Saturday, September 25, 2010

New Baby Chicks

We finally have some new baby chickens.  Our first 2 attempts using a broody hen failed.  Our first attempt with an incubator failed - thanks to TXU for a 6 hour power outage.

Three weeks ago today, we put 17 eggs in the incubator.  We candled them at 10 days and removed 5 that we could see weren't developing.  This morning at around 8:00, 2 were showing the "pip" - the place where the beak first breaks through the shell.  By 11:00, we had our first chick - a black one.  We watched it break through and emerge from the egg.  Amazing!  It's exhausting work being born.

Seven hours later, we have 2 black and 3 yellow peeps.  They're all still wet and will stay in the incubator until sometime tomorrow.  I'm hoping we have at least 3 more before then.  There are pip holes in at least 2 other eggs that I can see.


We're hoping these chicks (assuming some of them ARE hens) will start laying eggs this winter when production from the rest of the flock goes way down.

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