I just really wanted to share this link to help inform of the scary ingredients in vaccines.

http://www.whale.to/vaccines/ingredients.html

I wish I knew what I know now, before I had my first 2 kids.

A Sunburn Remedy That Really Works.

We took the kids to the Bronx Zoo yesterday. Of course, I loaded the kids up with [Babyganics] sunblock several times throughout the day. there was an outfit change halfway through our trip and I must have overlooked that my [almost] 3 year old's shirt was cut different from the one she started with. Sure enough, she was complaining that her back hurt and when I looked at the spot she was scratching, there was a bright red half circle. Makining it disappear was the only option, in my eyes. Good thing I knew the perfect solution!

This remedy has worked wonders every time I've used it. Shower, if you need, to before doing this.

First, I soak a washcloth (or hand towel, depending on the surface area of the burn) in white distilled vinegar. Place the wet (but not dripping) washcloth on the sunburn. The longer you keep it there, the better. But, even a couple minutes will show results.

Put on a pot of tea water and prepare a mug with a regular tea bag (I used Lipton).

After cloth is off, let it air dry for about a half hour (more or less is fine). In this time, pour your cup of tea (no sugar or milk) & let the tea sit until room temperature.

When your tea is ready, dip the tea bag a few time then squeeze it out and put aside. Soak a washcloth in the tea (i used the same one from the vinegar to reach optimal results).

Same as with the 1st step, place the wet (but not dripping) cloth onto the sun burnt area. For severe burns, i'd sleep with this cloth on me. For mild burns, up to a half hour will do the trick.

DO NOT WASH any of these treatments off until the morning after.

You can use the tea bag as well as (or instead of) the washcloth to apply but, in my opinion, the washcloth covers more surface area and works just as well.

By the time you wake up, the redness and sting should be greatly improved, if not completely gone. I usually wake up feeling like I never had a sunburn to begin with.  :) I hope this helps and I would love to hear some feedback on results!

Blue Splash Maran Chicken Hatch Photos

First pip 7:30am

10:30am

Beak. 11:30am

11:45am

12 noon

Zip!

12:15pm

Wing. 12:30pm

Wiggling.

Head out. 12:45

Rolled over.

Kicked off shell. 1:00pm

Quick nap.

Peaking around, exhausted.

Attempting to get up.

Jumped. Then laid down to rest.

Checking out surroundings.

Nobody puts baby in the corner!

Comes to the window when I peak at her. (Hopefully a her.)

Kind of fluffing up.

"Are you my mommy?"

Anticipation of Egg Hatching

Waiting for these eggs to hatch is stressing me out! I read a ton of stories where people experienced slightly early hatches and I suppose I expected mine to be the same. All the research I did said that it will take 21 days for chicken eggs to hatch, give or take. I suppose the right thing to do would be to count those days right down to the hour of when you started. This would put me in the second half of day 20 with 2:30pm being the start of day 21. Visually on my calendar today is day 21 so I guess my mind set is ahead of these chickens. I've read that people have had hatches up to day 28 so I am not giving up yet!

There are so many distinct factors in egg hatching. Temperature, humidity and turning are pretty important. On day 18, you need to increase your humidity and stop turning the eggs. This is your last day to candle the eggs before "lock down". Upon my day 18 candling, I saw life in 3 eggs. The 2 darkest colored eggs were extremely difficult to see inside so I am very unsure if they were ever even fertilized in the first place. I have 3 small white-ish eggs. One is definitely not fertilized, one appears to have died in the first week and the Blue Silkie appeared to be full grown with veining and movement. I found it adorable to be able to identify a foot and see it move.

 I am constantly staring at this incubator hoping there will be something to report!

 I drew up this calendar to keep track of everything so I know what to avoid for next time. I think it is so important to document everything. There are definitely several things I would do differently next time I incubate eggs.

 Since increasing humidity, there has been condensation on the glass. I hope this is normal.

 I noticed when I lay a washcloth over the top glass, the temperature increases.

Occasionally the temperature increases about 2 degrees. This can be influenced from a warmer outside temperature OR the very exciting... body temperature from growing chicks!

I am (technically) right in the middle of day 21. In the past few days, I have had to cover the glass to increase the temperature. This evening, I have a 2 degree increase with both windows uncovered. I'd like to stay on the positive side and say that my chickens are making moves to hatch.

