Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Surprise!

I was awakened by a strange noise coming from the bathroom this morning.  Kind of a scratching scrambling noise and there was a curious peep peep.  At 5:15 a.m. it took a while to register what I was hearing...once it dawned on, me I flipped the covers off and raced to look and make sure I wasn't dreaming.

I stared in disbelief as I saw that we had a turkey hatch in the night!  You know the turkey eggs that I was 99% sure I killed with high temps in the incubator?  Yup, those are the ones!  We had one completely hatched, 2 more have pipped.  They are trying to get the job of hatching done.  This is so exciting and it feels like a gift from God!



They also hatched 1 day earlier than normal, maybe higher temps develop them faster! lol  I won't know if they are normal or healthy for a while longer yet, they are still figuring out how to walk and getting dried off and fluffy.  So in a few hours hopefully we will have a better idea.  I am just so excited we have life!

I am so glad I didn't give up on them last week when I was so sure they were dead....I had decided to go ahead and finish the incubation period just in case one was in a cooler corner of the incubator and made it somehow.

I will have to be sure to tell Butterball about the new arrivals when we go feed the older birds this morning!  I am sure he will be excited to have some young peeps to tell about life on the farm.  Thankfully the timing works out well because we have a new batch of chicks in the brooder so these turkeys can go right in with them in a couple days and I won't have to have a separate set up for them if we don't want to.  Although, I have a feeling they will be a little spoiled and stay inside for a while.

I was so excited to be able to share this update with you!  We obviously won't have a good hatch rate beings we bought 24 hatching eggs and it only looks like 3 will even possibly hatch, but after this 27 days of stress, worry, and constant care it feels like a triumph!

 

So we didn't completely fail after all!  Now if we can keep them alive from now on, hopefully if they could survive the inconsistencies in the incubator they are toughened up enough to live through anything now!  

1 comment:

The Oregon Thorndikes said...

It's amazing even the little gifts we get from God. Such a victory. Congrats! :)