Life Isn't Always Easy On a Farm

We decided to try hatching some eggs. We got an incubator and put in our seven eggs.

The incubation period is supposed to be 21 days. Somewhere around day 10, we candled the eggs and they all looked fine, except one. We could see a big dark spot (the eye) and a little movement in six of them, but we couldn't really see anything in the 7th. We decided to open the one that we were unsure of, and were saddened to see that there actually was a little developing chick inside. It was kind of upsetting to see the poor little embryo.

Around 5:00 am on day 21, we heard some chirping and we got out of bed to see a single little chick had made it out of its shell. We left him in the incubator for a day and were hopeful that the others would soon hatch. It is now three days later, and none of the others have hatched. We have our little survivor in a brooder in our bedroom.

You can barely see our survivor's head peeking out form the warmer.

Yesterday we did a "float test" to see if the eggs might still be viable, and they did just barely float, indicating that they are still viable, but I am not very hopeful. One more day and we will have to give up.