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The chicks are hatching
Three weeks ago we got 12 fertilised hen eggs (the breed is cream leghorn) which we put into our new incubator. As we thought the eggs had been laid a few days before we bought them, we were expecting the 21 day incubation period to end mid week. I had the BBC visiting me on Wednesday and I was hoping to show them some hatched chicks. By yesterday morning, when we went to the Beekeepers’ Convention, we had given up hope that the eggs would hatch and assumed that they were not fertile, or we have made mistakes with the incubation process.
Last night, I decided to take a final look at the eggs. They hadn’t hatched. But then I heard a very quiet chirping sound. One of them at least had a live chick inside which was getting ready to hatch out. This morning I checked the incubator again and there was a little chick inside. Throughout the day, more hatched. We now have 6 and it looks like at least two more are about to hatch as well.
The chicks will stay in the incubator until tomorrow evening when they will be transferred to a chick brooder. They have enough strength and nutrients from the eggs to allow them to survive the first couple of days without feeding. In that time they recover from the hatching, dry off and build up their strength ready to leave the nest and start eating. The time will give all the fertile eggs the chance to hatch.
So, our little venture has worked and it is all the sweeter as we believed yesterday that we had a complete failure on our hands.
Until 2009 I was working in London, UK, but I gave it up to pursue a life of self-sufficiency. My aim is to grow or forage for all my food, produce my own power and live a healthier and greener lifestyle. I left London to return to my home village of Sunniside, near Newcastle, in the North East of England. I have a couple of plots of land there as well as the garden of my house. Our village is a commuter area for Newcastle but we are surrounded by countryside which we use for picking wild foods. My mission in life is to show that it is possible to live well without destroying the planet in the process. I am also keen to ensure knowledge of historic recipes and cooking is kept alive. I regularly try out recipes from old cookbooks using the food we have grown. I make videos about our progress and about how to cook home-grown foods. These can be viewed on www.youtube.com/jonathanwallace.
www.self-sufficientinsuburbia.blogspot.com
2013-03-24 17:53:53
Source: http://self-sufficientinsuburbia.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-chicks-are-hatching.html
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