Something's Hatching

Freebie Friday

It is about 1 pm here and it has already been an interesting day. We live on a small hobby farm with chickens, goats, rabbits, dogs, and cats. We are pet people. We bought our chickens as 1 week old chicks a little over a year ago. We have four hens and two roosters. A few weeks ago, one of our hens became broody and started sitting on her eggs. I decided to let her sit and see if any of the eggs would hatch. Unfortunately, I didn't keep good record of when the eggs were laid so I don't know exactly when they should have been hatching. Yesterday three of the chicks hatched, but didn't make it I think because of our not-very-nice roosters.

Anyway, I decided to try hatching the rest with a heat lamp because I knew if I left them, the roosters would end up killing all of them. I did leave one egg with the mama hen, so she would have something to sit on. Well, I woke up this morning around 7 am and...

That's right! Hatching...I repeat, we have hatching! I noticed two little eggs had pipped. I heard chirping from one of them and thought I was crazy, but after looking it up apparently once the baby chick has broken through into the air sac inside the egg you can hear it. About 4 hours later, another egg had a pip in it. So, as of right now, we have 3 chicks beginning the process of hatching. We are so excited. Since it is warm where we live right now, we have them just outside the front door with a heat lamp on them. The kids have been sitting just inside the glass door looking out and watching them. I have been telling them it is going to be a while and that God is helping us practice patience with these little babies, but they are bursting with excitement.

I am so excited to share this experience with the kids. I know this will be something they will look back and remember when they are grown. We will talk about that time we hatched chicks on our front porch. It is a thrill making memories with them. This experience was the inspiration for the freebie today! This freebie is for teachers hatching eggs in their classroom, parents hatching eggs with their kids at home, or hobby farmers like myself. It is a chick hatching record sheet that I should have thought of used since the beginning of this journey (maybe next time!). I have also included a sheet for kids to fill out on the life cycle of a chicken. You can get this freebie here.

Also, just FYI, I intend on updating this post with new pictures as the hatching progresses. Keep checking back if you would like to see some pics of adorable fuzzy baby chicks!

Update: A few hours after I posted, this little one hatched. It is happy and healthy. We lost one of the babies that had started hatching, but we are hoping that we will be getting more in the next couple days as these eggs were laid on separate days. It has been an exciting adventure today!😁