Nature is a tough mom...

When incubating eggs, it's always distressing to see the eggs, still intact, but for a little lifeless beak protruding from a little hole. The chick was so close to birth, but just couldn't get out of the shell. While I'm tempted to give that chick some help, I don't. Over the years, we've learned that if a chick isn't strong enough to emerge from its shell, it has little chance of survival. We had a dismal hatch rate this time. We either incubated too early -- I wasn't seeing a lot of rooster tracks on the hens' backs when I was collecting eggs. But most likely, we have a bum rooster. We keep two flocks, side by side, and collect eggs from each. We do this to keep some genetic diversity in the flock. So, for this next hatch, we are marking the eggs by the flock.