 On the top right of my incubator, I keep a water bottle. This keeps the water warm and ready if I need to fill the bowls for humidity.

On the top left, my husband set up a smoke alarm. I wouldn't have thought to put that there but better safe than sorry.

 The main thing that I wish I had done differently is the style of egg turning. I put all the eggs (pointy side down) in this egg carton. I had cut the bottom of the carton to provide better circulation. I used this bent piece of chicken wire to lean the egg carton on one side or the other. I switched it 3 times a day so they would spend the night on the opposite side as the night before.

I now feel that this method may have been too rough. Next time I will just lay the eggs as they are now and rotate each one by hand. I also plan to do it 5 times a day instead of my previous 3.






I encourage any questions, comments or advice.

Candling Chicken Eggs

Candling is when you shine a bright light through the egg which enables you to see inside. This is a really cool thing to do during the incubation of chicken eggs. It is so difficult to wait 21 days to see those baby chicks. I was constantly wondering what was going on inside that shell. Were they fertilized? Were they developing properly or did they die off at some point? I was dying to know! 

We ordered 6 eggs but the people we ordered from (MyPetChicken.com) were nice enough to add an extra one.

 The two on the left are Partridge Penedesenca. The other lighter brown on the bottom is a Blue Splash Maran. The greenish one with an EE on it is an Easter Egger. The WHS is a White Silkie. Below that one is a Blue Silkie and the one to the right is a Silver Sebright Bantam.

We made the mistake of only ordering one of each breed we liked. If I were to do it again, I would have ordered two of each.


The pictures below are candling on day 12.

 This is a picture and an non fertilized egg. You can see the yolk at the top and the light glowing through the white making it yellow. This is the Silver Sebright Bantam. There is no chicken forming in this egg and it can be thrown away but I left mine in a little longer just to be sure.

 Here is a great picture of our Blue Silkie. You can see a lot of veining, which is a good sign of life. As of now, there is a chick growing inside this egg but there is no guarantee that it will make it til the end.

I believe this is still the Blue Silkie egg. You can see the chick is filling up the egg as well as the veining.

I don't remember which breed this egg is but the darker area is the chick. I was able to see some movement in a couple of the eggs which was very exciting!

 This is the White Silkie. Sad to say but I believe that this one has not survived. You can see the dark spot toward the top left is the beginning stages of a chick but it is much smaller than the others and has minimal veining. I left it it in the incubator for a little longer just in case and I will check again today or tomorrow. I am not feeling good about this one because I believe I have started smelling a mild odor. This could mean a rotting egg or it could just be in my head. :)

 Another picture of the potentially bad egg. I have read that you should remove any unfertilized or "expired" chick eggs by day 14 to avoid the risk of exploding which can contaminate the other eggs greatly affecting your hatch rate.

Hatch day is estimated for April 26th. I am hoping to get some video!

If anyone is familiar with bad eggs, any advice would be greatly appreciated. This is my first time hatching and I would hate to throw out any potential life.

DIY Incubator

Our family decided that we wanted to raise chickens for eggs. There are several options for doing so. You can hatch baby chicks from eggs, order day old baby chicks or order older chickens. I definitely wanted them from babies. Ordering day old chicks would have been a fine idea but I really felt that hatching them at home would be so much more rewarding. I thought it would be a good learning experience for the kids and so exciting to watch them hatch! The only downside to this method is that there is no sure guarantee that all of your eggs will hatch. 

The next step is to order everything you need. We ordered our fertile eggs from a site where you can choose your own breed and there is no minimum. (site is Mypetchicken.com). We chose some unique looking breeds and ones that lay unique looking eggs. 

To hatch eggs you need and incubator. You can order one online with many different features. Some are still air, some have a built in fan for air circulation. Some come with an automatic egg turner, some have a built in thermostat. They come in all different sizes and a wide range of prices. We ordered 6 eggs so the least expensive incubator that could hold that amount was about $55 on Amazon.com but it had bad reviews. I watched a bunch of youtube videos and picture tutorials and figured I could make one for about $25. I decided to share my experience because it's good to see different incubator characteristics and know what the hatch rates of it.

