Culling day

It came a bit earlier than we expected- one of our meat birds was acting funny- not moving, shivering and generally not acting right. Rather than letting it suffer (and most likely die anyway), the Mr. culled it and it's in the fridge now waiting for the grill. It's way smaller than we would have liked, but that's to be expected since they're not destined for the table for a few more weeks.

He said that he learned a few things- namely, that a chicken neck doesn't have much resistance when pitted against a grown man (we decided that breaking it's neck is more humane than slitting it's throat and less messy than chopping the head off).

So it's done- the first kill. It still felt awful, but I keep reminding myself that a chicken still dies when we buy it at the store. Being oblivious to the fact that it dies doesn't do anyone a lick of good. At least this way, we know that the chicken was cared for well during it's short life and that it died respectfully.

My kid is all sorts of confused LoL

I went to make Jib eggs for breakfast, and one was broken in the carton, so I tossed it. Jib looks at it and says "poor thing". I said "What?" and again he repeats in his almost 3 year old very concerned tone "Poor thing" *sigh* So I asked "Why is it a poor thing?" and he says, "Chickie in there" *dramatic pause* "Gina take pictures?"

(for those of you not following, we just hatched some chickens, one of them didn't hatch and I took pictures and posted them on my blog. And yes, my child sometimes calls me by my first time and I am totally okay with that ;))

I have my laundry room back!

And thank goodness, because the laundry was really starting to pile up! We finally moved the meaties into the family room, along with the egg layers. Now the only ones in the main part of the house are the baby Silkies, which are right in the livingroom.

Unhatched

If you've been following for a while, you might remember that one of our eggs had a crack in it from shipping, so I coated it with wax to seal it in hopes that it would hatch anyway. Things were going perfectly until around day 16 or 17 when we candled and couldn't see any movement. We decided to keep it in the incubator just in case the embryo was sleeping or something. After the hatching of the other 3 eggs, I recandled, and again saw no movement. I also noticed that the egg just didn't feel right and so decided to pronounce it "unhatched".

Out of curiosity, I used a pin to chip away at the eggshell. I was careful not to puncture the membrane, just in case I was by some chance wrong with the candling. If the baby had been viable for some reason and just not moving, I would have known by looking at the membrane. Alas, this was not the case, so I took a bunch of pictures of her so that she did not die in vain. I figure someone may find these useful scientifically. If not, she is still beautiful in her own sad way.

Please- if you have children, watch the slideshow first and use your own judgement as to whether they can handle the photos or not. We showed Jib, who will be 3 next month. We told him that she just wasn't strong enough to hatch because she stopped growing, and sometimes things like this happen. He was sad about it for a minute, wanted to touch her (which I let him and then made him wash his hands, he just wanted to pet her head). He then wanted to see the other chicks that were still hanging out in the incubator, I think to make sure that they were still in there. All in all, I think it was a good learning experience for him even at this young age; but I know every child is different.

I had to resize the slideshow to get it to show up in it's entirety on here. If you'd like to view the full size version, please leave a comment and I'll email it to you. Thanks!

A baby chick hatches

This is video of our Silkie chicken hatching yesterday 3/27. Sorry about the audio, I know the music doesn't fit with the video but it's better than the original commentary by the Mr. and JibJib.

Stay tuned...

for more pics. The babies are still drying, and I can't take them out for pictures until they're nice and fluffy.

We have a blue baby!

Here's baby number one, a blue Silkie. S/he is adorable, and feather footed. I could just snort it right up. Be prepared for many many pictures, some of which are pretty much the same. I just can't stop myself, it's so dern cute!