One down

Upon candling my eggs for the last time I discovered one that I had either misread or missed. It definitely didn't have a baby chick growing. We are down to 17 eggs now. I couldn't see much this time. The eggs are mostly dark, but the air pockets look good. I hope this is a good indication! I could only see a little chick in one or two eggs, the others were too dark. It still amazes me to see those tiny beings moving around and blood vessels pumping inside of an egg!

Oh, I just looked out the window to see a Cardinal feeding it's baby. I knew that I had heard tiny peeps lately. Oh, maybe it was feeding it's mate! Is love in the air? Either way, I love spring time! Soon I will be watching my little chicks eat up. Can't wait. I do hope that they hatch!

Stay tuned... 

Egg Update

Isn't that a cool luna moth? I snapped a picture of it on the chicken coop tour.

We are approaching the final countdown. Well, almost. The eggs have one more week to go. The time is flying by. The eggs are looking good. Hopefully I was right in my candling efforts. Today the chicks growing inside of the eggs can hear, have eyelids and are growing feathers. They will spend the next few days growing rapidly!

I have been spending some time reading up on egg development and raising chicks. The public library has been a great resource. I have learned so much, but I know that I still have a long way to go. I am currently reading Living With Chickens. It has some great photos in it and is a quite enjoyable read. I definitely recommend it.

Hopefully tonight I will make it to the local Atlanta Pet Chicken Meetup Group.  I am sure that the people attending will have plenty of info to share with me on how to have a successful hatch and how to care for the new chicks once they do hatch. Getting anxious!

Stay tuned...     

Candling Update

I candled the eggs again last night. This time I had read up and knew what I was looking for. I could see much better this time, even on the darker shells. I think that there was only one dark thick shell that I could not decipher anything about. 

I got a big surprise.... eighteen eggs have growing chicks inside! I was pretty impressed. For my first hatching that is a great rate. There is a chance that I some could be "quitters". That means they stop growing and die. I hope that they all make it! I have at least one of every variety still going! I am so excited.

It really is amazing to get a view into an egg. To see a tiny being moving around and knowing that it had grown so much in just a few days time is a miracle. God made some truly unfathomable things and I am blessed to witness these little ones. You can see a space of air on one end of the egg, the chick, amniotic sac, and yolk in the middle, and a bit of fluid on the other end. So cool! The baby chick absorbs the yolk before hatching. This gives it the nutrients that it needs to break out of its shell and to survive for the next two days. Amazing! Today my chicks can hear, have eyelids and are growing feathers!

I can check them one more time before they hatch. Maybe this weekend. Then the countdown begins! I actually dreamed about eggs last night and candling them. It is amazing to sit there and witness life in the making. I guess they are getting to me.

Stay tuned! More is happening every day! 

Egg Candling

Sunday night I tried my hand at egg candling. This allows you to tell if the embryos are developing. Here is a website that gives some information on the process. Here are pictures on the same site, backyardchickens.com. It is a bit tricky, especially with the dark shelled eggs. I used an LED head lamp held with my hand cupped around it and sat the egg on top of my hand. The white shelled eggs were easy to read. The almond eggs were ok. The dark and speckled ones, I have no idea about! If I am correct, around 25% of my eggs are developing. That would be about 10 eggs. It is a bit disappointing, but a bit of a relief too. I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do with 40 chicks if they all hatched! 

I am going to try to candle the eggs again later in the week, somewhere around day 10 of development. Hopefully I will know what I am looking for and be able to tell more on the dark shelled eggs. They should be a little more developed too. It is neat to see a tiny embryo moving! 

I am also trying to get the incubator settled in after placing the automatic egg turner in it. The temp reading are varying. The egg turner is a relief! I am not quite as stressed out over the eggs. 

This is all exciting and definitely a learning experience. Oh, I also learned that the egg and sperm are combined in the egg before incubation. It just kind of sits there and waits until the hen sits on the eggs to start development. Eggs are pretty amazing!

Stay tuned! I'll do my best to keep you updated.