From Egg to Chick!

It's no surprise to those of you who know me at all that we LOVE our ladies! I must admit that one of the very best parts of moving out of a neighborhood is that we can have animals (that don't live in the house). Looking forward to the next step...getting a barn so we can get a few 'bigger' animals!

We've had our ladies for a little more than a year and we love them for more than the convenience of not putting eggs on our grocery list. I love watching the kids jump up when I tell them that I'm going out to get eggs or feed/water the chickens...that is if I have to mention it at all! Gabe is usually the most eager one to head out there (sometimes 3 or 4 times a day) and check their food/water and get the eggs. Sometimes I imagine that they're thinking, "If this kid would leave us alone, we could get to work!"

Seriously, how beautiful is this?

We know that our ladies, which have just turned one, will never lay as well as they have this past year, so we're certain that to keep the egg production up, we've got to restock our supply. The bad news is that when you want a chicken to sit on her eggs, she usually doesn't. When you don't want her to sit on them...that's when she does! So, my CFO and I had a meeting this weekend and we decided that purchasing an incubator would be a good investment and a fun experience for the kids...AND US! Matt tried to play it off, but when I popped open that box last night, he went from being completely emmerced in work at the kitchen table to practically knocking me over to get a peek!

We also spent some time making a poster so that the kids could see what was happening inside the eggs as they develop. 21 days and counting! Hopefully the end result will be a tray full of baby chicks!

Interesting fact: Those little chicks have a beating heart by the 2nd day!

Since we only get about 6 - 8 eggs a day from our ladies and you've got to get them in the incubator quickly (and we wanted to fill our 41 slotted tray), we partnered with our friends, the Tucks, who have a plethora of fertile eggs (they're in the egg business).

So, here they are...35 Tuck/Martin eggs! Is there a better word than, 'DORK' to describe how excited I am about this?

And, leave it up to the Tucks to step it up a notch and add a duck egg! I'm looking forward to seeing that little waddler, too!

Updates to come!