THEY’RE HATCHING!!!!!


Oh my gosh… we went to Toledo for a big errand run and when we got home, we noticed that one of the eggs was cracked big time and two others had tiny cracks on them! And then within 10 minutes of getting home our first chickie baby hatched!!! #7 Copper! (Yeah, we named them all after minerals!) For whatever reason, we’re calling him a him, maybe because he was a big chick and strong. I dunno… well, for right now, he’s a he to us! Bucka Roo is a daddy!!!



Hatching is hard work! Oh my gosh… he worked and worked at it, it was almost exhausting to watch! Peck, peck, peck… and then finally… FREE! He was all wet and kinda had this ucky bit of stuff left from his shell, but not really that much. At first his tummy was a little big and distended but within a half hour, it was all normal and he was drying out nicely. We read that they absorb what is left of the yolk in the last day or so and that’s why they can ship day old chicks in the mail… they don’t need anything for the first 48 hours or so.


We were a little nervous to leave because we just weren’t sure how it would all take place, or if the kitties might hear them or what! Copper did chirp a TON when he was first hatched… and loudly. I’m glad we were here. Luna was vaguely interested, but we shooed her away. We have a big 20 gallon aquarium ready for them as a first week brooder, and then a bigger 50 gallon feed trough in the mudroom for them after a first few days under watchful observation.


When we moved the eggs, very very carefully and keeping them in the same position they were in, to slip a handtowel in there, you can feel them moving inside the egg! It was so amazing. Jessy and Maggie were right there, helping and watching. They say you shouldn’t do anything to help them, that hatching is part of the struggle to live and only the strong will make it. But it’s so hard to watch! You just want to get in there and help!!!

I have to tell you all, this is really pretty darn exciting for us. I mean, here we are, 21 days later, with a Styrofoam cooler from the dollar store, a chandelier bulb and a dish of water with a sponge in it. And right on schedule to the DAY, Mother Nature is giving us this wonderful experience to see our own little babies hatch in our own wonderful little dream homestead!!! I just can’t tell you how cool this is!

And tomorrow… we finish the pasture fencing for the sheep so they can come home soon!!!! OH MY GOSH… exciting times for sure!!!

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About Mobymom

the banjo player for Deepwater Bluegrass, and the editor of BuckeyeBluegrass.com as well as the main graphic designer of the Westvon Publishing empire. She is a renaissance woman of many talents and has two lovely daughters and a rehab mobile home homestead to raise.

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