Did they make it???

Earth Day:

Earth Day was yesterday, April 22nd.  It rained all day so we really didn't have the opportunity to do anything too "earthy" on earth day.  I spent some time in my kitchen filling my two new pantries with food from my cabinets.  We had been storing food in lower cabinets, making it difficult to access and see.  I wondered what I could do to celebrate earth day so I decided to recycle my expired food.

Recycle food?  Yup, our expired chicken broth will be mixed into the dog food at dinner time instead of water.  Our old bread crumbs and crackers are going to the chickens.  No biggie, just something little to help take up less space in the landfill.        

More About Chickens:

After finding the chicken on the wrong eggs on Friday, I was very anxious to get her moved into a separate brooding area and candle the eggs.  I set up a large wire dog crate on the floor of the coop and put her new laying box in it.

As Steve and I moved her eggs into the new box, I candled each of them.  1 of the eggs looked like it stopped developing at least a week ago so I tossed that one.  It looked like 7 of them had a good amount of development but I didn't see any movement.  It did look like there was a little flicker of movement in 1 of the eggs.  It was hard to tell because I was candling fast during the move.

(See how much darker the egg is as the chick develops and takes up more room?)

I placed the 8 partially developed eggs with Broody Judy in the new box.  I'm not optimistic about them hatching at this point but I'm hoping we get at least 1 chick.  After all of her hard work Judy deserves to be a mother.  If none hatch, I may try to find day-old chicks and trick her into thinking her eggs hatched  by sneaking them under her at night.  

Tonight we'll be sleeping with our window opened.  Steve came home and saw a fox scoping out the hens.  The best access to the coop is inside of the sheep pen so we'll be listening for any sounds of distressed animals outside.  We've got the gun ready to go just in case.