Administration Chicks

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Our forever home

This is the chicks' forever home! They will have so much room to run and play as they get bigger. The will stay in the chicken coop at night. It is just off to the right of this video.

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Meeting our family

Here is a short video of the chicks in their new home. It is designed to keep them safe while they are still little. We call it the "nursery". Their brothers and sisters in the nursery are about a week older than our chicks. Can you tell which ones they may be? When all of these chicks get bigger (about a month from now), they will be out and around the property to explore. There will be lots of new things for our chicks!

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Chickens like to explore new things in their environment. Here is a short video of what happened when toilet paper tubes were added to their playpen.

WE HAVE HATCHED!

We had our first chick from Egg 4 (about 3 pm on 4/29)! Egg 1 chick hatched at 7:50 pm. It was in the back and I didn't even see it. My 3 year old noticed it though! Egg 10 hatched at 9:40 pm. Overnight we had 3 more chicks hatch (Eggs 8, 3 & 14, all of which pipped yesterday). I moved the 6 dry chicks to the playpen to allow room for the others to hatch. 4/30 at 9:12 AM, Egg 9 hatched! At 5:30 PM, Egg 2 was finally out. 8:42 PM, Egg 7 chick emerged. Just as I thought we had our last chick, Egg 16 pipped and hatched very quickly! This yellow chick hatched at 9:55 PM on 4/30 as our 10th chick!

This is the chicks playpen home for the next week. Does it have everything they will need?

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First 6 chicks in their new playpen

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Egg 9 hatching

April 9th-Eggs were numbered using a pencil. We have 16 eggs! The egg shells are different colors. What observations can you make about the eggs?

April 9th-The eggs were placed in the incubator and turner. The incubator will heat the eggs to 99.5 degrees Fahrenheit and rotate them every few hours just like the mother hen would.

A small amount of water is added everyday through a special opening because the humidity level in the incubator must be between 40-50%.

April 26th-The egg turner was removed and the humidity level was raised (by adding water to the bottom of the incubator) to 70% to prepare for hatching. Click the picture to watch the quick video!

Egg Development

The chicks develop and change so much in 21 days!

April 23rd-Candling the Eggs (2nd time)

This is Egg 10. Chick has filled most of the egg. In the coming days, the fluid in the egg will be absorbed and the air sac will be larger in preparation for hatching!

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Candling Notes

We could see many of the chicks developing into an upside-down "u-shape". In some, we could even see the outline of feathers. The movement we could see was slower than before. Egg 6 looks like it had begun to develop, but was not at the same place as the others. Egg 13 has a dark yolk and veins and a small gray mass. It is not as far along as it should be. Development may have stopped, but we will candle these eggs again on day 18 when we remove the 'egg turner' from the incubator. If they have not developed further, we will remove the eggs.

This is Egg 4. Watch the "dark shadow" spots in the egg video below. That is the chick moving and you can almost see a wing!

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