Today is an exercise in patience.
We put 48 eggs into the incubator on the 19th of January and expected to see some signs of hatching by February the 4th.
Well, we did – one little egg pipped, its tiny beak cracking through the shell, and then… we saw nothing for 24 hours. At that point it was Saturday night, more eggs were starting to show signs of beginning their slow process of hatching. The song “I want to break free” by Queen comes to my mind when incubation is at that stage. I anxiously awaited the gifts of nature as I knew we’d have many more than the previous hatching.
Hours passed, and we still had what looked to be the same amount of eggs trying to open.
We did the smart thing. It was after 11. Gary and I went to bed.
This morning we woke to at least a dozen tiny birds in the incubator, playing kickball with their other incubator-mates that hadn’t hatched yet. Hatching eggs takes time, and patience. It’s dinner time here on the homestead and we have probably another half dozen that have greeted the world today. By 6 pm now we may have about 20 of these cute little buggers.
Patience. It’s definitely been our watchword today.
But frankly – when the reward is these little cuties, it’s worth it.
Oh and at some point tonight, we have a whole lot more eggs coming in (via much-delayed priority mail) that will go into the incubator after these guys have graduated. We are bringing in some new genetics to our covey in order to grow, and they were supposed to be here on Friday. Let’s hope that they didn’t have a freeze and that they didn’t get mashed!
Meanwhile – Patience. It’s a good thing to have.
Annie is a semi-retired homebirth midwife, a doula trainer, and a farmer’s granddaughter. It all ties into her mad plan to be as self-sufficient as she can while returning to her roots.