A Mama Hopeful

Chickens!

Lucas' chicken, Crystal, has been laying on some eggs.  We got off to a really rough start and I suffered many a temper tantrum.

Crystal lets us know she is going broody by staying in the laying box.  Forever.  Well, we only have two laying boxes, which is fine, but the chickens will only use the one being USED.  It must be the best one.  So they try to squeeze in there next to Crystal and lay another egg.**  Sometimes they boot her out.  So I had already made a "maternity ward" for her all to herself and for her to raise the babies.  I went and got 3 fertilized eggs (since we have no rooster) and she would NOT sit on them!  Well, she'd sit on them in the main coop, but not the maternity coop.  Crystal wanted back in the main coop with the other birds.  I decided to let her back into the main coop, since the clock is now ticking on these fertilized eggs.

So we thought we'd move Crystal in the dead of night to her new coop.  But I kept forgetting.  Dead of night isn't when I think of chickens.  Except when I wake up at 2am and think "Shoot, I forgot to move Crystal!"  And that's the last time I think of it til the next night at 2am.  And then, one day:

One of my chickens ATE one of the fertilized eggs!

We about had chicken for dinner that night.  I was so mad!  MAD, I tell you! Furious!  I'm getting mad just writing about it.  The only reason I didn't kill a chicken on the spot was because I didn't know which one it was.  We had already had Cannibal taken to the "butcher".  So now we're down to two fertilized eggs, that have been iffily sat on.  But anger can do some great things.

I put the eggs in the maternity coop, put in some water and food and locked Crystal inside.  Then we peeked at her all day and for the next couple of weeks.  We'd occasionally let her outside for a dirt bath and to stretch.  She'd sit on the eggs if she was locked in, but if let out, she'd try to fly over the fence. But finally this last week, she'd go back into the coop on her own.  And on the 7th, she'd sat for 21 days.  But we have no babies.

So I'm worried that Crystal will have done all that sitting for nothing.  However, last year the babies were over FIVE days late, and we are only two days out from the due date.  We are waiting to see what happens!

**Oh yes!  There's more!  Crystal is an Australorp, a lovely black hen.  She is laying on Americauna eggs, because I want a few more green egg layers.  Well, I have one Americauna that went and laid another green egg that Crystal adopted along with the (fertilized)others, and it was a little hard to figure out which was hers.  It mattered, since now there'd be an unfertilized egg in the mix.  Two fertilized eggs were easy to tell, but the other one was chancy.  I took the chance, but now I have even more reasons for doubt.  sigh....

This post was written over several days.

UPDATE: I just found a lady with eggs she was going to take out of her incubator tomorrow and she sold me two!  =)  So now Crystal has her two originals that she's sat on for 26 days, and two more that are supposed to hatch tomorrow. =)  I am now happy!  Except... I just left Crystal in her little coop yard pacing and trying to fly back into the big coop.  I'll give her 10 more minutes, then I'm shutting her in the little coop again.