the shell and to ensure they get proper exercise, but as of today I can stop turning them because the chicks are getting themselves in position for hatching. Yay! I started with 44 eggs, and after cracking the first one open and the 11 I have had to subsequently cull, I am down to what looks like 33 developing eggs. Thats about a 75% hatch rate so far, and we'll see how many actually successfully make it out of their shells. Keep your fingers crossed! They're due to hatch Sunday.

Ayden and I went to the hardware store yesterday to get all the materials needed to build some state of the art brooders out of $10 Rubbermaid totes from the dollar store. These will be kept in our guest room and the chicks will live here their first few weeks until they feather out, when they'll probably be moved outside to the chicken coop unless I can successfully build them a chicken tractor by then. I'd like to do that so that they can go directly onto the grass and start foraging right way, but still protected from the elements and predators until they're bigger. The totes are lined with paper towels at first so that the chicks can easily determine what is food and what is bedding, and I will later probably switch them over to shredded paper that I get from various offices. Its free and a heck of a way to recycle! They have red heat lamps on them to keep the biddies warm and the red light keeps them from wanting to peck at each other out of boredom. Each tote is reported to be able to hold 25 chicks, but I'll probably divide them up depending on how many hatch. The more room the better, I think. The directions for how to build these nifty little brooders can be found here.

Speaking of chickens, this picture is exactly what it looks like.
A chicken in my laundry room. *this me rolling my eyes*