Incubation

Our "yard hens" lay eggs all over the place, and most of the time Maike finds the nests and eats them. But this year, Dan, Grandpa & G made an effort to find the nests before Maike did. Twenty-one days ago (the incubation period for a chicken egg) they put 42 eggs in an incubator to see what would happen. Lo and behold, this morning there are several eggs with evidence of chicks trying to break out. We are also hearing intermittant peeping. Stay tuned for "The Great Chick Hatch of 2008" news!

This chick is the most determined of the lot! (If you enlarge the photo, you can see a white dot and some crazing on the egg to the right where another one is starting to work its way out)