Project "School Incubation"...day 2 and counting...

Incubation fever strikes again! Andrew asked if we could do an incubator project with his 2nd grade class, and of course I said 'yes!'. Those of you who suffer from the chicken affliction will know that you can never say 'no' to hatching more eggs! We picked this week to set the eggs, as we have exactly four weeks of uninterrupted school between the Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks.

I dropped the incubator by the school on Monday to give it time to adjust to the classroom temperatures and make sure it was steady before setting the eggs on Wednesday. The kids were very curious and asked lots of great questions about the incubator, chickens and hatching eggs! The eggs were delivered on Wednesday morning to the school. I have set a few of them there and the rest here at home just in case one incubator does not perform. I'd hate to have the kids disappointed if we don't get ANY eggs to hatch! Of course, the other issue may be if we get TOO many eggs to hatch....

I'll be going back to the school every few days to check on the eggs and to talk to the kids about chickens, the parts of an egg and embryo development. It's really fun to get back in the classroom again, if only just for a few minutes! Hopefully the kids will take away some knowledge of chickens, eggs and the life cycle from all this - I'm sure they won't soon forget those fuzzy little chicks if all goes well.

In other news...The silkie babies continue to grow like little weeds. These little guys can EAT! They are getting their feathers in now, and starting to act like little adults - working out the 'pecking' order. So far I have strong suspicions that we have at least 3 roosters, but silkies can be notoriously sneaky about hiding gender, so we'll just have to see...

Hoppy, the one legged chicken is still getting along. I would like to see her growing more as she is still significantly smaller than the other chicks, but she seems perky and healthy otherwise. Thankfully the other chicks don't seem to single Hoppy out for 'unwanted' attention, so as long as she is doing OK and not getting picked on, I'm happy to leave her in the brooder with the other chicks.

There is one other chick that has developed some issues. Rascal is one of the partridge babies. I believe she has suffered a head injury, which has caused crookneck. It was much worse on Wednesday but seems to be getting slowly better. She is eating and drinking well, so it's more a wait and see game than anything else at this point. On Wednesday morning she could not hardly hold up her head and it was twisted all the way around. By this morning she can lift her head just fine, and the twist is only slight. She still has seizures or 'fits' once in a while - most often when startled - where she shakes her head and walks around backwards for a few seconds, but much less than on Wednesday. I'm optimistic she will make a good recovery!

Finally the big girls are getting closer and closer to giving us some eggs! They will be 20 weeks old on Christmas, but many times the lack of daylight will delay those first eggs coming, so I will have to be patient! Still, I've uncovered the nest boxes for them and now it's just a waiting game. Again and again I am glad I took the time and effort to cover their run. They often fly up into the netting, but can't get over the fence, thankfully! I have no doubt they'd be wanding all over the woods, and worse yet in the neighbors' yards. Since I want to be able to keep my chickens, it's important that they are good neighborly chickens (in other words, stay at HOME and stay quiet!)

They are doing really well with the cold weather - even though it's not been bitterly cold here, we have had some hard freeze mornings but they are cosy in the coop and seem to not notice the cold at all. They do enjoy their treats of sunflower seeds and scratch feed and have figured out that I'm the 'food lady'. I wish everyone was so glad to see me as they are!

We're ready for our close ups....

Just a quick post this evening to announce CHICK-CAM! I've added a streaming web cam of the brooder so you can check back and see what our chicks are doing.

They have grown a LOT this week - already getting their silkie feathers coming in on their wings. Since nobody told them that Silkies can't fly, they are going to have to learn the hard way and they are already trying out their new wings!

Hoppy is still hopping along on one leg - I do not think that his bum leg will ever straighten out, but since he seems to be getting along pretty well with just one good leg, I will continue to give him the chance to grow and see how he does.

Enjoy the chicken cam! Eventually I plan on getting a webcam out in the big girl's run too...

The Chicks have Hatched!

It's been a busy couple of days in the backyard chicken farm! Our babies have arrived!! They needed a bit of help to get hatched - I think the humidity was a bit low or unsteady so their membranes were too dry. I carefully helped them pip their shells, and it wasn't long before we had all 10 babies drying in the incubator.

They are all eating and drinking well and are just the cutest little fluffballs ever. There is one little guy with a gimpy leg. After researching the common issues with leg problems in chicks, I have ruled out slipped tendon and splayed leg. He just can't put one leg down at all. I think we will try a brace for him and see if it helps at all. His new name: Hoppy...of course! It will be really fun to watch these guys grow up into big little chickens.

It's day 21.... and we have a PIP!

Well, it's day 21.... the silky eggs have been VERY quiet the last couple days. TOO quiet for us waiting and watching and trying not to obsess too much on when those babies will come out...IF they will come out.... will they EVER come out??

Finally - got home from lunch out today and we have a PIP on the side of one of the eggs!! Come on baby chickie, you can do it!! Stay tuned.....

Hatching Eggs & Other Fun

All is calm out in the chicken yard tonight...the girls have settled in nicely to their larger coop and life is slowly returning to normal since our vacation.

In the spirit of 'don't count your chickens before they hatch', I'm a bit reluctant to say much of anything about my expectations for the hatching eggs in the incubator currently. We got 14 silky eggs total in the mail. They are a mix of buffs, whites, partridges and blue/black/splash. Two of them failed to start developing and were removed on day 7. I candled again on day 10 and on 14 and removed one more 'quitter'. That leaves us 11 eggs with dancing chicks inside! It is really neat to candle the eggs and see the baby chicks moving around. You can even see their tiny little feet shining through the eggshell! They are due to hatch on Monday the 15th - how nice that the kids will be out of school. I'm hopeful we'll get at least a few of them to make it all the way out. Stay tuned for the hatching report sometime next week...

The incubator project has been so much fun we are planning another batch to do a project with Andrew's 2nd grade class. I've built a second incubator from another cooler and have spent this week anxiously adjusting it to get it ready. I've included an automatic egg-turner since there will not be anyone there to do the turning duties. The picture is of the new classroom incubator in the testing phase.