 |
| We could've watched these little guys hatch all day! In fact, I think we did. |
Which is how I found myself tenderly driving home a grocery-store egg carton filled with relatively normal-looking eggs wrapped in a towel the first day of our spring break. (Isn't cute that they rode home in an egg carton?)
I heard about the program from a Facebook group and, despite the fact that I didn't want to drive 30 minutes to a random spot in Missouri (twice) at very specific and somewhat inconvenient times to participate, I bit the bullet and signed up. Or, should I say, bit the pullet? Get it? Get it? (No pullets were harmed in the telling of that horrible pun.)
I didn't tell the girls until they caught Matt setting up the ol' incubator. Yes, of course we own an incubator. Doesn't everyone? Even our friends seem to know this about us, as once one called us just to see if we had one, because they'd found a random egg on their lawn and wanted to see if it would hatch (it didn't). Their excitement wasn't diminished by the fact that we also happened to have two types of tadpole eggs in a Tupperware on the kitchen counter, apparently the only place for science experiments in our house full of biologists.
 |
| It's like a schoolbus for eggs. |
At any rate, I was to pick up the eggs Monday afternoon. I was so excited to be handed a dozen chick-nurseries that I forgot to ask what type they were. No matter--we'll love them anyway. Back at home, the girls helped me carefully mark x's and o's on them to help us keep track of the rotation schedule. The eggs were on day 13 of incubation, and would likely hatch around day 21.
Naturally, we made all kinds of rookie mistakes--possibly adjusting thing incubator too high, and adding cold water instead of warm to increase the humidity, which of course made the temperature dip quite a bit. This was all within about the first 12 hours, and I was convinced that we'd already ruined everything. Omelet, anyone?
But we kept on, possibly just because it would've been a huge shame to just give up.
Naomi, who is grossed out by anything "human body," (which includes chicken body, apparently), helped turn the eggs once or twice, but began opting out the first time we candled an egg. Which was unbelievably cool, by the way--we could see veins, the air sac, and, eventually, movement! She also opted out of candling eggs once she got her first view of veins but, fortunately, stuck around for the hatching and the holding of chicks (spoiler alert).
We all quickly got into the habit of watching the eggs, as though they were going to do anything before about day 20-ish. [To be honest, I was watching the temperature, which Matt kept bumping down based on something he'd Googled, and I kept pushing up based on what the care sheet I was handed said.] I personally was surprised by how much time this took. Our first week of chicks happened to land on our spring break week, so ogling a bunch of eggs was no biggie. But the second week...it was a good thing we're ahead in most of our work, because nothing much other than math and writing got done.
This was partly because, as a part of the program I didn't quite understand at first, we actually had to prove that we used the chicks for education, and not just as temporary pets. In truth, I was pretty motivated to dig in anyway, and grateful for the excuse to make the project more academic--even more so because someone else required the work ("Girls, if we don't write papers/stories/etc. about what we learned, they might not let us have chicks next year!"). We spent hours watching chick (and salamander, and frog, and baby) development videos as Naomi closed her eyes, covered her ears, and hummed; reading about chickens and a lonely hawk who raised chicks; labeling the parts of an egg; looking at egg parts under a microscope; learning about chicken breeds and farms; and finally, writing up our projects.
We learned a ton, but the most memorable experience was probably the video entitled "The Natural History of Chickens." What would you expect from this video? Possibly something about how chickens began as wild junglefowl and ended up in virtually every cooking pot, at some time or another, across the globe? Maybe something about different varieties of chickens, and their interactions with chickens? But not, perhaps, a woman who bathes her rooster daily, dresses him up and takes him on car rides, or a man who literally is able to sound exactly like a rooster? I guess we still learned a lot... and I'm glad to say it was too much even for Kalina.
 |
| Chick #1, newly hatched! |
Finally, after turning, candling, fretting, and then, most difficult of all, leaving the eggs completely alone, we were rewarded Monday morning, day 20, with a single hole in one egg--a pip. We hadn't wrecked them all, at least! But we did worry a whole lot more. By that afternoon, the pip had been extended, another egg had been seen to wiggle and, most adorable of all, we heard the cutest little peep from the pipped egg. What's more, the girls and I all were able to watch the egg get "unzipped," and observe through the tiny incubator window as a damp little chick pushed its way out of it's egg, and landed on the mesh floor of the incubator.
We immediately worried. It still had a little piece of egg on it! Would it cut itself on the mesh? Could it walk okay? It's running into other eggs--shouldn't they be left alone? Can it cut itself on an eggshell? It's lonely!!!
 |
| When you have chicks at Easter, you take Easter pictures. Grateful to my neighbor for the suggestion! |
The only thing we actually needed to have worried about was the last one: our chick, instinctively looking for someone to imprint on, was indeed lonely. After the first hour or so that it spent stumbling around on its brand-new legs, he would meet our gaze when we peeked in on him as if to ask, "Are you my mother?" Even worse was the intense, freaked-out peeping. We felt pretty miserable for the little guy, but couldn't do anything about it--he would just have to wait for his brothers and sisters to hatch. One had already pipped, in fact!
We temporarily solved the problem of loneliness but dimming the lights, which seemed to help the little guy get to sleep. Still, it was probably a rough night. The next morning, Little Peep gained two new friends, which only created more problems, as he acted a bit rude, as though having been able to walk for 12 hours already meant that he could pick on those who had only been walking for 30 minutes or so.
Our instructions directed us to remove him from the incubator when he was dry and fluffy. But the copious amounts of water I'd added to the incubator to help with hatching prevented Little Peep from drying out. Do I remove him?!? I sent a frantic email to the coordinator and, upon not hearing back within 15 minutes, decided to remove him anyway to our pre-warmed bin. Because of course we own a heat lamp, too.
 |
| Once the cats realized they couldn't eat the new chick, they decided to befriend it. |
Little Peep clearly missed his friends, as his gentle peeps became loud, troubled peeps again, but the cats soon helped with that by nestling up to the bin and keeping him company. Actually, at first they tried to attack him through the plastic, but quickly learned that they couldn't get in (they're used to bird feeders so they know this game). What's more, we were able to hold the little guy, which seemed to help as well.
 |
| Chick-babysitting is hard work, plus it was naptime. |
Throughout the day, and up until the next morning, 7 more chicks hatched, for a total of 10. (*sniff* It was a sad day when we turned off the incubator.) We were able to observe most of them. We became accustomed to their gentle peeping, and then the real fun began as we gained confidence in holding them. Only about the first 4-6 received names and birth stats, though, as pretty soon we couldn't keep track of them. Little Peep, Snow White, and Pipsqueak were some names. We tracked their first pip, the time they started unzipping, and the hatch time.
Although they weren't supposed to need food for 72-ish hours after hatching, we put some in, seeing as they kept pecking around. Soon, they'd all learned to eat and drink.
 |
| Chick naptime--but I think I woke them up. |
And being flock animals, they quickly adapted to each others' habits. We'd frequently peek in and see everyone napping in little clumps around the bin, only to all wake up like dominos if any one did.
The date set to return the chicks arrived all too soon in all but one respect: their cage needed a good cleaning. We said difficult goodbyes and assured Naomi that they would be taken to nice farms or given to 4-H kids as pets.
I think I was pretty much awarded Mom of the Year for this project, a label quickly forgotten the next time they opened a math workbook or something equally odious. But still, I'm pretty sure that somewhere, somehow, it counts.
No comments:
Post a Comment