It was about 22.30 when I arrived home from Amsterdam, last Sunday evening. I put my backpack on the table and took Janey for a walk. We walked to the school I work in. I had never been there in the dark, but I had to check up on ‘my’ eggs…
One of the eggs had a little hole in it and I could hear another one cheeping. So they were alive and doing well! The next morning, there was indeed a yellow fluffy chick waiting to be taken out of the machine… And here’s a little picture diary of how that came to be…
The first picture was taken in the little store room, as that’s the darkest place in school, besides the toilet. My mum – a very experienced chick-mummy – is holding one of the eggs with a flashlight under it. This way you can see if the egg is fertilised or pretty much empty. After the first week, you can see a little black dot and red veins. The little black dot is already a fully developed embryo by then, it only needs to grow. This picture was taken in the second week, when the dot had already grown. You can also see the air bubble in the egg, which is the light place. An empty egg (you can try with the ones in your fridge) will look completely light like that.
About half of our eggs were empty, so we took them out of the incubator. In the others was growing life! One of my colleagues put a card of an ‘ei’ next to it, to help kids remember how to write that ‘ei’ sound.
In the third week the eggs can have a bath. But not to clean them! The water should be lukewarm and you need to wait until it stops moving from putting the eggs in. Then, suddenly, the water starts moving again. On its own! It’s a chick kicking in its egg, because it doesn’t like baths! Therefore we took them out as soon as we saw them shake. This is just to see if the ‘black dots’ are, well, alive and kicking.
The next picture was taken that Sunday night. Besides the one egg with a hole in it, there was this cheeping one, impetuously moving around. Janey heard it and moved her head from left to right, to try and understand what was making the noise. So cute.
Here’s me, looking at my mum helping a chick to get out of its egg. If all goes well, you shouldn’t need to help it, but this one was fighting for its life, while the egg quickly dried out. You can also kill it, if you don’t know what you’re doing though, so I asked the expert again. (Harry, one of my colleagues, took this picture).
The picture next to it, is a close up of the exhausted chick, half out of its egg.
When they’re out of the eggs, they should stay in the incubator for a while. Here’s a picture of the first two chicks, ready to be taken out. Their feathers are not that wet and sticky anymore and they want to see the world!
On the picture next to it, you can see the proud mummy holding them and in the background their new temporarily home. The walls behind it are decorated by the kids. (This picture was taken by my mum).
As the tradition in the Netherlands goes, to celebrate the birth of a baby (or ‘babies’ in this case), I brought ‘beschuit met muisjes’ for my colleagues.
And the last picture is one of the best of the four chicks that hatched. That’s not a large number, but at least these are healthy and behaving well like little chickens. I like chickens anyway. They are curious and funny. Which is why it’s hard to take a picture of them; they can’t sit still. The darkest chick on this picture had help from me by the way, but is now already just as alive as it’s siblings.
Anyway, they will stay with us for a week, so the kids can have a proper look at them. Then they will go back to the colleague who keeps the real parents and my job as a foster one will be done.
Happy Easter!
10 Comments
wow, what a stunning story and what a beautiful pictures!
Hi Hanny,
Well now they are born and look so lovely I will accept them as my little grand children. But I sure hope you will learn theme to never take any tattoo or to show up as chicks in the Playboy.
Dad.
Haha to Henny! I can see where your daughter got her beautiful, bubbly spirit!
Well, I think my mum would tell me to go ahead and tell them to take a tatoo and do a Playboy shoot if they want, actually…
But thank you Weez!
That’s really Easter Eggs with a great surprise
Updated with a little video! One of the kids came to ask me: “Miss, what is the chick saying?” and I made the ‘cheep cheep’ sound. “No, but what is he SAYING? Is he hungry?”
I think they’re pretty happy actually…
Very cute, nice to see the little ones. Cheep, Cheep
Note to Dad, If they were bunnies though, they would have to be in Playboy
Very sweet. Thank you so much. When I stayed on my grandparents farm one summer, I carried a chick around in my pocket all day. I was about 7 or 8. It was amazing to hold new life in my hands. Everyone told about Jimmy and his new baby chick. The memory is vivid even though it happened more than 70 years ago.
Ah thanks for sharing that Jim!
When I finished reading this, I realised that I had been smiling all the time.
I’m glad the chicks are ok, I was getting worried about them, lol. You make a great ‘mummy’, Hanny, and I love the pics. 
One Trackback
[...] also wanted to share a picture of four young chickens. Remember them? I kind of adopted them when they were still eggs and as you can see, they are doing very well in [...]