New pics of some chicks!

Here are some pictures of four of our chicks getting big!  They are from the top down:  Sawyer, Sunny, Sawyer again, Pippin, and Rosa.  Yay chicks!

Chicks Back! Jaymi

Chicks Back! Heidi

Chicks Back! Harper

Chicks Back! Samuel

Chicks Back! Shirley

Chicks Back! Bonita

Chicks Back! Raphael

The chicks that were fostered out are being returned today!  We currently have two in the building, Raphael and Bonita.  They are SO BIG now!  They are starting to look very chicken-y.  If you'd like to come see them we will have some all day! 

Harper and Samuel Update!

I have received this update about Samuel and Harper and am so happy to share it with you all!  "Harper and Samuel are getting sooooo big. :)  They have little tail feathers now and we're pretty sure their feet are growing by the hour.  Samuel likes to stand up very tall stretching his neck like a Giraffe.  Harper is more relaxed of the two chicks and is most definitely the lead singer of this duet!"  Harper is the yellow one and Samuel is the darker one.  Thanks SO much for the update!

A Gift From Cauli

I guess Cauli heard that I'm rather sad because the chicks aren't here anymore.  He brought me this cute little stuffed duckling baby chick!  How sweet of him to see this little duckling baby chick and think of us over here in the Youth Department. 

I can't speak for all of us about being sad (next time you see her, be sure to ask Wild Thang how she feels now that the chicks are gone) but for me personally, this week sort of feels like the week following Christmas.

However, we do have April 25th to look forward to!  Shirley, Samuel, Pollyanna, Dillinger, Rose, Raphael, Jaymi, Harper, Heidi, and Bonita will all be back from fostering that day.  If you'd like to see them, be sure to call before you come, because they will only be here a short while!  I'll take more videos and pictures of them at that time.  They will look very different from when they left us!

Raphael and Huck

Here are some updated pics of Huck and Raphael.  We are so sad that Huck passed away!  However, this is a natural part of raising chicks.  We had SO many hatch.  They say you can lose about 15% of your hatch.  We've lost Huck, Viola, Rocky, and Diane.  That is just about 15%.  I hope we don't lose any more!  Raphael is doing great and is looking forward to haviing Bonita to play with.

Bonita getting big!

Samuel and Harper Update!

Here's an update from the family who are fostering Harper and Samuel!  Such CUTE pictures!

 

"Just letting you know that Harper and Samuel are doing great.  Feathers are starting to come in on both chicks too.  My daughter has been a excellent helper and is checking on them very often.  So far so good.  I'll update you again soon."

 

Thanks so much for the update! 

A Visit to the Farm

Well, I dropped the incubator off at the farm yesterday. A5 was there, hatched and breathing, but I received word not long after that that the sweet little blond chick had died. It seems that the later they hatch, the less likely they are to live and hatching yesterday was a very late hatch.

While I was there I got to visit Jeannie (the little black chick). She is doing well and is getting acclimated to her new home with lots of other chicks and chickens. The pretty rooster pictured here is actually one of the chicks we hatched last year! Amazing! He could actually be the daddy of some of the chicks we hatched this year! Oh, the amazing circle of life.

Last post of the evening...

Well, your A5 update is a short one.  I have no idea what is going on with that chick.  If I lived closer I'd probably drive to Mooresville and find out, but being as I'm in here Indy, it will have to wait for tomorrow.  I have to be in Martinsville tomorrow though (our Teen and Tween Councils won 2,000 in grant money from Youth As Resources, a United Way organization and they are getting their checks tomorrow) so I will stop by the library and take a look to see what A5 is doing.  Either way, we've had a very positive hatch.  Since we cracked three eggs after week one, really we were only setting 38 eggs.  28 viable eggs out of 38 that we were setting gives us a hatch rate of 74%.  Really really great!

Volia and Rocky

Well, Rocky is not the only chick who passed away.  Viola also passed away.  She went home with one of our farm families and I just received word this morning that she is gone.  She was small but we thought she was fine.  If you watch her video you can see she looked pretty good.  Maybe less perky than the others...I guess with so many eggs that hatched we are bound to lose a couple.  At least Rocky isn't alone. 

A5

Just called the library...A5 is still moving and there is progress on the hole.

Update on A5!

