Kailey Bugarin will never forget the moment she unexpectedly hatched a baby chick… in her kitchen sink.
Bugarin, a homesteader in Moncks Corner, South Carolina, owns 22 chickens—17 laying hens and five chicks—which she keeps as pets and for fresh eggs.
Since she didn’t have a rooster to fertilize her flock’s eggs, Bugarin recently purchased nine fertilized eggs from Mulberry Creek Hatchery to allow the hen to raise chicks.
On day 21 of the incubation period—the expected hatch date—Bugarin went outside with her toddler to check on the broody hen. She found one chick had already hatched and began collecting eggs from the nesting boxes. Some eggs had fallen onto the sandy floor of the chicken coop. Bringing them inside to clean before placing them in a carton for sale, she noticed one egg had an unusually flaky shell.
“I took a dry paper towel to one of the eggs and part of the shell flaked off,” Bugarin told Newsweek. “Instead of seeing yolk spilling out, I just saw white like [how] a boiled egg looks.”
As she continued peeling, she realized it was no ordinary egg—it was one of the hatching eggs that had fallen from under the hen. “I didn’t know what to do,” she said in the caption of the video, explaining that she continued to peel the egg until she found the chick.
Since the egg was cold, Bugarin assumed the chick inside had died. But as she warmed it in her hands, the chick suddenly chirped—it was alive.
Shocked, she brought the chick back outside and placed it under the broody hen. Later that day, the chick had dried off, fluffed up and was just as healthy as the other hatched chicks.
“This was my first time hatching chicks, and I have never had anything like that happen to me before,” Bugarin said. “Thankfully, it was the day it was supposed to hatch, so the chick was fully developed and was not harmed when removing it.”
Bugarin shared a video about the unusual moment on her TikTok page @iwannagohomestead, where it has been viewed thousands of times. The unexpected hatching sparked debate online. Some viewers accused her of improper handling of the egg, with comments ranging from advice on what she should have done to outright claims of animal abuse. Others even suggested the video was staged for views.
“I debated about sharing the video because I knew it would get a reaction,” Bugarin said. “I have people in my comments complain about how I collect eggs, what I feed them, what type of nesting pads I use. This was my first time posting a more controversial video where I was not confident with what I was doing.”
Despite the backlash, Bugarin said she would continue to document her real-life experiences on her homesteading page.
“My page was created to share videos of my son and me taking care of our animals and doing some outdoor projects,” she said. “I wanted to project a realistic life rather than what is usually seen from big pages. All of my videos have been true and genuine.”
Six weeks later, the chick is now a thriving young rooster, is the biggest of the brood and growing into a protective member of the flock.
“He is as full of life as the rest of the babies, and I can’t wait to see him grow up to protect the rest of the flock,” Bugarin said.
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