Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Eggs

Well, the eggs that our setting Silkie were setting on have not hatched. Most of them have broken to reveal rotten contents (though one broken egg had a dead baby chick inside).

But, there is some good news: I put some newly gathered eggs under her a couple of weeks ago, and after holding a crank-up flashlight to the egg and borrowing a friends candler, we can see a little chick moving around in at least one of the three eggs! The egg is white, and I think that it may be a Polish egg, but not certain! The other two are Ameracauna and a brown egg.

Even more, yet another Silkie has gone broody, around the same time (or a little later) when I put in the new eggs. And the three Silkie eggs that she has been setting on also show signs of moving chick life!! They could be pure Silkie chicks or even mixes with the mixed breed! One of the eggs has a little dent in it, and it's unknown how it got there, but we can still see the chick moving...

Here is a description of the eggs: There are blood veins showing. The shadows of the chick are a little bit lighter, and there are dark spots moving around (possibly eye, beak?). There are also some sqiggly lines that seems to be moving, maybe part of the chick. If anybody knows how old fertile eggs are at this age, please tell me, because I don't remember when I put them in/ when the hen started setting!

Please pray for the best of luck and possibly some chickies soon!!

~chickengirl~

2 comments:

A Bite of Country Cupcakes said...

Bummer! She was on alot of eggs for a small chook,Mabey that was part of the probelm??
Silkies are meant to be great broodies though so heres hoping this time around is a great success.
It is just the best.
Heres a link I found useful when we hatched eggs recently...
http://msucares.com/poultry/reproductions/poultry_chicks_embryo.html

Don said...

That's too bad. It has been cold!!

Here is another site I was just looking at too:

http://www.backyardchickens.com/LC-candling.html