A5 is peeping and moving, but not a lot of progress on the hole in the egg...more as soon as I have something to report. 

Notes for Next Year...

So, it is Saturday morning and I'm here in bed thinking about the chicks. Whenever we do something major at the library, I like to reflect on it afterwards to see what I would have done differently or what I can change for next year...I have a few notes. First of all (and this is slightly unpleasant...) many of our chicks hatched with bloody belly buttons. I read that this means our incubator was too hot. It is really difficult to regulate the incubator, and we felt pretty good about it this whole hatch, but maybe we should be just a half or quarter a degree cooler next year. Also, I really need to totally clear my schedule the week of the chick hatch. Let's be realistic...we got NOTHING done this week except for hanging out with the chicks. We should also keep a tally for patrons who come to the library just to see the chicks for statistical purposes. We are also considering buying our own incubator. With two, we could do the hatch in one and then transfer over to the other after the hatch. This might cut down on the amount of bacteria in the second incubator. (Out incubator is disgusting after hatching 30 chicks.) More things to buy include another whole brooder box as well as another food and water container. This will make the last day easier and will give us replacements as the others wear out, break, or melt.

I am going to call work in half an hour to see the fate of our peeping egg...I am anxious to see the results of our late A5!

Chicks off to their final destination!

The above is the last video of the chicks for now!  They have all gone off to their friendly farm home.  These chicks include:  Bonita, Gilbert, Elphaba, Helen, Alan Rickbird, Ryuzaki, Charlotte, Estelle, Billina, Francie, Olivia, Ian, and Malcolm.  They also took Viola, but she is not in this video.  Our sad news is that Rocky didn't make it.  We are very sad about this.  He labored in his breathing and lived just under 24 hours, but he did pass away. 

The exciting news is that the incubator is still here!  We have one egg (A5 / Diane!) who is peeping in the shell.  This is very late in the process and we don't really know what will happen.  I will be sure to give you all an update in the morning!

Thanks for reading!  We hope to have more updates from our families soon! 

Families: if you want to update this blog just send your comments and pictures to me at:
suzannew@mooresville.lib.in.us.

Love, Broadway Gal

5 more off to foster!

Five of our chicks are being fostered by a farm family.  Rosa, Sunny, Sawyer, Jeannie, and Pippin are all off to foster!  Best of luck to them!  The picture below of the striped chick is actually Huck.  We somehow missed Sawyer in all the chaos yesterday.  Just picture Huck only with more brown and you've got Sawyer!

Rose and Pollyanna off to foster!

Rose and Pollyanna went off to their foster family yesterday.  They were both pretty squirmy!

Some development...

 Here are Helen and Bonita...two of our birds that hatched out early on Tuesday.  It is only Friday and they are already starting to look like chickens!

If you look carefully at their wings, you might be able to see their FEATHERS coming in already!  Our brooder box has been very active with birds stretching their wings and showing their prowess at climbing on the food trough!

HATCHING! Ian

Another surprise! HATCHING! Malcolm

Well, last night we had another chick hatch bringing our total to 30!  Here is Malcolm, our latest star!  This brings our hatch rate up to 73%.  Unfortunately, we think we might have one chick that might not make it.  His name is Rocky and he's a fighter!  But he has just been languishing since last night.  With this many chicks, it is inevitable that one of them might not make it.  I will keep you informed of Rocky's condition throughout the day.

Evening Update!

Would you believe we just hatched another one?  That puts us up to 29!  And that is a 70% hatch rate which makes me just exhausted.  I will have videos of Ian and Rocky tomorrow for you!

Good night, chick lovers!

HATCHING! Oliva

Olivia is named for the Olivia books!

Ian Hatches!

Here is another video of a hatch.  We cannot believe how many chicks we are getting!  Ian makes 28!

HATCHING! Viola

HATCHING! Francie

One more!

We are up to 27!!!!!  That means our hatch rate is at 66%!  Absolutely amazing!

HATCHING! Billina

Morning Report! More Chicks!

Can you believe it?  I got here this morning and we have 3 more chicks!  I am so amazed!  We now have hatched 26 chicks.  And there is at least one more beak pecking out right now!  More updates soon!

