Thursday, December 20, 2012

A photo and a story

We drew those permanent-marker lines around the center of the eggs to remember that they were fertilized and not for eating. Of the nine eggs, seven hatched nicely on exactly the day we expected. One didn't hatch at all--maybe it hadn't been fertilized at all. And one started to hatch in the wrong direction--splitting open along the latitude, not the longitude. We could see the wet chick inside but didn't want to help it along. Iris told us to make sure to gather up the unhatched eggs because they would spread disease to the new chicks, but we lost track of that semi-hatched egg amidst the hay. Two days later, I found it--squashed completely flat, and the little chick inside it just a flat, sticky pancake. I carried it on a board to the trash.

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