ok so they're not yet in the hen house, still the incubator but my house sounds like the inside of a hen house.
Science world is doing awesome, the little diva she is, she really likes to snuggle up in your hand and pinch your finger web to get your attention, if a chicken could snicker, she'd be doing it.
Yesterday we had a pip, and a little bit of progress on egg #2...sadly that egg didn't progress, her little beak hung out the hole and there was plenty of shell broken but the membrane was exposed and started to harden...I let it go all day, then this morning she still hadn't progressed so I preformed an emergency chicken egg cesarian. CAREFULLY with clean hands, paper towel and clean tweezers I picked off pieces of egg and membrane and the chick didn't help me in the least which is worrisome. I could certainly see that she was very much alive, just lazy and weak,
at 8:01 Goldie flopped out of her shell, weak and useless.
So like a true crazy chicken lady I held her in my hand to regulate temperature, monitor her breathing, and give her little squeezes to get her blood pumping, I held her until I could no longer hold her,
and when I could no longer hold her, I put her in my bra, good thing my boobs shrank.
She was quite happy in there, burrowing and snuggling but it was a pain in the ass to have this invisible force field around the chick with pending toddler snuggles, so after a few hours she started to kick and squirm and peep and open her eyes, so I put her back into the incubator where she immediately stood up and her sister Scienceworld stood on her.
So far so good, she's peeping away in there and driving me mental like her sister (assuming they're ALL FEMALES, *not so subtle hint)
Looks like things will be good for little Goldie
Monday, October 29, 2012
BEBE CHICKETH!!
We have been pretty quiet, patiently and cautiously incubating these eggs, being absolutely anally retentive about the humidity levels and temperature and coddling these eggs, I have candled a few times, not daily, but enough to be confident of development and movement, yesterday was the due date for the first egg to hatch....and, well, we were in Vancouver visiting friends so we had to get updates from my husband. I face timed him in the morning, about 8:30 to be sure he added water to the incubator reservoir, and he had forgotten, so he did it when we were on the phone with us, then he mentioned something about the chick beeping all night, I'm like "WHAT!?" BEEPING?! (good news) they beep in the shell before they hatch, and right on time she was making noises which was confidence instilling to say the least. When he opened the incubator to add water I asked him to show us the egg and BLAM, a pip. SHE PIPPED THROUGH THE EGG! We were very excited but left her be to bust through that cursed shell, it can take 1-2 days for a chick to fully emerge from a shell, think of it as the birthing process and the first pip being a contraction, they pip, wait a while, gain their strength, then pip again, then so on...
first pip in the morning, RIGHT on target as she hit the date I wrote on the egg shell
So off to Science world we went, we had tons of fun and sadly found this chicken egg information thingy as the car meter was on it's last few minutes, but I managed to snap a photo and talk to Winter (My daughter) quickly about where our chicks were at as far as development...
Totally cool to see them, I'd be tempted to make our own formaldehyde dead baby chick display but I'd have a hard time murdering embryos with intent aside from to eat, so we'll stick to coloring pages for now
So yay, science world, it was Winter's first time and zomg she had fun, so did I. WINTERLOOKATTHISWINTERLOOKATTHAT I felt like I had a sensory overload, I can't imagine how her tiny self felt.
Anyways, we got back to our island at about 7pm or so and I immediately checked for more pipping...
She'd done some damage, but that's a days worth of pipping, still her little beak sticking through there, she was breaking and beeping away, so I let her be and we tucked the kids in. I posted a progress shot on instagram and people expressed interest in the fact that it was taking her so long to crack the rest of the shell , (which is normal) but I guess she has internet access and wanted to show them up, because a few minutes after I posted that, she knocked a sizable chunk off of the shell...
take THAT nay sayers! You can see her little beak still on the left hand side, and the membrane has been nicely sliced through there on the bottom. So After this photo was taken, I went back into the room with the kids, fell asleep on the floor (Seriously, I was wiped) and woke up to a flurry of very loud chick beeps. 'BLEEP BLEEP BLEEEEEEP" I rushed out of the room and sure enough, there she was, all exhausted and spread eagle--err chicken out of her shell..
life, it is the hardest.
She lay like that panting for a bit, then kicked a few more times and managed to get herself onto her feet where she proved she was pure silkie on diva attitude alone. She snuggled the other eggs and eventually fell asleep in her food dish. Some people say you shouldn't touch them until they're dry, and those people will be upset to see this video but my soft mom heart felt like she needed a loving touch to be born into, so I held her for a minute inside my hand so she felt the comfort of something warm and egg shaped and it calmed her down, then I put her back in for the night.
She fell asleep and my heart melted. She's already so fancy with her fluffy feathers all mcdreamy style.
Silkies are cool chickens, these are bantam silkies so that means they're a small chicken, but their skin is black, and they have black bones too I'll have to borrow an image from the internet to demonstrate this, as I'm not willing to skin one of my silkies.
I find their temperament to be a lot milder than other breeds, they're sweet and ours snuggle, I guess they're more delicate and they must realize it, they absolutely need unicorn horns and tiaras.
Also: silkies have an extra toe:
So after her first night, she dried out a bit, fluffed up, and she's getting cuter.
She's a little annoyed that she is alone in all this but will make a good big sister to her hatching siblings (hopeful that she's not a rooster, can you tell?)
Winter was SO EXCITED when she got to meet her this morning, all attention is on the incubator this morning, but we're letting her adjust as much as we can.
The next door neighbors even came to visit the new arrival, they checked in several times, they're good neighbor also are cousins so that's a plus!
7am visit from her new cousins! This is a very excited and tired Makenna
And this is a very excited Saige, you can see how small the chick is in her hand!
Oh! I almost forgot, Winter named the chick already, so this post is to introduce our new baby chick to the world, her name?
Science world.
Yes, Winter named her Science World, fitting only because her parents are named 'Cedar' (rooster) and "Star with 3 magic wands and 3 moons" (hen)
So welcome to our home Science world!
Here is a video of her beeping up a storm
(Video of Conrad and Winter viewing a video of the video I just posted)
Both chicks didn't make it, I suspect it was having too much faith in our old humidifier that worked without incident on many a hatch and now may be running a humidity issue, I was worried that development was stunted for the second egg, but the first one looked like it was going strong until day 19 when I noticed the air pocket was big, but there was no movement, no piping no nothing, so a day late I did an autopsy and neither had broken the membrane, so I think that would be humidity. A new humidity monitor will be found and the next hatch is set for halloween! We're not super sad, we're actually ok with it because we still got to see baby chicks that we grew, just didn't get to see them alive and fluffy! Still educational and we can still look forward to buckle up's next clutch, she's STILL broody, poor girl, but she does have a fancy new coop to call her own, complete with doilies and wallpaper. She will move into it once I get the trap door done on the floor and skirt the bottom, but for now, here is a picture of my daughter Winter with the new silkie coop...
The inside is a little ridiculous, I have to do something with the roof as it being exposed wood like that is making me crazy, and well, I may or may not have built them a soon to be solar powered chandelier...I'll update with that once I finish it.
Sorry to disappoint with the eggs, more chicks on the way so I'm sure we will have better luck on the next hatch!
