The incubator, house cat and chicks

You are looking at the are the most resilient chicks ever to have hatched!

There was a full moon and as usual, there was animal drama on top of our general family madness. After leaving the house for an early eye Dr. appointment our inside cat had some plans for our incubator. We’d been incubating our first clutch of spring chicks and they were one day away from hatch. One chick had begun cheeping and piping that morning. 

While we were gone kitty knocked the incubator on the floor, majorly cracking all the about-to-hatch eggs. When we got home the incubator alarm was sounding loudly and all the eggs were seriously cracked and cold. This is never a good thing for hatching eggs. Amzingly all the membranes were intact and there was no bleeding.

We gathered up all the cold, broken eggs. I covered them with a wet, warm paper towel and we put them back in the incubator because that is really all that was left to do. No chicks were making sounds or moving inside the eggs that we could see but I still wanted to give them warmth and time before tossing them in the trash.

Hours later a Silkie chick emerged from it’s membrane followed by another chick hours later. The next morning we had a third chick waddling around in the incubator followed by another Silkie hatching in the afternoon. Normally when a hatch is disrupted you’ll get chicks with messed up feet or legs or worse- they just never fully hatch. This hatch was unique and very resilient because four chicks survived with zero issues when all the odds were against them. Sometimes, even when it seems hopeless things work out!

I put a few chicks on the puppy blanket for a photo opp, lots of cuteness unfolded. Hope you enjoyed the pics and the story1