The Chicken Chronicles - Part 2

So, we're down to the last few days before the babies start coming, so I stocked up with starter food and pine bedding. 

This is our brooder. Nala generously shared one of her dog luxury items because, of course, it's not hot enough for a girl to be poolside quite yet. 

Yellow partitions made slightly higher sides.

Feeder and waterer set.

Warmer ready to go.

Paper towel over the bedding for the first few days to discourage filling up on pine shavings. Chickens are worse than goats... they'll eat just about anything.

Our little coop is done. 

They won't live here until about 6-8 weeks old.

The Chicken Chronicles... part 1

We've decided to venture into backyard chicken keeping... my next few posts will chronicle these adventures. I've done so much research and studying to make sure I'm doing it all right, that I'm just now getting to a point of enjoying this! Ahhh... such is my nature, though...


March 5th - our eggs arrive! (yes, I bought them through a farmer out of Kansas I found on Ebay!)

We ready the incubator, adjusting humidity and temperature to 37.5*C exactly. It takes about 2 hours to stabilize before we can add the eggs.

We set 7 Black Australorp eggs... 21 days to hatch.

At 10 days of incubation (March 15th), I candled the eggs to see if all were developing.Two were not, so I disposed of them so that they would not burst and infect the "good eggs." In this picture, you can clearly see the air cell at the bottom... that is a space outside of the internal membrane that the chick will pierce and draw in the air while readying itself to break through it's shell.

Look closely... you can see the veins inside the egg. The darker area on the left side of the egg is developing chick. 11 more days to go!