Miracles in my hands

****I hope that if you are still following this blog, you haven't been completely bored with all the chicken coverage lately but I just can't help but share this egg adventure that we're on! I hope you are able to enjoy it along with us! :)

I was a little over two weeks ago now that we went out to check on Chipmunk and her chicks that were due to hatch...

...two out of five had hatched... another one had hatched and died.... and then we found this....

 Our last ditch effort to get a "Daisy" egg to hatch, was actually hatching!!!!

We left it alone all day until Daddy came home from work and we found it still in the egg and not making any progress.... We could see its little peak so we knew it could at least breath but it was SO hot out that day (in the 90's in the Pacific Northwest is stinkin hot!) and the thin lining of the egg that was around the chick was drying out.... I was not about to lose this little guy after trying so very hard to get a Daisy egg to hatch...

So with the girls and hubby right there cheering me on, and the expectant parents watching on from the chicken run (yeah, I know, they probably had no idea what was going on but hey it made for a nice picture! lol) I slowly but surely chipped away at the egg shell....

And then all of a sudden she plopped out into my hand!! 

After so many tries to get this little guy, we finally got a Daisy egg to hatch!!!  I was choking by the tears as she hatched into this world right there in my hand....

  Meet Rosemary!! (R has a theme of naming chickens.... Daisy, Tulip and now Rosemary!)

There are no words to describe how lucky I felt that night to have not only witnessed this amazing event but to experience it first hand! Literally!!

I can tho attempt to describe the feeling I felt the next morning when I went to check on her and found her face down in the bedding and I thought she was dead.... It was as if all the air was sucked out of me and the world around me didn't exist for a moment until I saw the ever so slight movement of her beak and then my memories are a blur of first scooping her cold little body up in my hands, (cold as if she'd been in a fridge) cuddling her up in my pjs and running for the shed to grab our incubator... I thank God that this was very early morning and the girls were still in bed. I don't know if I could have dealt with their hysteria and still kept a level head... I got her into the incubator and got it warming up while I stood there praying over her, and begging her and God to let her live....

I remembered a friend who raises chickens say one time that if you mess with them it makes it harder for them to die... so for the next half hour or so, I stood there rubbed her back and sometimes her belly and after that she started to get warm, started to move a bit and within an hour or so she was making the faintest little cheeps... that were music to my ears...

I don't have any pictures of her during those few hours. I didn't know what the outcome was going to be and didn't want to have pictures of her like that in case it ended badly but now I wish I did.... knowing that by the end of the day she would be fluffed out and walking around!

Little Rosemary is now 3 weeks old and doing great! Can you believe this is the same little chick? We are definitely counting our blessings... and our chickens!! Another hen has gone broody and is sitting on three eggs as we speak! :) This egg adventure continues!

D- Day in our house

It's a weird feeling to wake up in the morning with the knowledge that today is the day....

Today is the infamous "chicken day" in our house. We have raised these chickens from a few days old and now we've come to the day we've set to butcher. If you've followed me for very long, you know that this part of our lives is definitely a new venture for us and it's not one that we have decided upon lightly. I see it as a necessity rather than a choice tho. I see it as being responsible about our food and our way of life... if we are going to be meat eaters we need to do it in a respectful manner and I can honestly say that these guys have had the best life that we could offer. They have not been pumped full of hormones or antibiotics, they have not been held in cages that they could not even turn around in, they have had access to green grass and fresh air outdoors.... and yet still these chickens are just as freaky as everyone told us they would be...

I guess I was a bit naive to think that if they were treated kindly they would be any different... but these guys really are that much different. You can even see it in the picture above... these chicks are the same age.... yet one is like a giant and had very little feathers and the other is small and fully feathered. I have found myself apologizing to them every morning as I feed them... sorry that I too fed in to this need for bigger and better- gotta have it right now!I really thought that it would be different.

These chickens are a cross between different breeds of chickens... they grow so fast that at times their bodies can't stand the growth and they have heart attacks or break legs from the weight of their own body!  Not to mention their temperaments!! From the time they were little, they were not the nice little chicks that our other ones were... and now that they have gotten bigger, they are just down right mean!! So much so that my hubby has to wear leather gloves when he feeds them!!

So today is a mix of emotions.... I will be relieved to have this chapter of our chicken adventure over with. There is some sadness knowing that by the end of the day they will have all been turned in to meat for the freezer but on the flip side... by the end of the day I will have a freezer full of meat! :) I am trying to go in to this as taking back our freedom, taking back the ability to be self reliant.... I also find it interesting that by chance we are having our butchering day on Flag Day... maybe I'm a bit strange but I just kinda feel like this is the perfect way to celebrate flag day....What's more American than providing food for your own family!? :)

Feathers, chicks and eggs... o my!

 I'm wondering if there is an exact amount of chickens you have to own before you are officially considered a chicken farmer? lol Surely we have to be well on our way to it if there is! lol  If you have been following this blog for very long at all, you know how much we love our chickens and have so enjoyed the process of having them as pets and enjoying the eggs we are so lucky to get from them. If you have been reading for very long, you have probably also caught on  that we are very much into knowing where our food comes from and making sure that if we eat meat that the animal was treated with love, care and respect....Unfortunately tho, those qualities are hard to come by when it comes to eating chicken and we've become tired of paying the high prices for chicken and still not feeling 100% sure we are purchasing meat from well cared for animals.....  so here comes one big life adventure that we've started on....

