Recently, another one of our game hens went broody; and so we put a bunch of eggs under her, once again hoping the Lord might grant continued perpetuation of the chickens, thus helping us be yet a little more separate from dependence on the world.
And He did!
When culling our roosters recently for butchering (since we indeed had too many), we had decided to keep a few more roosters than what we’ve heard is a typically normal ratio, in hopes more eggs would be fertilized, as we’ve had it where no eggs were fertilized for two broody rounds in a row; and it seems to have helped — 10 out of 11 hatched. At this point, we’re probably at 1 rooster to 2 or 3 or so hens that are currently laying; and we’re probably about 1 to 5 or 6 with all of the other hens included — we’ll see how that goes when the others start also producing, Lord willing.
Below are the new ones in live action. In the video I mention helping one hatch out. It had poked a hole through the shell, where you could see its little beak; but then it sat there the rest of the day. I would tap the egg shell, and it would open and close its beak, so I knew it wasn’t dead. By the time the end of the day drew near, I was bothered it hadn’t made any progress, and was trying to think of some way to help, but had heard it’s not good to help them. And so, I had decided to just let it happen as it was going to happen…until…I thought there must be some way to help it as I thought it was probably going to die if something wasn’t done. I looked up online regarding the topic; and the site I found said not to help, but also said that after a day of it not progressing it was possible to help, and the person gave instructions on what they did. And so, figuring it was probably essentially dead already if something wasn’t done, and that in helping it, even if it died, it was going to be in no worse a situation than it already faced, I decided to see what I could do.
The Web site I found with information about helping a chick hatch said to slowly chip away at the shell in pieces, as a chick would naturally do. In the case when an egg has been opened like this one was, the inner membrane dries out, and will I guess stick to the chick; and so, if you see bleeding, they said to stop and drop warm water around on the membrane to soften it, and try again in a little while. Well, in using some pointed tweezers, I didn’t actually heed that advice at first, and saw blood, but was able to chip away at the shell and gently pull back the membrane. I did this until the chick was free enough to basically move its whole body, which meant probably 2/3 or more of the shell was removed. After, I did go warm up some water, and with an eye dropper dropped some of it on the edges of the shell that was left, in hopes to help the chick more easily separate from the membrane. It just laid there all wet and on its side, and I figured it probably wasn’t going to make it; but the next morning quite happily, there were no dead chicks, and this one was running around with the rest of the hatchlings. You could see on it that day a few places where the membrane had pulled away the fuzz off its body; but in general, it appeared to be ok. I was quite thankful to the Lord, surprised, but very joyous too!
We are once again grateful to God for granting this provision, and we pray they are used for His glory and the benefit of His Church.
— David
