Just. Like. Magic.
I have a thing about Dark Barred Plymouth Rocks.
Adam calls them my bourgeois chickens. (He's very rude.) I think they are particularly pretty.
Anyway, my friend Vanessa and I went halves in an incubator. She's had a couple of runs of it with pretty good success so I thought I'd give it a go. I put a mix of our own Plymouth Rock eggs in as well as some purchased online through Backyard Poultry.
For the first day and a half we used a fancy thermometer, which when checked against a not so fancy one, had the heat up too high. This was probably fatal to my eggs.
Nonetheless I carried on turning them twice a day for twenty days.
Until day twenty, four days ago, when you leave them for a day and hopefully see some shells breaking on day 21.
Nada.
I kicked myself about the thermometer.
I was really quite sad.
Ness said to hold on, give it another day or two.
And then this morning:
Then this afternoon I noticed a number of other eggs with cracks in them. Little beak holes. Oh. My. Goodness. SO EXCITING.
Really, it doesn't matter that we've spent all day tying things down in an astonishing wind. That the spinach is flattened. Or that I feel like I've spent all week wrestling with the accounts for the accountant and our business plan for the bank. We watched a chicken crack open it's shell and come into the world.
Coolest thing ever.
I might have a better set of pictures if I hadn't had Tilly holding onto my arm and shrieking in delight and Henry bouncing up and down on the floorboards behind me.
I'm excited too.
More to come.
xxx
katepickle
October 12, 2012 at 6:38 pmit really is amazing isn’t it!
We’ve only hatched ‘last minute’ eggs in our home made incubator when one of our nutty hens snafooed away eggs over more than a week and when the first few hatched she got up and left the rest… so we popped them in and crossed our fingers and then… chickens!!! SO COOL!
Merryl Chantrell
October 12, 2012 at 7:41 pmI love newborn chicks. Years ago at the Royal Adelaide Show you could buy a box of pastel coloured chicks in pale blue, pale yellow, pale green and pale pink. Mum never let me buy any unfortunately :o(
Julie
October 12, 2012 at 8:13 pmIt just doesn’t get better than that! New life is such a miracle and always leaves us in awe! How wonderful your babes were there to see it!
xxx
cynthia
October 12, 2012 at 8:53 pmBeautiful! Congratulations on the new additions.
My wee babe is too small to appreciate these things yet, but we have a little family of silver mynas hatching in a little tree next to my Mum’s laundry door. They are so lovely with their cheep cheep cheeping! I hope they set up home again next year when my wee one will enjoy the spectacle.
Tricia
October 12, 2012 at 8:54 pm🙂
Kirsty
October 12, 2012 at 9:35 pmCongratulations!! Love love love the pic of the first chick.
Sue
October 12, 2012 at 10:52 pmWow. Wonderful. Have I mentioned, can I visit? I think I might mean, can I move in?
Claudine
October 13, 2012 at 12:43 amWow Wow Wow!!! I think we all would be talking in capitals for days!
Congrats on bringing these cool little creatures into the world!
Nancy in Canada
October 13, 2012 at 1:00 amJust found a site you may appreciate.. it looks like awesomeness 🙂
http://www.frontierfreedom.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=105
Ngo Family Farm
October 13, 2012 at 6:07 amHooray! Life, goodness, it’s really nothing short of a miracle every time.
-Jaime
Diann
October 13, 2012 at 8:02 amThat is the most amazing thing!! How absolutely exciting! I loved the first little guy and was so happy for you but then you went on. What a terrific time for you all. Well done! Diann
Just Joyful
October 13, 2012 at 8:14 amThat was so great! I was getting excited just reading and then the photos – awesome!
Justine
October 13, 2012 at 9:20 amVery cool indeed! I love plymouth rocks, almost as much as wyandottes… and the foxes around here like them even better… grr, but thats another story!
Baby chicks are so much fun, esp for the kiddos… have fun!
Frogdancer
October 13, 2012 at 9:49 amWe have a Plymouth Rock called Pudgy. Very aptly named.
Barbara
October 13, 2012 at 10:09 amCongratulations! How exciting!
Roberta
October 13, 2012 at 2:58 pmBABIES! BABIES! BABY CHICKIES!!!!! So sweet, congratulations.
Shelley
October 13, 2012 at 3:10 pmWow! How exciting! Nothing like a scrawny chick fighting its way free of a shell to restore your faith in the rightness of the world!
🙂
serenab2008@gmail.com
October 13, 2012 at 3:15 pmWow how cool arent they just sooooo cute! Very exciting and you have so many more to come!
Amanda @ mammajoy
October 13, 2012 at 4:27 pmJust beautiful. It is often the simplest things that bring us the most joy! And just as well we can balance out the stress and tediousness of tax paperwork and bank red tape with the splendour and beauty of nature, or I think we’d all go a bit insane!
Lisa
October 14, 2012 at 9:55 pmAwesome! I would have been jumping up and down too!!!
Cassandramadge.wordpress.com
October 15, 2012 at 12:09 pmOh Wow that is so exciting!! I would have been jumping up and down with the kids also 🙂 Congratulations mamma!!
Reemski
October 15, 2012 at 10:18 pmBest.Thing.Ever.
Mike
October 23, 2012 at 10:29 amWhen I first saw this I was thinking she’s going to cook them. Then I see a baby bird come out and I’m like “on my god”.