12 eggs = 21 days of incubation, egg turning, delighting in the first hatch, hatching assistance for one (which felt very birth like!!), determining the other ten eggs to be infertile after all, bonding with the two baby chicks and adding three more chicks from the store, grieving at the deaths of our hatched chicks after three days, getting money refunded (thank you murray mcmurray!), and purchasing 6 more live chicks. whew.

if you see me or naomi on facebook, you knew the drama hour-by-hour at times.

after lots of online research and asking questions in forums, we determined that since she “pipped” her egg and hadn’t hatched in over 24 hours, the membrane was drying out and she wasn’t able to break through it (it turns hard like plastic).

so we were to break off tiny pieces of the shell (not the membrane) and dab warm water on the membrane to soften it.

she wiggled the whole time in there and under the warming lamp, out she came!

and can i just say how much like my babies she looks to me?   small, big eyes, dark hair…i don’t know, but bird-like they were.

most likely the chicks that hatched had “other internal problems”…hmmmm.  they were active and sweet for those first days. the strongest and most active one, andy jackson (since it looked like he was one of two $20 chicks), died first.  we were surprised.

and i can guarantee you that sweet baby rue, the one with the assisted hatching, was loved til the end, dying the day after andy.

(again looking oddly like my own babies)

we spoon fed her, held her,  made sure it was warm enough, gave her something soft to cuddle next to, said good night and good bye, and in the morning she was in the same position we left her.

this is part of why we did this.  life and death and the circle of them both.

and we still have 9 scratching, peeping, pooping, pecking soft bundles of goodness.