Hatching more than an idea …

Proud egg-mama

Dear Friends and Family,

What came first, the chicken or the egg? After some financial considerations Babette and I decided that perhaps it made the most sense to get fertilized eggs as oppose to day-old chicks. The incubator was an investment for years to come and per (hopeful) chick, the cost-comparison was firmly in the camp of the egg.
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I must admit I was not totally honest in my previous letter — while, of course, we did move the Marans to give them space and us a (less) stinky attic, we also had to move them before our new babies hatched!

The new babies in question were 72 beautiful multi-colored easter egg(ers). And they were currently incubating out side of my room. Transferring the eggs to the incubators was quite a nerve-racking process. The oils from our hands can interfere with the incubation process, so we had to wear gloves (a new normal in other situations due to Covid). Of course there was also the fact that eggs need to be kept at a just-so humidity and temperature and the incubators we’d bought were confusing to our newbie eyes.

The confusing, exciting (egg-citing), tense faff of setting up and starting the incubation process was enough to make us all doubt our egg-hatching abilities. Add to that a couple of midnight stumbles on route to the WC by your styling and we really did not expect much of a turn out.

So much were we in doubt that anything would come of this experiment that when we started hearing little persistent chirps from near my bedroom door, we figured there must be a new family of birds outside the window (who chirped at night as well). But then! One morning Josephine informed us that a pip had appeared in one of the eggs. From then on we would quickly become glued to looking at egg-TV anytime we passed the incubator station.

And then! Again, Josephine, saw the start of a hatch. We ran upstairs and gathered around to see the (gunky, goopy, wobbly) amazing birth of our first new Easter Egger chick. Over the course of the next three days, we were in awe as we saw 47 brand new souls enter the world. Birth is really a magical thing.

​Chow for now Arizona,
Charlotte

A couple of notes:
In hindsight we would have had more luck with the incubators if we had put fewer eggs in each incubator.
An extra day of hatch time before moving to the brooder would have also provided a better hatch rate. You live and learn.