This is a lucky Chicken. A very lucky chicken. After just 15 days in our incubator, it hatched out. This was prior to the humidity being raised, and before we even placed it into lock down. It was only found after it chirped, when we went to manually turn one of our other incubators that was on.
The chick is happy, and healthy, and getting on just fine in the brooder. I have never had something like this happen before, and its alot of coincidences that have come together, and a big amount of luck, that have lead to this chick hatching.
So what happened?
On 21st April we went to a local poultry auction, and purchased some eggs amongst a few other items. We bought 2 lots of Sussex Chickens, from 2 different sellers (Unfortunately, we didn’t mark which was which when we placed them into the incubator). The eggs were taken to the auction that morning.
We then bought the eggs home, and placed them on the side in the kitchen. We left them there for at least 24 hours, and then loaded them into the incubator, and the clock began.
On 3rd May the eggs were candled for the first time, to see if any were viable. Most of the Sussex ones in this lot were candling clear, and removed form the incubator. This egg was dark, so was left in, as we have candled them in the past, and had this, and they hatched at the normal time. We weren’t doing anything special, so candling was a quick check.
Fast forward a few days to 8th May, and when going to turn a manual incubator in the morning, there was a chirping noise. Being just 15 days in, it was a bit early, even for chicks in the egg to be that loud. On closer inspection, there it was, a chick in the incubator!
The turner was still on, humidity was at normal levels, and the eggs were vertical. The chick had unzipped the egg, and hatched like you would expect a quail to do so.
Defiantly the strangest thing I have ever seen, and the luckiest chick around today!