Special eggs in the incubator

Thursday I built a new homemade incubator. I will post a complete tutorial later today, but wanted to post about day 1.

Fair warning, this is a long post.

I have 14 Serama eggs in the incubator, due to hatch on Thanksgiving Day. The eggs in this hatch are very special. I will tell you why.

In late 2008, I had 2 eggs included as freebies in a batch of eggs I purchased to hatch. I never really was interested in Seramas, but didn't anticipate that they hatch anyway, as Serama eggs don't do well when shipped. Both hatched and I had a pair. Teddy and Nonnie. They quickly won the hearts of all of our family, but had to re-homed (as did all the chickens I had at that time) when we met with some unforeseen circumstances.

Teddy and Nonnie:

Roosevelt, Eleanor and Lily hatched in 1/2010. They were my sweet little trio that started me off on this journey (and obsession) with these amazing little chickens.

We were absolutely smitten with these little chickens. Gregory was so taken with them, that they eventually helped him start to talk. I have posted videos with all of them together previously and along this 21 days to hatch, I will share more.

In October 2010, I had a little girl hatch from this trio, her name was Darla. Then in December 2010, my adorable little fella Travis was hatched from the trio.

Darla:

Travis:

I started 2011 off with 5 Seramas. They lived in our family room in large rabbit cages and I let them outside in our fenced backyard most days for scratching around and fresh air. We came home from running errands in March and someone had opened our gate and my birds were gone. We found Roosevelt and Eleanor on the driveway, Travis was in the front yard. Darla and Lily were nowhere in sight. We spent hours looking for them. We were living in the city limits at the time and asked all the neighbors, but no one had seen them. The next morning, Darla showed up in the backyard, but Lily was gone forever :-(

We moved to our little farm in April of this year. The four of them were at home immediately. They loved being outdoors and having more freedom. In June, Eleanor hatched two eggs. One of the babies was extremely tiny and didn't make it. The other, Austin, was precious. Unfortunately he met with the hand of our first foster son and I was left with none of Eleanor's babies. Two weeks later, Eleanor disappeared.  I was down to three Seramas then. Roosevelt, Darla and Travis. They were inseparable.

This is one of the last photos I have of Eleanor. She is with her baby, Austin, in June.

Travis and Roosevelt are very tame and friendly little guys. Here is a video of them coming when I call them by name.



Darla was a little on the um, diva, side of the personality range, but she was still sweet for the most part.

In early October, a fellow BYC'er gave us seven silkied Seramas for the cost of shipping. We were so excited! Two weeks previous, we adopted two new older puppies for Mike. So do you see where this is going?

Stopping the long story here, one of the new roosters passed away from what seemed like a heart attack. He died in my arms, uninjured from any other animal, knowing he was cared for. Through the course of two weeks, we lost: Darla from the original group and from the new silkied Seramas lost two in addition to the one that passed away.

Now we are down to just five. Roosevelt from my originals and Crockett, Walker, Lady and Victoria from the seven silkied Seramas that we got last month.

So! Back to the eggs in the incubator.

There are three, possibly four that came from Alice before she was killed. Alice was a teeny tiny brown/black silkied Serama. There is one egg from Darla. There are two eggs from Lady. I got eight eggs from a fellow BYC'er that has a quad from Eleanor/Lily/Roosevelt. So these eight will be Roosevelt's grandchildren.

Here's the awaiting grandfather:

Now you know why these eggs are so special and I am hoping each day to get an amazing hatch from them.

Day 1 was yesterday, November 4. Temps are perfect. Humidity is perfect. I check the incubator what seems a million times an hour just to keep tabs on what is going on, which at this time, is nothing of course.

More updates along the way.