A Baby!

At work today, we had the most exciting thing happened..... A baby hatched!  It came a little earlier than we expected, but it's healthy and doing well!  I've already put two days of sweaty hard work in anticipation for this little guy.

We started with this little egg in an incubator (because mom and dad rethought the whole being parents thing and decided it wasn't for them).

Then there was a lot of waiting while we periodically weighed it and checked it's heartbeat to make sure it  was developing right and to see if we needed to make temperature or humidity changes.

I dug out all the brooders (where the chick will go after the incubator).  And than disassembled, cleaned and disinfected each one.  And then did it again just to make sure they were really clean (that took two days to complete).  We did all of them because you never know when one isn't going to work, or when one will fail on you.

These are all the brooders disassembled and cleaned, ready to be disinfected.

Disinfecting makes me feel like a mad scientist because I get to mix chemicals and wear funny looking protective gear.

I endured two days out in the sun to ensure this little guy had a safe environment to grow up in.

And now, we get to feed him/her every two hours and steal away moments to watch em figure out how to navigate this big world.

I'm excited to watch this little guy grow!