Club Flamingo Opens Early And Hatch B Gets Annoyed

We went to Tractor Supply to get chick food, and stopped by the chick bins to visit the babies. This little Barred Rock chick had a bloody vent and was being eaten by a bunch of Rhode Island Red chicks, who were chasing her all over pecking at her vent (this is why I don't like Rhodies!). I called one of the employees over and he scooped her out and put her in a box. I could kinda see where this was going (TS doesn't sell chicks except in quantities of 6, and has a sign up over their chick bin stating that chicks are sold for 'agricultural purposes only' don't you DARE even THINK about how cute they are--!) and had a strong suspicion that this chick was destined to be taken out back and tossed in the garbage.

So I told the guy that I could give it a good home, we were hatching chicks in a few days and were all set up. He was kind enough to give her to me.

 I told the kid not to get attached yet, we have to see if she lives or not. We've put Kwik-Stop on her vent and fed her some electrolyte solution, and the kid donated a small stuffed animal for her to cuddle with. She's just starting to get wing feathers and her egg tooth has fallen off, so I'd put her at about 1 week old. Right now she's resting and doing very well under mama flamingo's watchful eye.

But I'll bet she'll need some tractor-related name...

Actually I kinda bombasticmom-bellowed throughout the store that they had an injured chick, now that I think about it, yikes.

Also tonight I candled Hatch B with a nice bright light.  Sadly, non of the Bantam Cochin eggs that I bought developed, and on breakout all were infertile...so no Bantam Cochins for me, I guess.  This is hard because I was looking forward to them so much.

 Of the other eggs, I saw 5 viable, squirmy embryos, one of which is in a Bear egg (Bear being our 12 year old Head Hen who suddenly came back into lay after being shamelessly romanced by Cam, our young Americaunas mix roo).  6 other eggs are 'possibles' and I'm fairly certain they have chicks in them.  One other egg from our flock was a dud and on breakout was infertile.  I'll candle Hatch B again in about 4 days.

Meanwhile, Hatch A should be along to keep our little Barred Rock chick company this Saturday if all goes as planned!