The Magic Of Easter (Chicks)

Twenty days ago, we put 18 freshly laid eggs in an incubator, added a little water to the CIRCULATION trough, and plugged it in. Tomorrow, which will be 21 days exactly, we will have fuzzy, yellow chicks. It's incredible really. Any other day and I'm cracking eggs into a bowl to eat. But cook them at 100° for 21 days and you get a chicken. Astounding to me.

Jane woke me up this morning with a look on her face like Christmas morning. "We're going to have chicks," she said. The chicks were cheeping and cracking through their shells already.

This shouldn't actually be a big deal for us. We've done this six or seven times before. But unlike our last rooster, our current one didn't seem overly romantic. In other words, he wasn't tackling a poor hen every time we turned around and giving her what-for, which is what our last rooster did. Our old hens often looked like they'd been put through the wringer. Well, apparently, the new guy is doing his business, he's just doing it with a lot less fanfare, not to mention wear and tear on the hens.

Even though they're not supposed to be here until tomorrow, we have several eggs that have little holes in them and at least one that is working pretty hard to get out. The whole thing makes Jane a little claustrophobic. Imagine being stuck in a shell, trying to get out. Yuck.

The chicks have a little sharp part on their beaks at this point that helps them poke a little hole in the egg. From that little hole, they struggle to crack the rest of the egg. You can see them resting and panting, in between struggles. You can't help them. If you do, they'll just die. And if they can't get out in a certain amount of time, they'll also die. It's survival of the fittest. Only the strong survive.

We've had years where nearly every egg hatches, and we've had off years where maybe only half do. There are a lot of variables, so it's hard to know why.

Which is why we have 18 eggs in there at the moment. We certainly don't want or need 18 chickens. Then once you do hatch them, a few die along the way. They drown in their waterer or get trampled by the other chicks. It's a rough start.

If I had to guess, I'd say we'll end up with about a dozen when it's all said and done.

Most are going to Julia and Mike (my step-daughter and her husband), but a few are probably going to end up at Stan's Crow Creek farm. Stan is also getting our extra rooster.

That's right, we have an extra rooster. Little fact for you non-chicken-raising-people. You can only have one rooster in the hen house. That's no joke. Otherwise it's chaos. So we had to kick one out. He's just been hanging around the yard. I used to kill them. Just chop off their heads and feed them to the crabs at the end of our road. But I don't like doing that. And he's beautiful. He's just one too many.

So he's moving up the road to live with Stan. And a few ladies will join him once they're old enough. If they don't all get picked off by owls, hawks and eagles, or eaten at night by coyotes, weasels, raccoons, or foxes, they'll be fine.

Easter Chicks | Hatching Eggs

Throughout the time we've been living in this house, we've hatched chickens a number of times. Some have been more successful than others. We've had some not make it. We've had some come out deformed, and then not make it. But mostly is a miracle of nature. You collect eggs for about a week, put them in an incubator, and exactly 21 days later, bright yellow fuzzy chicks pop out. It's crazy.

I wrote a story in 2001 called Chickens In The Brothel about the first time we got chickens and looking back on it now, I realize how far we've come, and at the same time, how nothing really has changed. I'm certainly not sitting in the middle of the chicken yard watching the chickens run around anymore. Jane has to usually yell at me now to feed and water them, and collect their eggs. I guess the novelty wore off.

But we're hatching chicks again, which we haven't done in awhile. They should hatch on Easter morning. Jane wanted to do it as much for our grandson Paxton as anything, but also our daughter Julia and her husband Mike are going to take the chicks.

We have only one concern. Our rooster doesn't seem to be overly amorous, or at least not when we're around. Our past roosters were pretty dominant. It was a pretty violent act from all accounts. We're hoping we don't end up 21-day-old partially cooked eggs.