let me first start by saying that jason and i decided early on in the incubation process that chicken are chickens and we can’t be too worried about their growth and development as long as we were doing as much as we can to take care of them and protect them. sometimes incubated eggs die, and sometimes chicks die, and although it is sad, that is the cycle of life.

so as we began to incubate our 27 eggs, we were determined to do what was the best for the chicks when the time came: letting nature take its course. as with human babies, chicks know what time to emerge into the world and generally do a very good job of it once they’re ready (just like humans).

there is always variation in birth, both with humans and chicks, and i was reminded of this while i waited on many of the eggs to hatch. i thought… “this egg has pipped and then done nothing for 24 hours… what’s wrong?”

the answer was: nothing! nothing at all. the chicks were simply waiting to be ready to come into the world. sometimes this included absorbing all of the yolk sac into their abdomen (from which they are provided with enough nourishment for a few days and do not need food or water). other times it might mean that they are still absorbing all of their blood (that was once coursing through the vessels inside of the egg) so that they are born will all of their necessities!

when the chicks are born, they are flopping, gooey creatures that seem spastic and sleepy all at once. they break their own umbilical cord through their writhing and struggles, and generally all other birth residue will dry and/or flake off of them once they become the cute, fluffy boogers that we all know and love.

i wanted to write this post today to show you the variation in birth time and circumstance for our chicks so that you don’t worry if you hatch some chicks of your own!

first of all, i noticed that once the first pip happens, it might be anywhere from 2 to 48 hours before the chick emerges. it is important to be patient during this time and let them follow nature’s guide. i did notice however, that once the chick has pipped all around the circumference of the egg, making it ready to bust the top off, it usually takes about 15 or 20 minutes for the chick to break out. this was the case with all of our 22 hatched eggs, except 1 (i’ll explain the details of this in a future post).

the following is the breakdown of the births, beginning on the 21st day (when chicks are supposed to be due). i’d like to note that eggs were turned for the first 18 and a half days, and then left still afterwards. the incubator was kept at 99.5 degrees and the lid was only removed a few times for candling or adding water to increase humidity.

day 21

• first at 9:39am
• second at 4:26 pm
• third at 6:49 pm
• fourth at 7:50pm (born with a partially unabsorbed yolk sac and died a few days later)

overnight of day 21/early morning of day 22

• fifth-tenth born

day 22

• eleventh at 8:25 am
• twelfth at 11:11 am
• thirteenth at 4:41 pm
• fourteenth at 4:51 pm

overnight of day 22/early morning of day 23

• fifteenth-seventeenth born

day 23

• eighteenth-twentieth born while we were at work
• twenty-first at 9:15pm

day 24

• twenty-second at 9:00pm via my intervention… more details about this intervention and how i knew to intervene in a future post!

i hope this shows how much variation there can be in a chick hatching, just like in human births!

stay tuned for more chick updates!

.:.