The Hatch and The Winner Announcement

Thank you all for liking pages, sharing, and leaving comments to enter the Brinsea Mini Advance giveaway.  We really enjoyed seeing what Brinsea items you like and hearing tidbits of your hatch stories!

The winner of today's giveaway is... Angela Lashley  

Congratulations. we hope that you are able to hatch many healthy chicks with this incubator!  We would like to say a big Thank You to Brinsea for making this fun hatch and giveaway possible!

The chicks first photo shoot

The Hatch

Hope you enjoyed the sneak peek of our fluffy chicks.  Our whole family are loving their presence in our home.  I was out doing some shopping today and I kept thinking I was hearing chicks peep!  I think that my ears are getting used to constant peeping in the background. Since our chicks ended up hatching over a period of about 2 1/2 days I decided that the easiest way to tell about it would be to share a timeline with you all.

Day 19- Being a very inexperienced "chicken farmer" I decided to candle the eggs and discovered that one egg looked as though it was no good but all of the rest were perfect. Later I was educated and realize that I broke a very big rule of incubating, I should have candled the day before and then put my incubator on "lockdown".  Nothing bad happened as a result but it could have so... do not do what I did.  As I was putting the eggs back in the incubator I started hearing peeping.  At first I thought it was a bird out side, then I realized that it was a blue egg peeping at me.  Eggciting!!  A few hours later the chick had peeped through its egg and was on its way to hatching.  I was a little scared because the chick was early, but it hatched out in the middle of the night and when I got up to check on it at about 2:00 am it was resting in the incubator.  Since the chick was early none of the other eggs had peeped through their shell's and the chick seemed to be beating itself around an awful lot in the incubator I took it out after it had dried and look strong enough.  We named this first little guy Early.  Of course because it came early!

Early coming out of his/her shell.

Early snuggling it "friend" before all the other chicks hatched.

Such a cute little thing!

Day 20- Early was doing great and another chick peeped through it's egg.  Again the chick waited until the wee hours of the morning to make it's way out of the shell.  Since no other eggs had chips or wholes once the chick got dry and started getting "wild" in the incubator I took it out and let it join Early under the warm light.  After talking to my Aunt Angie she said it would have been fine to leave the chick in the incubator for longer than I did.  Being a first timer I didn't know this.  Our second chick was lovingly named Henny Penny.  Early decided to show Henny Penny who was boss after we put them together under the light.  My oldest daughter came running through the house yelling,"MOM WE HAVE AN EMERGENCY!!"  thinking the worst I ran to the laundry room/chicken farm only to find Henny Penny on it's back with Early picking at the poor chick!  Emma was screaming almost crying, "He my friend! Don't hurt my friend!"  Oh the drama of having little girls!! We got Henny Penny back on it's feet and after a little time spent together the chicks became friends.

Early and Henny Penny are taking a much needed nap!

Ella and her buddy Henny Penny

Day 21- Early and Henny Penny were waiting on all of their friends to hatch and the eggs did not disappoint.  That morning there was much peeping and movement coming from the remaining four eggs.  By noon all four had peeped through their shells and were on their way to hatching.  We had to leave the house for the afternoon and evening so I fully expected to have an incubator full of chicks when we arrived home.  To my surprise only one chick had hatched out.  I resisted the urge to take it out of the incubator and left the chick in to encourage the others to hatch.

Chick #3 who is now being called Crazy.. he is a little crazy!

Eva admiring Crazy chick!

By about 10:00 pm nothing more had happened with the eggs and I sent my Aunt a text asking what if anything should I do.  She replied and said that if they weren't moving or doing anything then they may not hatch, she suggested I give them more time and then if nothing still maybe think about assisting an egg to see what would happen.  I finally went to bed and then got up again at 1:00, nothing had changed with the eggs.  After reading on the internet that sometimes if you talk to and encourage hatching chicks it can help them to find strength to get out of the egg I decided it was worth a try.  So in my very best cheerleader voice I started  cheering on the chicks. (I was never a cheerleader so I am not really sure what that voice is.)  After a few minutes the eggs started to wiggle and then the chicks started to zip around the eggs.  With in 15 minutes two chicks had hatched!! Talk about exciting!  It could have been total coincidence that the chicks hatched then but I like to think that my encouragement helped them along.

This is a short video of chicks 4 and 5 hatching out.  They are the only ones I actually witnessed hatching.  It was so neat!!

There was one egg left that had made no progress, I could see the chick barley moving its beak under the shell and it wasn't peeping anymore.  It was 2:00 am and I started looking on youtube for videos on how to help a chick out of its shell.  I found a very helpful video and following it's instructions I removed just the shell from then end of the egg.  It was tedious work and I was very careful to leave the membrane like the video suggested.  I tried to work quick and when finished put the egg back in the incubator laying a warm wet paper towel next to it to help increase the humidity.  I had know idea if this would help but thought it was worth a try.  I set and watched the chick struggle for a while and decided to go on to bed and just see what happened, fully expecting the chick not to make it. When I got up in the morning I was so surprised to see that the chick had hatched and looked like it was going to survive.  All six of the chicks are still doing great and getting lots of little girl lovins!  Ella, Emma, and Eva all love the chicks and are enjoying getting to help take care of them.

This is the little one that needed some help getting out of the egg.

I know that I have said this over and over but it is the honest truth.. I feel like Brinsea makes a very good incubator for the first time user.  All but one of our eggs hatched perfectly even with the power outage that we had.  Chicken Scratch provided some really great eggs also, I mean come on they survived me making almost every beginner mistake there is!  I feel like our first hatch was a great success, looking at six fluffy chicks and little girls with smiling faces proves just that!!

Hope you have enjoyed following our hatch!  I am sure more photos and stories about our chicks will follow soon!

Melissa