I am so far behind on blog posts. It's been a VERY hectic couple of weeks and I'm having a hard time balancing all that's going on.
We had the winter storm come in and then I had my last Christmas show of the year (where I sell the things I crochet and sew) and I had to get a lot of things made for that. And then my hubby has been having some health issues that we have been trying to get taken care of. There's just been a whole lot of things demanding my time and attention, and so, I'm ridiculously behind...on everything!
Anyway, the chicks are doing well inside their shells. They are becoming a little more difficult to see when candling, but we are still able to see movements, they are just over a larger area now.
Wednesday morning last week, I checked the incubator and the temperature was 80 degrees. I messed with the thermostat and it wouldn't kick on. My first thought was that the incubator had messed up and I was ready to run to the Cooperative Extension Office and get a replacement. Then I saw it was unplugged from the electrical outlet. I don't know when it had been unplugged, but I assume it happened late the evening before or overnight. I plugged it back in. The problem was then that I had messed with the thermostat before realizing it was unplugged. I had no idea how many times I turned the dial. There was no doubt that the temperature was going to be crazy all over again. So all day I stayed on top of it. At one point the temperature reached 102 degrees. I opened the lid to let air out, replaced the lid and turned the dial way down. By the end of the day, the temperature was stable again and I was, again, able to breathe. A couple of days later, I checked the chicks again and they seemed to be fine. I was relieved that I hadn't killed the poor things before they had a chance. They are quiet resilient little birds.
2 days ago I removed 7 of the eggs from the incubator. I suspect these eggs were never fertilized as there was never any sign of development in any of them and when we cracked them open (outside, not in the house) there was no foul odor and they looked like normal, semi-fresh chicken eggs. This leaves us with 35 eggs that will hopefully hatch.
Yesterday, I marked the air cell on each egg. One of them I'm a little concerned with because the air cell is on the side of the egg instead of on the top. I'm not sure if this is any reason for concern, but I do think it's odd. From the little research I've done on the topic, it seems that it may or may not affect the hatch. It seems to be something that we will have to wait and see what happens and keep a close eye on the hatch.
I picked up a webcam yesterday in hopes of live streaming the chicks hatching. I'm truly not the most tech-savvy person in the world, but I'm hoping I can figure out how to make it work and get the stream on the blog.
I've also got to start working on getting the brooder set up this week. We will brood the chicks in our bathroom again this time until they are big enough to go outside into the coop. We will put a heat lamp in the coop and keep them inside since it is so cold out and won't be warming up anytime soon. But hopefully, by doing it this way, we will have beautiful colored eggs in our basket in the spring or early summer.
We are only 8 days away from Christmas Day and Hatch Day and we are so egg-cited to meet our little chickie babies!
Comments
Post a Comment