You will need:

 A styrofoam cooler with lid
2 picture frames (for the glass)
Roll of duct tape
Knife
Chicken wire
Wire cutters
Thermostat
Bowl (or two) and sponge for water
40 watt bulb
Socket
Small extension cord 
Cardboard or styrofoam egg carton

 First take the glass out of one picture frame. Cut a hole in the lid, the same size as the glass.

 Tape both sides of lid, securing the glass.

This is the top viewing window.

 Picture above is the inside of the lid. 


Picture to the right is the top.

 Next, move to the side of the cooler.

 Doing the same thing you did with the lid, cut out a rectangle the same size as the 2nd piece of glass.

I put mine to the right a bit because that's where the eggs will be sitting so I wanted the best view possible.

 Again, tape inside and out to secure glass.

This is your side viewing window.

 Next your going to cut about 2.5 feet of chicken wire.

I cut it a little more narrow on the part that sits on the bottom and wider at the top.

 Then you need to shape the wire to look something like this.


The chicks spend the first 24 hours in the incubator, so they can fluff up, so they need to be protected from the hot light bulb.

 I left the pointy edges at the end going on top and poked them into the styrofoam to secure it.

 Here is a look at where your eggs will be sitting. I ended up using this window a lot more than the top one.

 After your wire is molded, you can pull it back to set up your bulb.

The bulb will be going on the left side, furthest from where the eggs will be.

 Cut a hold in the side slightly smaller than the size of the base that the bulb will be screwed into.

 I found this piece at either Lowes or Home Depot for $2.27.

 Push the light socket in the hole.

 Screw in bulb.

Almost every DIY incubator I read about said to use a 60 watt bulb. I tried this and it was way too hot. Even with a ton of holes poked in it, it ran at a lethal egg temp of 106-108 degrees. Ideal temp is 95.5 degrees.
I ended up using a 40 watt which runs at about 97-99 most of the time and occasionally hitting 100 if its warmer out.

 Replace the wire over the bulb.

 I bought a small extension cord for about $5 at the same time I bought the bulb socket.

 Its important to run your incubator ahead of time so you know what your temp and humidity will be.

Humidity will increase with a larger surface area of water. Depth makes no difference. I put a long, shallow bowl of water under the wire where the eggs will sit. This gave me a humidity of about 35-40%. I simply put a sponge in that bowl and it went up to about 55%. My only problem was that the water would evaporate so fast that I needed to add water every hour to keep the humidity on the higher side.

Ive read that most people keep humidity at about 45% for the first 18 days but those same people did not have very good hatch rates. I'm keeping my humidity around 65% then I will increase to almost 80% for the last days.

To achieve a 65% humidity, I have a long shallow bowl of water with sponge, then I had to add a smaller bowl of water. This has worked quite well and I only need to add a small amount of water once every other day. After day 18, I will be adding another water bowl with sponge.



The first 24 hours after hatching, they do not need food or water to drink because they are still absorbing nutrients from the yolk sac.

 I'm sure you're wondering why the heck I have so much duct tape. Haha! This is because I read all over the place to use a 60 watt bulb. Because it was so hot, I poked a bunch of holes all over the place in an attempt to lower the temp. This was unsuccessful.

I then replaced the 60 watt with a 40 watt, but had to cover almost all of the holes I made in order to achieve the temperature I was going for.

I've been able to maintain a 65% humidity and 99 degrees with the exception of opening the incubator to turn the eggs. Opening the top brings the humidity down to about 55% and temp to 97, but only for a short time.

Here you can kind of see the dish of water (with sponge) that I have under the chicken wire. The small glass bowl is what I had to add to increase the humidity a little bit in the beginning. On day 18, I plan to remove the glass bowl and put a wider one with a sponge on the other side, under the light. I am hoping for a good hatch rate and I don't want to risk any of my new babies drowning. :)

It's kind of hard to see but I have another piece of chicken wire I shaped to keep the eggs on their side. I didn't feel comfortable just laying them down and risking them growing the wrong way so I developed this method.

Here is a better angle to show you what the egg carton is sitting on. On day 18, I plan to take that out put a hand towel or something in there.  The system I have in there works well for now but I want them to have something softer to land on when they come out of their shells.

I am looking forward to hatch day and I hope I can catch some video of it to share!