Incubating Chicken Eggs and The First Hatching

Our raising chickens adventure is in full swing and it has been quite the fun and exciting ride!  What an education we have all received so far!  Incubating the eggs and watching them hatch was the coolest of cool experiences for us.

A few months ago Mark started reading everything possible about chickens and decided to take the plunge.  He got an incubator online, tested it and found the motor to rotate the eggs did not work, so the company just sent him a new incubator saying there was no need to send the broken one back.  So, he was lucky to get two incubators for the price of one.

At the end of February we went down the street to a little poultry hobby farm.  Mark liked what he saw and the next week we picked up 48 fertilized eggs for $4 a dozen.  The eggs came from ISA Brown hens and three different kinds of roosters.  Mark had the incubator ready and waiting when we got home.  We filled it with eggs and realized the motor to rotate the eggs on the new incubator did not work with the weight of the eggs, so Mark made a system for us to quickly rotate the egg tray by hand three times a day.  He turned the eggs in the morning and night and Timmy and I turned them during the day.

Mark had a camera on the incubator controls so that he could monitor the temperature and the humidity at any time.  He was so diligent about keeping it right that he would often ask me to make adjustments during the day.  I loved how he took the responsibility of those 48 little eggs so seriously.

After one week in the incubator, Mark taught the boys how to candle the eggs.  With the lights off he used a special flashlight to shine on them.  By looking to see veins or no veins etc, we could tell at that point if the egg was fertilized or had died.  A "yoker" was not fertilized, a "quitter" only survived a few days, and a "winner" was looking good for development.  After going through all 48, Brian and Timmy got really good at telling which it was.  That first week we ended up with 7 "yokers" which were never fertilized and only one 1 "quitter."  So we had 40 good eggs then.  My cousin Rich was staying with us that night so we broke open the quitter and got a great look at what a chick a few days developed looks like.  It was actually very interesting.

The next week we candled the eggs again with some Hsiao cousins.  The eggs all looked good and we could see the chicks moving in their eggs!  We were getting so excited at this point!

On day 18 of incubation (March 9th), we pencil marked the location of the air bubbles within the eggs and Mark prepared everything for hatching.  He removed the egg rotator trays and transferred half of the eggs from one incubator to the other to give them some space for hatching.  He placed the air bubble facing up to give the chicks a better chance at getting air at hatching time.  Then we waited while watching the humidity and the eggs very carefully.  We were looking for the very first pips, or little pecks, in the shells which was the signal to raise the humidity levels significantly to help those chickies not get stuck to their shells.

The first pip was noticed by myself and Timmy on day 20 (March 11th) during the day.  I was so excited I called Mark to tell him his babies were coming!  We put more water in to up the humidity and watched and waited excitedly!  We counted about 7 eggs with pips by that evening.  It didn't look like anything was going to happen soon, so I put the kids to bed.

That night somewhere in the 9:00 hour one big chick started zipping (pecking in a circle) around his egg meaning he was ready to arrive!  

Mark and I were beyond excited now!  We just sat there staring through the milky plastic and taking turns checking through the one hole in the side of the incubator that we could view clearly that one egg.

 Finally at about 10:00 p.m. our first little chick made his way into this world!  It was so amazing I almost woke up the boys, but I knew with 40 eggs they would have plenty of opportunity to watch some hatch.

Mark named him Spartacus.  We watched him for a goodly long while and then I went to bed while Mark stayed up late to watch one more chick hatch.  By morning when the boys woke there were 9 baby chicks hatched!

February 2016

February began full of cold and snow! Timmy was very good about helping me feed the animals (or riding in the hay cart) throughout the month.  I love his company in the afternoons and will miss him next year when he is in first grade!

Then slowly as the month went on the snow began to melt.

It became quite the muddy mess out there.

Then one day at the end of February the snow at our house was gone except an ice pile on the north side of the shop.

Brian and Timmy got really into taking things apart.  I don't even know what this once was, but it was some old electronic/computer part of Mark's.

Both boys celebrated 100 days of school and this was my attempt at dressing Brian up to be 100 years old.  He wanted a mustache.  I obviously need some practice with face paint.

We went to parent teacher conferences.  The boys are doing well. I tried to get a picture of Timmy in front of his penguin.  It's the top one with the book colored blue.  He always loves to color the entire paper.

With Chinese New Year and Valentine's Day so close together it seemed we had a lot of partying going on this month.  I helped organize Timmy's class Valentine's party.  Kindergarteners are so cute!  We had a blast.

The boys loved going through their loot at home and spreading it around the entire house.

Mark bought me a Bosch mixer in February.  I got it just before Valentine's Day so I say it was his gift to me for the day of love.  I keep forgetting to take pictures, but I have made two batches of my mom's whole wheat bread, two batches of cookies, and these Taiwanese green onion bread pancakes, which the boys and I devoured before Mark could even try them.  I have been making six loaves of bread and then freezing them in the freezer that Mark got me for my birthday last year.  Life is so nice with these awesome conveniences!

