Party in the Incubator!

Sorry, couldn't help myself...candled with Kenzie and Geordie tonight. Geordie was keen to double, triple check that there was nothing in his egg before the new one came. He is worried that we will throw a chicken away! I have promised that we will leave his egg in the incubator along with his new one - just in case!

All the others (apart from Fee's) were really wriggling about. It is a little bit eerie sitting in the dark watching these shadowy outlines bob about!

Not surprising when you realise at 11 days they look like this!

Too exciting...

Al

Dreaming about chicks!

Can't believe I am even dreaming about them now! In my dream none of them hatched - let's hope it was not a premonition!

Had email from Mark to say he is sending new eggs tomorrow and he also answered all of the 3,000,000 questions I sent him!

Today's dilemma is around the humidity in the incubator. You have to have a certain level of moisture to allow the eggs to develop. Too little they die, too much they die! In the last few days you have to significantly increase the humidity for the final 'push'!

The instructions on my incubator are really vague and just suggest that you fill the designated spaces with water from day one - if this is the case then there is no capacity to increase the humidity later on.

Who would have thought it would be this complex? It would have been easier to just sit on them myself for 21 days. At this rate if any do hatch they will probably be wearing arm bands!

Must resist the urge to candle them again tonight - it is really addictive, but I am sure it can't be good for them!

Al

Having bought new batteries and ended up with a much brighter light!! I have candled the eggs again, this time with the children. Got a great result from all apart from Fee's and Geordie's that still show nothing. Mine looked as if it was having a party!!

Have emailed Mark to request more eggs or just some good advice!

Will let you know!

Eggs Away!

Tomorrow night the eggs are going to stay over at Granny's house as we are having a night away! Granny is perturbed by the responsibility!

A Perturbed Granny!

We found out something very interesting about candling our eggs!

This is what an egg looks like with a candling torch at 7 days!

This is what is inside! That is AMAZING!

Al had bought some new batteries for his candling torch and we are going to have another look tonight!

I cannot wait because every time we come to candling the eggs I am at a sleepover but this time I am at home. also Al did not want to candle my egg with out me so no one has seen my egg yet!

A am very excited about the eggs hatching and seeing if they are fertile, but I am prepared if they are not!

Kendal

Hmmmmm!

Chicken house arrived today and is now cluttering up the dining room waiting to be painted! I re-candled the eggs tonight and am still not sure about some of them. Not helped by the fact that my candling torch keeps going dim while I am using it!

I was sure that I had seen a 'dot' in my egg on Tuesday but today no sign! In some of them there is a clear dot, but seemingly nothing in the others. This is the evening of Day 7 in the incubator. Will try again at the weekend and then if I still can't see anything I will get back in touch with Mark for advice/more eggs!

Fee and I went to Heaton Park Farm with 8 children yesterday! I was really over-excited when we reached the chicken enclosure. I began a 'how ace are these chickens?' rant at the children, only to find that my enthusiastic chicken keeping presentation had been upstaged by two female Alpacas who were getting very amorous, being VERY loud about it and during their cavorting, intermittently spitting at the assembled crowd of gobsmacked children. Fair enough I say - next to that sort of floor show most things appear dull! Even me!

Heaton Park Lovelies!

Lap Dancing, Spitting, Attention Seeking Alpacas!!



Al

Fee's Hen House Challenge!

I know it is early days - when we don't even know if we have fertile eggs or not - but I have ordered my hen house.

Man Alive! I cannot believe how expensive some of those chicken shacks are! Neale and Graham were good to their word and said they were happy to start building me one from scratch, but when Graham was talking about using some old bits of decking that he had found at the back of a compost heap and a few rusty nails... I began to think that there must be something a little more chic out there in a price range that I could convince Fee was reasonable!

After lots of searching I found this one retailing at £74.99.

Neale reckoned that we would struggle to build it from scratch for that and it comes 'flat pack' so he will still be able to fulfil the requirements of his voucher!

The challenge for my lovely wife is to do her stuff and turn it into a vintage residence for 'our girls'. Can't wait to see how it turns out. Who can forget the fantastic job she did on Tilly's pig house? I of course will keep you posted!

If you want to check out Fee's current gorgeous items for sale you can find her at

http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/Chipper-Nelly__W0QQ_armrsZ1

Al

First Try at Candling....

Today was our first try at candling. It was harder than we thort!

It was hard to see anything, but we thort we saw a dot in mine and daddy's we are not shure about the rest.

Mark from Cockadoodlequack left a message for us on the blog yesterday (thank you Mark) saying that he does not candle until 7-10 days, so we are going to try again on Friday!

Kenzie