 A number of families at our church went together to purchase chicks in bulk. 300+ chicks actually! Only 50 of those came to live at our house and let me tell you, we are getting an education in chicks really fast! These chicks are from a cornish-cross breed which means they are bred to grow big and fast in 6-10 weeks. We will be butchering them as a group with the other church families all at the same time. Now, I've had friends that have made comments in so many words, that they think we are crazy and how could we love chickens and then eat them. Well, here's what it comes down to for us anyways... We DO love chickens. We love the ones that we handle and baby and cuddle with- those ones get names. However, we also LOVE chicken, as in grilled, BBQ and roasted. Everytime I go to the store and have to buy this said meat, I have to wonder things like "Did this chicken ever see the light of day?" "Did this chicken get to play in the grass and feel the warmth of sunshine?" .... and the ones that really haunt me.... "Did this chicken spend its entire life in a cage so small it couldn't turn around?" "Did this chicken have any good days in its life?"
  Now I'm not saying this process is going to be easy. And I'm not even saying that I won't perhaps cry, or that I am personally going to have anything to do with the actual butchering (that was a deal that hubby and I made from the start). But I am saying that I won't have to feel guilty about eating this meat. I won't have to wonder if they were treated kindly or if they even had a "good day" in their lifespan.... I will know that they weren't fed nasty stuff and that in the end, they will have only had ONE bad day.
  I still look at grocery shopping as votes in one of the biggest elections we will ever be part of. Everytime we buy something it is voting for that company to have more power over us.... and I'm sorry but I am not about to give the power to any company that thinks that it is ok to treat animals the way they do. And I feel bad, that we as Americans have gotten to the point that we are ok with turning a blind eye to how our food is produced. My girls and I talk alot about those sorts of things. How God gave us these animals to eat... but how we should still be glorifying Him... and there is nothing about those factory farms that are glorifying God... But each day when we go check eggs and feed our chickens, we give thanks... both to the chickens and the Creator. It probably sounds rather funny but I'm finding more and more about country life to be so much more spiritual  I ever expected . There is not a day that goes by that I'm not reminded about God's love for us.... and I find it in the strangest places....in the feathers, the chicks and the eggs...

While we will be thankful for the meat in our freezer, we will also be thankful for the chickens that we still have...

Hummy, Benelli, Dandy and Tulip out in the grass on a sunny day- their first taste of sunshine! :)

Benelli likes to nap on hubby's chest at night while we watch tv!  There is no question these chicks are loved... even by the tough guy... who of course is responsible for naming this one! lol

A duck egg, an egg from our chicken Daisy and a store bought egg

I have always thought it would be neat to compare the differences in eggs.... The duck egg had a HUGE yolk and lots of white, the fresh egg had a much darker yolk and larger than the store bought smaller one. I asked the girls to tell me the things these eggs had in common and then we talked about the differences. I asked J why she thought they were different and she said that the store bought yolk wasn't as dark because it wasn't allowed to live in the sunshine and didn't get to eat grass... smart kid huh? The store bought egg actually came from Wilcox so I know that they are able to be outside but there has to be something about the way they are raised that makes their eggs have smaller yolk, less egg white and a considerably thinned shell. That duck egg's shell was so tough that I had a hard time breaking thru, and the ones from our chickens have been dropped on the ground and not cracked... the same can not be said for the store bought eggs that have broken in my hands while I wash them!

The miracle we witnessed

I know that chicks hatch out of eggs everyday and that it probably silly to be amazed that a breakfast food, when given a little bit of heat for 21 days can turn into a living being... but I will forever be awestruck, elated, giddy and so very thankful to experience this miracle with my family...

We actually got to witness this amazing miracle twice out of the four eggs we hatched. After the first one hatched, my oldest just couldn't stop jumping up and down shouting "God is so awesome!!" I secretly wanted to jump up and down right with her but instead just agreed with her....This little guy just happened to hatch on her birthday!!

I am feeling so fortunate that we get to experience so much in our homeschooling journey and hope that we never lose the wonder that comes from a tiny chick hatching out of an egg! :)

This little guy was less than a minute old when I snapped this picture thru the top of the incubator!! My daughter is SO right- "God is amazing!"

Chicks, Chickens and more!

It's that time of year... The feed stores are full of those tiny cheeping sounds... those bins of chicks are like magnets for my girls, and I must admit I love to stand and watch them too. It's SOO hard not to just bring a few home each time we are at the feed store. Boy would I be in trouble if I did that! lol If you've never raised baby chicks, you really should give it a try if you can. I never thought chickens would be addictive but they are!

This spring we were lucky enough to have a friend give us her old incubator... and we had a few other friends who were nice enough to give us some eggs to hatch! Not that I don't have enough eggs of my own but I really wanted to add some new breeds to our little flock! We are trying to hatch out two barred rock, three Araucana, and one that is a Heinz 57...



 or a cross between two of our favorite chickens... our Ameraucana rooster (Cabela) and our leghorn hen (Daisy)

 I'll be anxious to see how that chick turns out! :)


 To gear up for this experience, we've been reading every book about chickens and eggs that we can get our hands on. Our library has been WONDERFUL for this research!!


     

 

  These three have been favorites so far but we still have a stack to go! :)

In addition to all the reading we've been doing, we are also working on a  Chicken Lapbook at Homeschool Share! It is GREAT and the girls are really enjoying it!! It is even giving J good practice looking up Bible scriptures that mention a rooster crowing! This lapbook is definitely a win win! 

Life cycle of a chicken  Lots of printable pictures!!!

This picture is of our one white egg at 8 days in the incubator. You can "candle" them with a flashlight in the dark so you can be sure they are growing! This little guy has been dancing around in there ever since but has slowed down in moving around because she is almost ready to hatch! Chicken eggs take 21 days to incubate and this one's 21st day fall on Easter Sunday! We are so excited and can't wait to meet her (or him). R already wants to name "her" Tulip since her mama's name is Daisy! :) I'm just praying they all hatch out safely since we are so new to this! :)

More pictures to come... you can be sure!!