Evening Report

Well, this will be my last post of the day.  What an exciting day!  Today we hatched 9 more chicks!  We have a total of 23.  This is much better than our hatch rate last year.  Last year we hatched 14 chicks.  That is a 34% hatch rate.  This year we hatched an amazing 56%!  We are so proud of all our chicks who worked so hard to get out of their shells. 

HATCHING! Estelle

HATCHING! Charlotte

Samuel and Harper off to foster!

Samuel and Harper are on their way to their new home!  We look forward to seeing them again on April 25th!

Now 8 of our 10 chicks are off to foster!  Our last two will be picked up to foster tomorrow evening.  If you'd like to see the chicks, we have lots still here at the library!

Jaymi and Heidi off to foster!

Two more of our chicks have gone off to their foster homes! We will see you soon, Jaymi and Heidi!

Jaymi and Jaymi!

Here is my assistant with "her" chick named after her, Jaymi!  Jaymi just left with a family to be fostered.  We will miss Jaymi!

Two more chicks off to foster...

Two more of our chicks have gone off to their foster homes.  Huck and Raphael are pictured here with their foster mommy!  We can't wait to see how big they will be by the 25th!

HATCHING! Pippin

Shirley and Shirley and Two Chicks Off to Foster!

Shirley from our office came back to get her picture taken with Shirley, the chick. Aren't they cute! Shirley and Dillinger got picked up from the library just a few minutes ago. They will be gone for two weeks and then will be back at the library on April 25th!

HATCHING! Sunny

Introducing Rose!

Rose is the name that Children's Park decided to name their chick.  Here is a newer video of Rose.  She is just about 24 hours old! 

HATCHING! Harper

And another!

22!

New Hatch!

We just hatched another black one! 

21!

HATCHING! Jeannie

HATCHING! Ryuzaki

HATCHING! Sawyer

HATCHING! Heidi

6 More Friends!

This morning we arrived and we had 6 more chicks in the incubator!  That brings our total to 20!!!  It looks like we might get at least one more.  More introduction videos and names coming soon!

Final Post for Today!

Okay so here is the final update.  It is hard work hatching chicks!  (More work for the chicks, I'm sure.)  We currently have 14 chicks:  Alan Rickbird, Bonita, CP, Dillinger, Elphaba, Gilbert, Helen, Huck, Jaymi, Pollyanna, Raphael, Rosa, Samuel, and Shirley.  I'm going home for the night.  The chicks are happy in their brooder box with food and water, a heat lamp, and each other.  Their are still several eggs in the incubator and guess what???  They are peeping!  Hopefully we will have a few more friends to tell you about tomorrow!

Until then!

Mama Hen (AKA Broadway Gal)

HATCHING! CP

HATCHING! Raphael

HATCHING! Rosa

HATCHING! Jaymi!

HATCHING - Alan Rickbird

Jaymi Hatches!

We are up to 12 chicks!  Jaymi (J23) hatched at 5:30 PM.  We were rooting for you Jaymi!

Another one!

Here is a video of our latest chick hating out of his shell.  This was around 4:45.  Yeah!!!

4:30 Hatch!

We just hatched another one!  He is a little black one!

Update

Chick update!  We still only have 9 chicks. 

2V - Samuel
3V - Gilbert
13V - Helen
A2 - Huck
J21 - Bonita
J16 - Shirley
J20 - Elphaba
J25 - Pollyanna
14V - Dillinger

We have all the chicks in the brooder box and out of the incubator.  The good news is that we are starting to hear peeping from the incubator again!  We have one egg that has been diligently trying to hatch for what seems like hours (and probably has been hours).  That egg is J23 which (if you've been reading carefully) you will know is Jaymi (named for my assistant).  We are all rooting for her!

	J5	J14	5V	J8	J15	J9
A3	J1	A5	J6	J7	J13	J3
J24	J11	10V	J12	J18	J26	4V
J22	6V	8V	12V	A4	9V	7V
J19	J20	14V	13V	J21	A2	J17
J25	3V	J16	J23	11V	2V	A1

This is a table of the incubator.  The ones that are yellow are the ones that have already hatched.  As you can see, they are all in the lower rows.  We are hoping that the higher rows just need a little more time.  I will keep you posted!

