The plan was to wait until I was able to hatch out some of our own chicks and then make the second rooster into stew. You see, he was a beautiful rooster and he was very good at doing what roosters do. That is: crowing all day long every day starting at about 3 am, protecting his flock (aka attacking me), and making it with the ladies. His was the life that most roosters could only dream of - and it was becoming our nightmare. Let's just say that showing up sleep deprived to work bleeding from rooster gashes on your legs was getting old. Not only that but he liked the ladies a little too much. They were loosing feathers on their backs and some were so bad that they were quite bald from his mounting. It was time for him to go. So when the 12 eggs that I put in the incubator were just days from hatching and everything looked good the rooster met his end with as much grace and dignity as we could give him.
Then we discovered the truth behind the old saying: don't count your chickens before they hatch. When hatching day came only 2 of the 12 eggs we had incubated hatched. A third tried but didn't make it out of the shell. I've read that you shouldn't help them get out because if they are too weak to make it out of the shell, they will be too weak to make it in a flock. Twenty one days of turning eggs, and making sure the humidity was right and only two baby chickens to show for it. Good thing they were cute! We spent alot of time handling these chicks every day and it has definatly payed off. As they grew into chickens they were never afraid of us and were pretty easy to catch compared to the ones that we got that were a month old.
No comments:
Post a Comment