His Eye watches even the sparrow, does it Not?

On day 10 of the hatch, our electric went out. Farming husband rushed the eggs promptly at 8 am to my suburban mother's house, still pumped full of electricity,

and plugged the incubator in. They had been in house temps in the 50s for 3 hours.

I was worried about the eggs already because the post office had delayed their delivery several days, and our delivery guy is anything but gentle with packages.

Then loosing electricity meant they were yet again compromised. Even if the packages were handled perfectly, a shipped hatching egg is a compromised egg.

These eggs already had two strikes against them.

 Then the unthinkable happened. . .

My very suburban mother forgot and unplugged the "bator" for over 12 hours

on day 16 in house temps in the high 60's!!!

I was beyond upset. I was so looking forward to this hatch, had candled the eggs on day 11 and found all but 2 of 29 eggs to appear viable, and now it was all lost.

If you're visited my site, follow my facebook page or even read all of the posts on this blog, you'll find we are devout Christians and believe God cares about the large and small things of life:

"Look to the fowls of the heaven, for they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather into storehouses, and your heavenly Father doth nourish them [. . .]"

Matthew 6:26

My mother, oldest son and sister, who is but 6, were fairly distraught over the whole fiasco, and they prayed quite earnestly that the eggs would have a great hatch.

I had my doubts. Such a small thing in the grand scheme of things. Sometimes you feel silly to pray for small things; however, those small things can make life quite grand in their own little way.

So we all prayed the little chicks would make it against all odds. Three strikes should have put them out. .  .however, the chicks and/or the Lord had other plans.

I candled 2 of them on day 18 and found movement inside the eggs. I was astounded. I thought if two lived, it would be an amazing miracle.

But. . .

By the end of day 20, we had 6 chicks!

I truly could not believe it! 

By 10 am the next morning when I called my mother,

there were 11 chicks!

That evening, I brought home 15 chicks and left

6 more hatching in the bator.

At the end of day 22, 22 chicks hatched successfully.

I did have to help one out that was stuck inside

due to the contents of the eggs hardening and

one chick failed to make it out before I could help

and died in the egg, which means 23 were viable and

attempted to hatch out of the 27 eggs I'd thought

to be developing. I check the last 4 and found that

only one of those actually had a chick in it

that developed, so all but 2 eggs that were viable

ended up hatching. 

Amazing, really!

All 22 chicks are here at the house now:

We hatched out:

7 Black Cooper Marans

9 Blue Wheaten Ameraucanas

and

7 Blue Laced Red Wyandottes,

of which, 4 appear blue and the others

appear splash