Yesterday we brought our sprillans new fluoroscopic egg lamp down to the incubator in the basement, lifted the cover, picked an egg up and COULD SEE THROUGH THE SHELL! We saw the blood vessels, and inside each egg a small spidery dark spot that, according to the brochure that came with the incubator, had to be the one-week-old chicken itself. It was indeed a David Attenboroughish moment (but impossible to catch with my camera)! And waiting is now, if possible, yet more eager. A strange thing though, is that there is a big difference, mentally, between the way we look at the eggs we everyday bring from the hen house in to the refrigerator (eggs we will eat) and the eggs we very carefully brought to the incubator. The same kind of eggs, but the knowledge that these last-mentioned ones might have a future as chickens made them feel like real treasures. But all eggs are treasures, I think. True miracles.
PS. Only a fertilized egg contains the beginning of a chicken. Eggs from hens held in factories are not fertilized, as the industrial hens never meet a rooster. (Drawings atop by me.)
2012/04/09
