I Am Officially a Chicken Hatcher!

After being 0-90 for three years, I can now update that number to 1-108. What am I talking about? Last year, I declared myself the worst chicken hatcher ever. For three years, my family and I have tried numerous times to hatch the chicks ourselves for our Chicks & Bunnies sessions (I tried absolutely everything to get a chick to hatch). And after coming up zero in the past, I can finally declare that the egg hatching drought is over.

The first three years, I easily put around 30 eggs in the incubator. Some I got from my mom from the farm in Pennsylvania and last year, I even went as far as buying blue eggs from Ebay(!).

And out of the 18 eggs I put in the incubator this year, of course the chick hatched in the middle of the night. Like 2:30 in the morning with all of us asleep in the bed, blissfully getting some good night’s sleep.

I can only laugh because of course this would happen while I was dead asleep. It was my husband Pete who actually noticed the egg was hatching and woke me up. As it’s been really busy at the studio for spring sessions, I was not exactly enthused to be woken up from my sleep. Pete had told me that I had said, “No, no. Let me go back to sleep. I have Chicks & Bunnies tomorrow.”

Two hours later, my daughter Asher woke me up and told me the same thing. I mumbled to her,  “No, no. Let me go back to sleep. I have Chicks & Bunnies tomorrow.”

In the morning, it was a little different. I couldn’t believe I finally did it! After four years, a chick has arrived. Asher later named the chick Surprise. Which is surprise, surprise, really a surprise. I’m still going to keep on trying and I think I have the hang of it finally (cross your fingers). Next year, let’s hope it’s at least two.

Here’s a few photos of this (sleepy) momentous occasion.