Timmy really got into puzzles and did every puzzle we have in the house.

At the end of February the school did a fun run fundraiser.  Brian especially got really into the running part.  He loves running and racing!  I helped mark laps all day long and he ran more laps than almost all the sixth graders.  I think they had 30 minutes (someone told me it was 20) to run as many laps (1/16 of a mile) as they could.  Brian did 55 and rocked it!  Overall he ran about 3.4 miles.

He told me later that his goal was to pass any girl he saw in front of him.  This picture was posted on the school website and I had to laugh, because there he is passing a girl is his class.  Most of the girls are at least a foot taller than him too.

Timmy REALLY surprised me with his run.  Before the run I asked him how many laps he thought he could do and he said, "Maybe 6 or 8."  Well, he ended up doing 42!  He just kept running and running and didn't stop. He was so cute!  

I loved his stretches before it began in his long dress like T-shirt.  Overall it was a great experience for the boys and made me realize they would love to do some family races this summer.

At home the boys helped Mark fill the basketball hoop with the extra gravel we had.  They need the basketball hoop to practice shooting now that they play basketball on Saturdays.

We of course did lot so of reading each night.

One Saturday we stopped by a fundraiser for Mark's high school friend and Timmy got his face painted and both boys got their first haircut from a professional instead of their dad.

The haircuts were great, but I'm happy with Mark cutting their hair as long as he's willing.

At the beginning of the month Brian sang in a Primary choir for Stake Conference.  He is getting so good at singing and is really enjoying it.

We did a lot of cello playing, and on the weekends for their practicing I have tried just playing through songs for fun together as the Hsiao Cello Trio.  This is definitely the reward for all the hard work!  We certainly aren't dressed up here and we have weekend hair, but I just had Mark take a quick video since he was there for this time.

The big farm project for the month was to get 48 chicken eggs started incubating.  The chickens are Mark's project since he is the one who has learned everything about them and is building the coop etc.  I have loved just being along for this fun adventure!  The eggs have been incubating in our basement for two weeks and we have one week left before they hatch!  There will definitely be more to come about our chicken adventures!  We are so excited for hatching weekend!

One miraculous Sunday in February I stayed extra long after church at choir practice and Mark arrived home from church at the same time as us (this is very rare considering all the bishopric stuff he usually has).  When we all got home I realized we were all dressed up and we are very rarely all dressed up together and I needed some pictures of Brian for his baptism, so I was able to convince everyone to snap a few pictures outside.  Here's our latest dressy family pictures.  It's been two years since the last!  I love this family of ours!

This guy will be 8 years old in a few weeks!

Chinese New Year

We celebrated Chinese New Year a little differently this year with Mark's parents gone.  None of his family could find a time to get together this year so we did our own thing.  We definitely missed the Hsiaos and I definitely missed Alice's food.  However, I have to say Mark did an amazing job of stepping in and acting the part of his mom for our celebration.  He has her natural ability at making amazing Chinese food.

Our friends invited us to go to the celebration at the Salt Lake Library with them, so we invited them to our house to take part in a little bit of the Hsiao New Year traditions.  At the library we watched a lion dance, Chinese dancers and other performances, and made paper lanterns.

Then we headed home to prepare our dumplings!  Timmy was beyond excited about everything!

The only picture I got of Mark making food was him doing this easy task of pouring the chicken broth in for the hot and sour soup, which was delicious, but not totally the same as his mom's.

The Cooke's helped fill the dumplings and we cooked them and ate our dinner.  The kids loved looking for a penny, date, peanut or piece of rice cake inside the dumplings.

Then it was red envelope time!

Because the kids go to a Chinese Dual Immersion school, we had a lot of chances to celebrate this holiday at home and at school.  Timmy became obsessed with his Chinese outfit that Alice gave him a few years ago.  It is on the small side this year and I know it won't fit him next year.  He wore it for about 5 days straight!  I think he thought that when he put that thing on it magically turned him into a professional fighting ninja warrior or something.  He carried this sword and fan around for days and he was so funny.  He learned how to open the fan fast with one hand and it was not used as a girly fan, but a weapon along with the sword.  He kept his weapon with him at all times and would have even slept in his outfit if I would have let him.  After watching how cool Timmy seemed in his Chinese outfit, Brian really wanted one too.  Alice, I think I may have just realized what I want you to bring me from Taiwan. . .two Chinese shirts, or outfits if they aren't too expensive, for the boys!

Timmy and I went to Brian's Chinese class to help the kids make dumplings. For some reason the kids in Brian's class are obsessed with Timmy so he and Brian get tons of attention whenever he comes with me to help.  They had so much fun!

Brian's Chinese teacher gave all the kids red envelopes with real Chinese money inside!  Brian thought it was the coolest thing!

At school the kids did Chinese art projects, and got chopsticks for lunch and watched some more Chinese dancers.  We had some major celebrations for this new year of the monkey and it was fun!