Another chicken embryo

Heather cracked her egg for breakfast and we were dismayed to find this little guy.  This is why it's so important to mark eggs and keep tabs on a broody hen's nest.  When a hen goes broody, she stops laying but other hens will come add to her nest and so there is no telling how long eggs have been there if you don't keep track.  When I got around to checking her nest and deciding on marking eggs, she had 20+ in there and I decided to leave her with 12 of them.  We knew there was a possibility of this, so had made sure to put the questionable eggs that I had gathered from her nest into cartons marked "OURS" (so they are not sold) where any stained, dirty, questionable eggs go.  We are always careful to crack our eggs into a bowl individually instead of into a batter or pan.

This one is probably about 7 days along.

I think next time I go to remove eggs from a nest, I will candle them before deciding which ones to leave and take.  :-(  See how to candle an egg here.

Developing Egg

We have a broody hen who we have been allowing to set on 12 eggs.  She is in a corner of the hay shed and very protective of her eggs.  We marked the 12 eggs that we would allow to stay and just gather any extras from the nest once a day.  Today when I went to collect, I found that one of the marked eggs had rolled out of the nest and was stone cold.  I brought it in, knowing that the chick couldn't survive being that cold.  We opened it up for a little science lesson (being homeschoolers, we grab every opportunity).  It was less developed than I thought.  The yolk was completely runny (yolk is absorbed by chick for nourishment) and there was a bit of blood.  The kids didn't think there was anything there, but at closer inspection I found the baby chick, we could see it's eye and little heart slowly beating and then becoming still.  Wow!  From this website, it appears that the chick was about 2-5 days developed.  Amazing little life!  How sad.  Let's hope the next 11 survive.  I put some extra padding around the nest to prevent any others from rolling out, hopefully that will work.

Here are a couple pictures:

More learning and info, including some worksheets for kids is located here.

Here is a YouTube video showing all 3 weeks of development.

Black Jack

We picked up our new buck last week!

 Nubian, black and white - great ears.

Doesn't he look like Jar Jar Binks from Star Wars?

I am tempted to change his name!

He will be bred with Annalise this fall for some great kids and yummy, creamy milk!