Day 12

We're down to five Frizzle eggs and one of the Silkie feathered green-egg layer eggs. Had another blood ring yesterday we had to toss out.

I do have more eggs coming from the same lady, DipsyDoodleDoo on BackyardChickens . They should arrive Friday/Saturday.

We are all getting excited about these babies hatching! It's so amazing to see them moving around within their shell when I candle them! My friend, Dorey, said I was creating my own baby ultrasound ;-)

We are in the last five hours of day 12. Click the link below to see a developing chick on each day.

Day by Day Unborn Chick Development

We've been really busy getting ready for Christmas! I've still got a few gifts yet to make for the kids, but I am confident I will get them done without stressing.

We bought new furniture for the family room yesterday!!! The first new furniture we've ever bought for the family room. We are all excited! I'll post photos in a few days after it is delivered and the room presentable.

Take Care!

Hatch update

It took me nearly 4 days to get the temps stable in my incubator. It would stabilize, then go crazy again. Now, it's stable for the third time and has been stable since Wednesday night.

I just got done candling all 12 remaining eggs (after one was dropped the other day).

The 1 Silkie feathered green egg layer...the shell has gotten so dense I can't tell anything except where the air sac is now. So I'm going to keep it in the bator full term. Does the dense/thick/opaque shell mean anything I should know about?

The 11 Frizzle eggs:
2 blood circles (dated 11/30 and 12/2). Blood circles means that a chick was developing and "quit" for unknown reasons.
3 clear (dated 11/29 and two from 11/30) I'm sure they were too old by the time I got my temps stable(for the 3rd and final time) Clear means the eggs were not fertile or nothing ever began to develop.

The other 6 are FANTASTIC!!!! Get this, one of the 11/29 ones, we're even thinking it might have 2 chicks in it!!! Either it's two or if it's one, it's pretty big and HATES the light. There was lots of swimming around when I was candling it. I'll look at it again tomorrow or Wednesday night to see if I can tell better for sure.

Mike even watched me candle the eggs and he's the one that first noticed I might have an egg with twins in it even before I did.

Bring it on!

Tomorrow's forecast??

"Snow and Wind, high 34 degrees". YAHOO!!!! Bring on the snow, baby! It's actually supposed to start snowing this evening and through the night.

You see, before we moved to Amarillo, TX 2.5 years ago, I had never seen "real" snow. I grew up in central Louisiana and lived for most of my adult life in the Houston, TX area. So, the most snow I'd ever seen up to that point was little "flurries", mostly flakes that never stuck to add up to anything.

On November 30, 2006, we got an awesome snow!!! Seven inches!! I'm told that is not normal for so early in the season here, but I LOVED IT!!! It actually started falling around 7pm on November 29, and snowed through the night. I was in total heaven. I stayed up most of the night with a roaring fire in the fireplace and crocheting while watching the snow fall through the sliding glass door. This photo is of the houses across from the house in which we were living at the time. We hadn't purchased a snow shovel or boots yet, so couldn't get across to take photos of our house.

The rest of that winter, we seemed to get a couple of inches about every other week. It would come, then melt away in a day or two. HEAVEN I tell ya!

Last winter was awful. I think the most snow we had at one time was 2 inches. Mostly the winter was COLD and BITTERLY windy! YUCK!

So, I keep hearing locals saying they predict a snowy, hard winter this year. We'll see. I hope they are right!

I'm busy today trying to get the house cleaned and everything picked up so that I can spend tonight and tomorrow watching the snow fall in front of a roaring fire and crocheting or sewing!

I've read all my favorite blogs for the day. The incubation of the eggs is doing perfectly.

I'll leave you with this image. Wish it was our place ;0)

Have a great day!

Day 1

We finished the incubator around 10pm last night and it took until 1:45am to get the temperature and humidity levels stabilized and where they should be. The eggs went into the incubator at 1:45am on 12/7/08 for "day 1". Expected hatch date should be early 12/28/08.

We used the directions from "MissPrissy" over at Backyardchickens.com/forum to build our homemade incubator. Our ice chest is the same brand as hers, but looks to be about 1/3 larger. I also had to bump up to a 40 watt light bulb in order to get the temps up high enough. The incubator is so large I could incubate 5 dozen eggs in there at once, easily. Hummmm.

Here's the link to her instructions:

MissPrissy's Homemade Chic Chick Incubator

We were all involved in the making of the 'bator last night. Here's photos!

Mike swears he doesn't give a flip about anything to do with my chickens. Then why in the heck was he sitting there at midnight waiting for the temps to get where they need to be so I could put in the eggs???? LOL

Gregory checks out the incubator situation nearly as much as I do! :0)

Pardon the mess in my sewing room. I am in the middle of re-arranging things to make room for my chicks and the incubator!

and so it begins

Our new members arrived today!

They have been removed from their voyage to us box and are now "resting".

They will go into the incubator tomorrow.

We've been busy

We are making all new ornaments for our tree this year, everything handmade.

Everyone is having a great time and the ornaments will all be complete this week. We'll even have some available for sale at etsy. I will post the link when they are there and available.

I'm working diligently on them, as well. Just turns out I'm usually the one behind the camera. :-)