A Watched Egg Will Not Hatch

My husband's parents were in town for the week and I was taking full advantage.  Shanna was inside looking after the girls and I had Adam and his dad, Greg, out side working on the side garden.  Things were going good except for a shortage of shovels when I went inside for a potty break and decided to check up on the incubator.  Greg and Shanna were staying in the spare bedroom, in which the incubator was currently housed, and they had left the door ajar.  The first thing I noticed was our cat Ivan, crouching in front of the incubator, doing the universal cat about to pounce shoulder dance.  I shooed him away and peeked inside.  I heard the uncoordinated tumbling of the freshly hatched chick before I saw it, then there it was peeping out from beneath one of the coffee filters that was serving as a nest.  Still plastered with egg juices, it looked so tiny and the way that it moved, first lunging forward and then looking up so high that it inevitably lost its balance and tumbled over backwards, SO ADORABLE! I was hooked!

WHAT GREAT NEWS! I had to share it.  I told Shanna on my way out the door and then yelled to Adam to drop his shovel and leaped into his arms.  "WE HAVE A QUAIL!" I shouted and laughed and (to be honest) cackled in ecstasy.

Everyone came inside and took a look then they went back to work. Then I studied the other eggs and saw movement in one.  The rest of the day I could not focus.  I started water boiling for the girls' mac'n'cheese and then laid on the floor to watch the little egg shake and quiver.  I remembered the water boiling and completed the mac'n'cheese.  Then I laid and watched the egg for probably, no egg-xaggeration, an hour.  I was riveted but also anxious, how long was this supposed to take?  Adam had left for the gym and returned while I was on Egg Watch 2014.  He reminded me that we had our anniversary dinner in an hour, so I should get ready soon-ish.  I put in a solid 30 minutes more and then got ready in record time and side note: I looked damn good.

We went to Rapscallions, a local seafood joint, kind of upper crust but still casual.  It is really close to our house and one of Adam's friends works in the kitchen.  Dinner was wonderful.  But even my macadamia crusted swordfish over sticky coconut rice wasn't enough to distract me from the excitement at home.  After some delicious baklava we swung by RedBox and headed home.  From the car I went straight to the incubator and looked in to see the previously active egg lying there immobile.  I moved the incubator into our room so the cheeping would not disturb the folks.  And compassion got the best of me, I grabbed some tweezers and pulled the cap off the egg.  The chick had successfully pipped a clean cap but for some reason had not been able to shake the egg.  After a few seconds of watching the chick struggle unsuccessfully against the egg I broke down further and massaged its little shoulders till its head, quickly followed by its body, emerged.  That chick was pathetic.  It flopped listlessly around.  Oh, its a goner for sure I thought.

I joined Adam in the living room and we watched "Don Jon".  I love Joseph Gordon-Levitt.  And this movie blew me away.  On the way to bed I checked on the incubator, the cheeping had intensified.  The pleasant sight of a third Texas A&M greeted me.  The first chick was nearly dry and who had learned the most motor skills was trampling the other two.  I named the chick I released Dottie because of a large brown dot on its head.  Dottie was still alive flopping to and fro but its poor little abdomen was a dark shad of purple as was its crown.  Bruising from its attempt to hatch.  We went to bed and I slept fitfully, the cheep-peeping of the chicks making it nearly impossible to doze off. 

Around 2 am I got up and looked in to see two brown chicks had hatched.  I grabbed the A&Ms and transferred them to the brooder in our bathroom.  Now the brown chicks could tumbled unmolested by their senior hatch-mates.

In the morning I was disappointed that no other eggs had opened.  I transferred the Jumbo Browns to the brooder and once again studied the eggs.  I swore two of them were moving, not a lot, but they were totally moving.  I kept hope for the next day, and the next, I read over and over again message board conversations about quail and how some people didn't have chicks hatch till day 21.  The incubation period is 15-21 days but the majority hatch on day 17 like mine. The chicks in the brooder seemed to be doing well, they had all learned to master their bodies and were running all over the place, even Dottie.  I had been warned not to give them too much water because they might drown. So I gave them a soaked corn-oats-&-barley mix in addition to the gamebird crumble.  Early Wednesday morning Adam woke me to tell me Dottie had died.  I went into the bathroom and saw the little prone body set on top of the brooder.  Sigh, Dottie fail the first test of life and in the end it was the only test that mattered.

The rest of the week followed unremarkably, the egg that I swore had moved was now quiet.  Still I waited till this morning to perform any "egg-topsies".  I cracked a few open to be met with splatters of white and yolk and then I opened the mover.  A partially formed baby plopped out.  That was it.  I couldn't do anymore.  I took the eggs out the the duck pen and dumped them on the ground and gave them a few stomps to ensure all shells were broken. The ducks made short work of them.

To cheer myself up a bit I went and watched the chicks in the brooder for a while, the cute blonde A&Ms chasing the brown zebra-striped Pharaohs around the warming rock I had placed in the center.  Were they each worth $7.50?

Yeah, totally.