Just as I was finishing this post, Scott ran up to tell me that a chick had hatched. I was doubtful, because only five minutes earlier, there were still just the two eggs with tiny holes. But sure enough, here's our first chick~
We were using an automatic egg-turner for 20 of the eggs, and hand turning 4. The first two that had holes cracked in the shell were eggs we were hand-turning. But the first to fully hatch is one of the automatically turned.
The boys were already in bed (early start tomorrow) but we woke them to come meet the little guy. I was worried that I would be grossed out by this whole process, but it's hard not to feel maternal towards it (I have no idea what sex it is!). Astonishingly enough, I'm still able to eat my two eggs every morning, as well. 1 down, 23 to go.
9 comments:
oh wow! congratulations grandmama!!!!! that is SO COOL!!! did you nurse it? are you going to sleep with it tonight? im amazed that you would take this little thing away from its MAMA, who is probably missing it right now and having a little tear trickle down its beak. lets try to live a little more compassionately, gabi.
kate
Mmmm, salty chicken....
i dont get it though...what happens now? how long will you keep them?? where do they go?
Well, we could keep them as long as we want, except it's not allowed in Lombard. So, we'll probably return them to the lady we got the eggs from in about a week. She lives in Warrenville, and keeps them for about 5 months or so and then sells them to people who want chickens for eggs.
but im sure a lot of your "babies" will be killed for food, right? cause really, how many people out there are looking for chickens for eggs?
This is hilarious! I don't feel so bad now about worrying about my terrarium of *#$!% little toads. ;-)
Thank goodness you hand turned two of em, anyway. At least two will grow into well adjusted chickens. And, according to LaHatchee League literature, they tend to be physically healthier than the machine turned chicks. Many mainstream vets finally agree with that assesment.
Better keep your eye on the machine turned chicks, they usually turn into sociopaths, and have fowl dispositions.
Since you only turned two, you are only elgible for the small sized "Hand Turning Makes Tasty Snacks" bumper sticker. It is in the mail, along with the small "Hand Turning Practiced Here" mailbox sticker.
I can imagine Noe's thoughts: "Finally! Something besides that dang dry cat food! Maybe living here won't be so boring, although the sushi in the tank downstairs hasn't really worked out yet."
Grandpa
The people you know leave hilarious comments! We deep fried a couple of ours, mmm, finger-lickin' good. BTW, chickens don't nurse even when left with their biological momma. It wouldn've been interesting to watch someone try that...
Hi Anonymous!
Right-o on the chickens not nursing - we know they're not mammals :) My hilarious friends and I were being, well, funny. My email address is "human milk for human babies" etc...
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