Thursday, January 3, 2008

The Chicken Eggs

We bought Josh an airline ticket to OK for winter retreat. It was only $5 with all the miles that we've accumulated. Not bad for a weekend with is friends in a good Christian setting. He and the youth pastor were so close; it is great that they can spend some time together again. When we moved to CO, he stayed behind for almost a month with the youth pastor and his wife and their family; in fact he would still be there if we didn’t force him to finally move to CO with us.

I got a 20.00 coupon from a seed catalog company, so I've been perusing the catalog, it covers shipping as well, so I can get a couple of things for free or nearly free. I'm looking at getting a Stevia plant or two. It would be great if I could get them to grow and not have to buy sugar as much. I love using Stevia in tea and such. It can be used in baking as well, although I’ve never tried it.

My sister Melissa is coming over tomorrow; she said she’d help do a few more chickens if I wanted. By the way, the eggs in the incubator are developing. I candled 10 and I can see chicks in 9. The 10th had too thick/dark of a shell to be able to see if it is developing, but I have no reason to think it wouldn't be. They kind of look like a spider, with the chick as the small spider body, and the veins as legs. I can see the eye as a small dark pinpoint of blackness. I’m so excited they actually are developing. For one I wasn’t sure what fertility rate I had and second, some of the eggs had gotten pretty chilled in the nest boxes before I brought them in so I wasn’t sure how viable they were. This will be the 3rd batch I’ve hatched out, and the first batch from my own hens. I’ve got 20 eggs total, which I expect to hatch on the 20th, give or take a day. Probably a day or two later since I’ve had trouble keeping the temperature up, it tends to want to hang at a degree or two lower than it should be; probably because we keep the house so chilly.

Rachel is coming tomorrow with Melissa; she will be spending the night. I’m excited for that. She is so much fun to have around. Pretty Boy will be accompanying her. Melissa says she tells everyone “this is my niece’s dog.” Too funny, as I now too get to say this is my niece’s dog. She also decided to change his name to “Gato,” a tribute to her dry sense of humor. She has a truly curious sense of humor for a four year old.

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Here are the eggs, I added 2 more (a green & a large brown) for a total of 20. They are written on so I know which way is up, they have to be rotated several times a day or the chick will die.

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In the incubator. They are not up to temp as I had just opened it and placed all the eggs inside. It took several hours to get to the correct temperature.

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