Chicks!

More chicks!  The eggs we put in the incubator at the beginning of the month hatched over the weekend.  Actually, they started hatching early!  My friend Nancy and I candled them on day 18, which is supposed to be the start of "lock down" (the last 3 days of the incubation when the eggs aren't turned and the chicks get into hatching position).  We noticed one egg already had pipped!

A pip is the first hole the chick pecks through the egg.  The next day a few more chicks pipped their eggs.  We had 7 chicks by Friday night.  

A few of Nancy's Ameraucana eggs hatched, along with a Cuckoo Marans, another friend's Ameraucana, a Black Copper Marans, and one of my mutt Easter Eggers.  

Nancy started calling this one (my Easter Egger) Pudge, which I think is the perfect name for her (him?).  It was really fluffy, right from the start.  

This is the Ameraucana chick.  It's the neatest looking chick!

Over the next 2 days, we had some chicks sort of stagger behind.  Five more managed to hatch, but they seemed to have some issues, either from too high of a temperature or too low humidity.  

They weren't as fluffy, and their down seemed to stick to them more.  There's another one of my Easter Eggers (the striped one and one yellow one), an Ameraucana (one of the yellow ones), and either 2 Black Copper Marans or a Black Copper and a Birchen Marans.  

So, out of 42 eggs we only had 13 hatch, and 1 died shortly after hatching.  Some of the eggs never developed, and the ones that made it to lock down but didn't hatch all had mostly developed chicks in them.  Not the best hatch rate, but at least it wasn't 1 lonely chick.  

The chicks lay so flat when they sleep...so cute.

This is Reggie, Nancy's handsome Birchen Marans rooster, and one of the hens below. 

We may try another hatch, because we'd really like more Marans and Araucana chicks.