Happy Chicks

HATCHING! - Pollyanna

HATCHING! - Huck

HATCHING! - Elphaba

HATCHING! - Helen

HATCHING! - in the Incubator

Above is a video of the inside of the incubator.  Here is our current update:

We have 9 chicks!

2V / Samuel
3V / Gilbert
13V
A2
J21 / Bonita
J16 / Shirley
J20
J25
14V / Dillinger

Five of our chicks are in their brooder box and 4 are still hanging out in the incubator.  They stay in the incubator until they get their fluff then they get moved to the incubator and it is then that they get their names and have their video taken.  We seem to be at a little bit of a lull.  We have two eggs with holes in them where it looks like we could have some more progress soon, but that is it for now!

HATCHING! - Gilbert

HATCHING! - Samuel

HATCHING! - Dillinger

HATCHING! Bonita and Shirley

We currently have 8 chicks!

2V
3V
A2
J21 / Bonita
J16 / Shirley
J25
14V
J20

I will continue to update you with pics, videos,and news all day!

Surrogate Hen

Day 21 - Peeping!

We hear peeping! 

The babies are still in their shells, the egg turner is out (thanks Shirley!), the humidity is up at 75%, and we are ready!  They should hatch tomorrow but we are excited because we hear peeping!

Go Babies!

Day 19 and 20

So, when I get to work tomorrow, I might be able to hear the babies peeping in their shells!  Can you believe it?  Only one more day!  The babies are supposed to hatch on Tuesday! 

I can't wait to see how many we get!  I will let you know if I hear peeping!

Day 18 - What big Feet you have!

So, I was looking at this book today, Looking at Life Cycles: Chicken by Vitoria Huseby, and I was reminded about the babies' feet. This book is a great quick overview of the chicken lifespan for the very youngest people and covers what happens in the egg, how chickens grow, and discusses briefly how female chickens brood over their nests. I was looking at the fabulous pictures of the interior of the egg and saw one picture of a chick just hatching out and it reminded me of last year. Last year was the first time I had ever seen a chick just coming out of an egg and I remember being SO surprised at the size of the chick's feet. They were enormous. Of course they have to support a big healthy chicken eventually, but to see them on babies is really funny. We are so excited! Today is Friday and we are hoping to see them on Tuesday!

Day 17 - Lists Complete!

I spent this morning dragging our brooder boxes up out of the basement and dusting them off for the families.  Here are some pictures of the boxes waiting for the babies:

I also got all the feed and the vitamins ready for distribution, printed out more chick packets, set up our heat lamp, printed out our chick chart, and I got the camera all juiced up!  It will still be a few days but we are ready!

Sunday the eggs will be removed from their turner and the humidity will be upped so they have an easier time getting out of those sticky shells. 

Can't wait!!!

Day 16 - Making Lists...

It is now definitely time to get ready for the coming babies!  They will be here in less than a week!  I have so much to do!  Here's a list of what I'll be doing over the next few days:

1.  Check on Brooder boxes for the families...they need bedding, water container, feed container.
2.  Organize feed and vitamins...both need to be distributed in bags for the families.
3.  Check on info packets for families...I have to make sure they have all they need for their 2 weeks!
4.  Get our heat lamp ready.  Those babies are used to 99.5 degree heat!  It can't be too cold for them.
5.  Remove eggs from the egg turner.  They have been gently rocked back and forth 24-7 on the egg turner and now on Sunday they are being removed from the egg turner in preparation for them to hatch!  I have a staff member coming in to do that for me on Sunday (Thanks!). 
6.  Print our my chart so we can track what time they hatch, get names down, get assignments for families, and track which eggs don't hatch.  :(
7.  Juice up the camera!  We want to get a few videos of the chicks to share with all of you! 

I feel like I'm forgetting something (I'm sure Cauli will remind me), but I guess those babies will hatch whether or not I'm ready!

I can't wait!!!!!

Day 15 - Candling Success!

So today we candled the eggs for a second time...and we had success!  Well, success for the most part.  There were three eggs that we saw little or no development and we actually decided to crack them open (A3 / J14 / and J18).  If left in with the others, there is the possibility that they might explode in the incubator which is no fun.  Two of them looked just like the eggs you'd have for breakfast which means they were probably not fertile.  The third one showed signs of development, but it had obviously stopped at least a week ago. 

