Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Hatch Report

alright.... only 4 months late! 

Hatching this year was pretty disappointing. I think I know where I made my mistake** so that will be helpful in planing for next years hatch (oh yes, I will not be deterred). We had two chicks hatch, both in the middle of the night while we were all sleeping. The second chick didn't make it past 24 hours old. She/he was floppy from the get-go so I knew something was wrong. 

**I believe I had the temperature too low during incubation. I wasn't totally trusting the thermometers and for some reason had it on the low side even though I felt like they were too cold. There were quiet a few chirping and rocking that never made it to hatching. sad. 


May (and I) wake up at 3am to find we were probably 20 minutes late to the first hatching. Still exciting!



Because chicks like to be with other chicks we had to go to the local feed store and buy some more chicks for our lonely chick. They make you buy 6 chicks at a time so now we have a lot! Our chick was a bit of a bully at first while the others recovered from the transit. After about 12 hours or so everyone was normally socializing. 






Well, we already have 5 chickens and don't need anymore (hindsight is 20/20 haha) so we made arrangements for these new guys to get a new home in Philly. Unfortunately one of our cats (we think Kit Kat due to what happened next in our summer animal adventures) killed 2 of the chicks before they went to their new home.



So lets recap: 2 hatched, 1 dies, 6 bought = 7 - 2 killed = 5 whew!

^^this is the one we hatched ^^

bye bye 2012 chicks!