Hatching Chicks

Or maybe I should say not hatching chicks.  Last year was our first attempt at hatching chicks using an incubator and it went pretty well.  Out of 12 eggs we ended up hatching 5 chicks that all grew into adult hood.  This year we put 14 eggs in the incubator hoping to get 6-7 to hatch.  Well, it was a mess from the start.  Once the incubator got accidentally unplugged (but that was for less than an hour.)  Then our power went out for 6 hours during a thunder storm.  I had a really hard time keeping the humidity in the range it needed to be and we had a few other days where the incubator temperature was getting too high.  We ended up having 3 rotten eggs that we luckily tossed out before they exploded. leaving 11 eggs in the incubator.

I wasn't holding out much hope.  Late in the afternoon on day 21 we started hearing some peeping and one of the eggs started moving.  By that night another one of the eggs started moving.  Late in the afternoon on day 22 the second egg finally hatched, but the first egg never did.  We left them in the incubator for another 48 hours just to be sure but we ended up with only that one chick.

I was afraid she wouldn't survive on her own, so we ran out to Atwoods after we were at Grandview the other day and picked up 6 chicks.  They are straight run so we do not know if they are hens or roosters.  The boys picked 3 out of the assorted bantams and 3 of the heavies.  All of the chicks seem to be healthy and doing well.  We added our chick to the box yesterday and she is looking good.  The boys named the chicks Captain Jack, Will, Fred, George, Phil, (and I can't remember the last one) and the girls named our chick Rapunzel.

the girls were guarding the chicks while we got the box set up

Rapunzel is the light yellow chick

I do not know if I am going to attempt another hatch this year or not.

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