Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Marvelous Creation

I am amazed by all the processes programmed inside a tiny little poultry egg to change it from my family's breakfast to a perfect miniature replica of the parent that laid it. I suppose other birds develop in much the same way, but I have no first hand knowledge of their doing so. As I have been sitting and talking with various friends these past few days about our hatching ducklings and the miracle of their creation, I am once again just dumbfounded by the design involved.

Putting aside the fantastic transformation and journey that occurs inside the reproductive tract of female fowl, which allows fertilization to occur and eggs to be laid, in the first place, (You can read an in-depth and scientific report of that HERE.) I am talking about simple timing. Think of this, an average hen lays an egg about every 28 hours. This hen will lay her clutch of, say 10 eggs over a period of two weeks, adding one egg at a time. Only once she has laid all the eggs for that clutch, and she begins to sit on them (to keep them warm) and turn them (so they'll develop inside the eggs correctly), do the eggs "wake up", as it were, and begin to develop. And, ALL the eggs will hatch within hours of each other. So, Mr. Egg laid on day 1, significantly older than MS. Egg laid on day 10, begin to develop and grow at the same time. Marvelous engineering!

And, here is another part that astounds me. When it is time for the eggs to hatch, a remarkable change takes place. The veins carrying a blood supply, spidering around the inside membrane of the egg, stops pumping blood through the exterior of the egg. The blood is pulled back into the chicks body through its umbilicus and closes off to the exterior egg membrane. The yolk that is the chicks source of nutrition is absorbed completely. What sets this chain of events into action? The chick does, after it breaks through to the air sac and begins tapping the inside membrane of the egg with its egg tooth. As the chick pips around the egg, signals are sent to the circulation system that hatching will occur soon and the necessary changes ensue. Just completely fascinating! It is for this reason, you cannot simply crack and peel baby chicks out of their eggs before they are ready. To do so, runs the risk of the chicks bleeding to death.

I am finding great joy on this path that my husband, children and I are on. And, I guess, that is, in part, one of the reasons for our writing this blog- to share the joy that is bubbling up in our lives with you. Farming is hard, back breakingly hard, some days and spiders aplenty *shudder*, on others. (And, we are just a small family farm!) There is tragedy; sometimes hard losses. We are new to this; we make tons of mistakes and do things twice as hard as they need to be done, simply because, we don't yet know better. (But, we will. In time... and with a lot more research and practice.) But, there is also JOY. Joy in growing delicious, untreated, healthy foods for our family and neighbors. Joy in seeing hard work's reward. Joy in knowing we did our best when their seems to be no reward forthcoming. Joy in watching my girls grow into capable young women. Joy in depending less on supermarkets and stores and more on each other. Living in some small way closer to how my grandparents were raised and their grandparents before them.

Thanks for stopping in! I hope you have a blessed day.
Sonja ♥

1 comment:

  1. It is amazing, and quite clear that there is a wonderful Creator behind it all!!

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