The ones I had listed as good last time are all still good and a few earned themselves names!  J9 is our Jeannie, J23 is our Jaymi and A5 is our Diane.  Jaymi and Diane definitely had movement going on in their eggs.  Now if only they will hatch!  Today is day 15.  They are due to hatch on day 22, after having been incubated for 21 days.  We are expecting the babies to arrive around 11:30 on April 5th. 

In the video above, right in the center of the video, you can see a pulsing vein!  You can hear all of us chatting about it too...

Just one more week!

Day 12, 13, 14 and Today!

I am going to blame my lack of blogging on the Homeschoolers. We are currently in rehearsals for our small reader's theatre production of Sleeping Beauty. There are 30 children in the show and that includes 10 fairies. I only just yesterday got the cast nailed down since I was not sure if my prince (a girl) would actually concede to be the prince. But she did, and rehearsal went off yesterday without too much of a hitch.

I just realized that is it very Broadway of me to be blogging about a play when I'm supposed to be talking about the chicks. Although, after a very cursory search I did find a picture book called Broadway Chicken by Jean-Luc Fromental. We don't have it in our collection, but I think we just might have to have it!

So, I'm definately going to be doing another post later today because today is the second day that we are candling the babies! That will be at one o'clock. I will post the results later today! Keep your fingers crossed!

Day 10 and 11: Half-way there!

I can't believe we are almost half-way through our journey to hatch the chicks! The babies inside the eggs should start looking a little like chicks over the next couple of days. I'm wondering what we will call each chick. This is our list of names from last year:

Walter
Patrick
Vincen
Perseus
Ginny
Linus
Theodore
Edgar
Suzanne
Carly
Charlie Brown
Henny Penny
Bella
Ellie

Just so you know, we paid no attention to their gender at all. We are not at all skilled in determining this, so we just sort of named what we felt like. Most of our names had very specific reasons for getting the names they got. Patrick hatched on St. Patrick's Day. Perseus was named after Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. Ginny was named for Ginny Weasley in the Harry Potter books. Linus and Charlie Brown are, of course, Peanuts characters. Charlie Brown was so named because he had a really hard time getting out of his shell. I think we even helped him out which is generally not what real chicken raisers do. I think they figure if the chick is too weak to get out of their shell, they will be too weak to thrive. In Charlie Brown's case, our incubator did not have enough humidity so he just stuck to the shell all over the place!

Henny Penny is pretty self-explanatory. Edgar was a black chick and was named for Edgar Allan Poe. Bella was named for the character in the Twilight series. Suzanne was named for me (but not by me!). She was first named during the first candling. She was a tiny speck whizzing around her egg with such energy that there was nothing to call her but Suzanne. Vincen was named by one of my assistant's sons. My other assistant named Walter after Walter the Farting Dog. Carly was named by a local kindergarten class after iCarly. Theodore was named after Alvin and Chipmunks. (An aside: I love Alvin and the Chipmunks. I can just hear the theme song now..."Alvin, Simon, Theodore! Do, do, dodododo...do, do, dodododo!")

And, we can't remember how Ellie got her name. Well, we can't keep track of everything, can we.

Day 9 - Award Winning Chicks and Chickens

Our babies are doing great. Everything today was as it should be (save for a hairy instant when one of us, who shall remain nameless, accidentally bumped their electrical cord for a brief moment). I was thinking about how great it would be if some of our babies grew up to be award winning chickens and that lead me to the following chickens who were, in their own way, recipients of a very important award in children's literature: the sought after Caldecott. The Caldecott is awarded each year for the book with the best pictures. The chicks and chickens in the following pictures are from the following books:

Sylvster and the Magic Pebble - William Steig
The Rooster Crows - Maud and Miska Petersham
One Fine Day - Nonny Hogrogian
Noah's Ark - Peter Sis
Animals of the Bible - Dorothy P. Lathrop
Chanticleer and the Fox - Barbara Cooney
The Egg Tree - Katherine Milhous
Frog Went A-Courtin' - Feodor Rojankovsky
Fables - Arnold Lobel

This is not meant to be an exhaustive list of every book that has ever won the Caldecott that has a picture in it of a chicken, but it is a start. And don't even get me started on the Honor books...this year's honor went to a book called The Interrupting Chicken!