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I had around 3 hours this evening with the whole house to myself. What should a girl do in 3 hours of peace and quiet? Yup, you are right, she should go and clean the chicken run and re-bait the rat traps. Isn’t that what YOU would do?
After not being able to candle the eggs the other day I was quite determined to get them done this evening. After the rat traps were well and truly finished with and back in position, and the girls were off the eggs to gobble down some corn (far handier to extract eggs when there is no hen there pecking at your hand every 2 seconds!) I took the chance to lift the first lot out and held them, one at a time, up to the light bulb.
This light source worked well, I think there were a couple of chicks in that lot – not convinced there are chicks in every egg though.
There seemed more eggs in the second lot. I took my time to balance the eggs in one hand and to secure them with the other hand on top. This worked well until I dropped an egg on the floor of the shed. Immediately the shell cracked open, the way you would expect it to, and blood started to seep out of some of the cracks.This was one of the cross-breed eggs – not one of the Pekins.
How terrible do I feel? Obviously there is no way the chick would survive once the egg is cracked. It’s just awful to think that I killed a chick before it was even born. The only thing I wanted dead this evening was a rat – not a chick.Why couldn’t it have been the next egg which looked like a dud?
You’ll be happy to hear there are no photos to illustrate this post.
Meh.