It's now Day 3 and everything has really smoothed out significantly. I wish there was something a little more fun and exciting to report.
The incubator is running smoothly and I'm hoping the chicks are developing and growing as they should. I opened the lid today to refill the water troughs (I have #1 and #2 filled) and, while I had the lid open, I went ahead and candled a handful of the eggs again just to see if there was anything at all to be seen and, of course, there was nothing. I figured it would be too early to see anything, but I couldn't resist since I already had the lid open.
I'm still keeping a close eye on the incubator. The temperature in the incubator this morning was just a touch low (98 and 99 degrees), but the room temperature outside of the incubator was cool, so I didn't adjust the thermostat on the incubator. Instead, I raised the temperature in the room and that corrected the temperature.
The boys and I took some time to Google some pictures of how the chicks develop and change each day. I found a great kid-friendly diagram online so I'm going to post each day's picture of the chick development on here. These are not my images and image credit will be provided.
The following text is from www.raising-happy-chickens.com about the development on Day 3:
"This is a critical day. The embryo has grown considerably since yesterday, the blood vessels have branched and the heart in particular is much bigger. Under a microscope the spinal column is clearly visible in the shape of a question mark.
Between 60 and 64 hours after the start of incubation the chick's nose, lungs, legs, wings and tail have begun to form.
The incubator is running smoothly and I'm hoping the chicks are developing and growing as they should. I opened the lid today to refill the water troughs (I have #1 and #2 filled) and, while I had the lid open, I went ahead and candled a handful of the eggs again just to see if there was anything at all to be seen and, of course, there was nothing. I figured it would be too early to see anything, but I couldn't resist since I already had the lid open.
I'm still keeping a close eye on the incubator. The temperature in the incubator this morning was just a touch low (98 and 99 degrees), but the room temperature outside of the incubator was cool, so I didn't adjust the thermostat on the incubator. Instead, I raised the temperature in the room and that corrected the temperature.
The boys and I took some time to Google some pictures of how the chicks develop and change each day. I found a great kid-friendly diagram online so I'm going to post each day's picture of the chick development on here. These are not my images and image credit will be provided.
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| Chick development on Day 3 (Image credit Learning Resources Chick Life Cycle Exploration Set) |
"This is a critical day. The embryo has grown considerably since yesterday, the blood vessels have branched and the heart in particular is much bigger. Under a microscope the spinal column is clearly visible in the shape of a question mark.
Between 60 and 64 hours after the start of incubation the chick's nose, lungs, legs, wings and tail have begun to form.
The embryo has until now relied on the blood vessels developed during its first 48 hours for oxygen, but at about 66 hours into incubation it starts to need more air than those vessels can provide so the allantois forms outside the embryo and starts work. It has a dual purpose : it's responsible for collecting waste from the embryo and is critical in oxygenating it.
The amnion, a small sack filled with amniotic fluid also grows during day 3 and surrounds the embryo. Its job is to protect and cushion it from any jolts."
So, even though there's not much going on that can be seen from outside of the shell, there's a lot going on inside. Hopefully in a couple more days, we'll get to candle eggs and see some veins!
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