excitment, tears and chicken noodle soup

I will not tell the whole story because it is pretty involved, but I will tell the jist.....

On Friday Morning a chick hatched. We were very surprised, we had assumed by this point that they for sure wouldn't hatch, but when Sweetberry was off her nest I had noticed a cracked egg. I started to pray about this. I really wanted God to help bring life instead of death for this experience with the kids. Corban and I sat in chairs outside just watching for the first glimpse of the chick. After a while, I sensed God telling me to go check under the hen. So I did and found a dead chick. Started making phone calls and doing research and decided that we would take the next chick away from her as soon as it started hatching. I continued to watch her to make sure she didn't do it again. Condensing the story greatly, another chick died. I came into the house with a cheeping bleeding chick in one hand and two cracking eggs in the other. I told the kids I needed help and we tried to figure out how to help the two hatching chicks. I ended up deciding to take all the heggs from her and we made a make shift incubator with a heat lamp and a box.

Well, thank you Lord that we have somehow been able to enjoy seeing life. Some death also, but life. I am very grateful for that especially after the gerbils.

Right now we have three healthy chicks and one that barely made it through the night ( I give it a drop of water with my finger and wet it down every once in a while during day and night--yes, the last two nights I been up at least every two hours trying to keep these things alive.) This morning we still had two eggs left, but I checked them both this morning and one was rotten and one wasn't, but I don't know if the chick is dead in it or not.

We have experienced a lot. I have learned a ton about trying to hatch chicks and keep them alive and how or why this probably happened. The kids were very stressed on Friday and it was a hard but rewarding day and we needed each other to help these chicks. I could not have done it without them. I called Kent at work and he prayed for us and listened to the kids when he got home. I was ready to make chicken noodle soup for dinner and Corban was praying for Sweetberry. Talitha was praying for the chicks. And we all have been working together.

We decided to give Sweetberry away yesterday. This was the hen we got to replace Corban's "Lovey" (see previous post). It was very hard for him to see her go. We just weren't willing to take the chance that she might have a taste for yolk.

So that was still long....

I will have to post the pictures on different posts, I think.