Day...I don't know anymore, but the chicks are 2-2.5 weeks old

The chicks are doing well. Eleanor, Henry and Earl are attempting to roost on the food bowl, which is pretty funny. We think Earl is really a girl...so Pearl is her new name. But Brenna still calls her Earl because she thinks it cool. (P)Earl is super friendly and usually the first to get attention in the cage. Isabelle (Izzy) looks like she'll be a he and become Oswald (Ozzy). We think Florence may also be a rooster, so she'll become Lawrence or Larry for short. We're watching a few of the others, just not sure yet whether they're boys or girls...just have to wait and see I guess. Oh yes, Margot...definitely a Marco...oops.

The chicks have at least doubled in size, we're going to have to look at changing cages soon because the 10 little chickens are outgrowing their space and may have to change spots with the medium chickens. The 5 big chickens are enjoying their time outside now without the snow and spots of sunshine we've had.

(P)Earl and Henry are starting to get the striped feathers from the Barred Rock parents, but Eleanor is plain old black so far, nothing fancy, but still lovely. Florence is coming in grey, looks like Marco, so could be a Columbian colouring? Dot who hatched out white with a dark spot on her head, is coming in a brown mottled feathering, similar to Florence. Perhaps a brown Columbian? Yvonne looks like she'll be a partridge. Frances should be a blue silkie. And little Miss Gail looked like she was almost a buff colour, is looking more white as her feathers come in.

Dorothy, a cool brown colouring coming in!

We took the 'kids' outside today for just a few minutes. It was fun to watch them on the grass for the first time. Some of them got to picking at it pretty quickly, some of them just huddled together. The kids had fun watching them!

Earl, Florence, Henry, Eleanor and Yvonne outside.

Frances, Oswald, Gail, Rosalie and Dorothy.

Marco, Buttercup and Edith.

Picture Time!

Here are some pictures. My mom and dad and I took some really nice pictures of the chicks.  There are a couple of nice fluffy white chicks still in the incubator, that aren't shown here.  We've had a heck of a weekend with hatching chicks!  It was really cool to watch them come out.  There are still a few eggs in the incubator, but we don't have a lot of hope for those.  But 17 out of 25 is pretty good we think.

Enjoy the pictures!

Dorothy

Earl, Eleanor, Henry

Earl

Scary Huh?  But that's just the way they fell asleep!

 Six white silkies. These have gone to my Aunts house, and 4 have gone to a good home, the others she's keeping!

This lovely little brown chick is also at my Aunts farm

Yvonne

Frances

Isabelle

Florence

Florence

Florence - We really like her!

These are the three chicks we got a couple of weeks ago - Margot, Edith and Buttercup!

Day 21

The hatching started last night, about about 9:30, says my parents.  A cute little brown chick arrived.  This morning there were 4 chicks in the incubator, with another pipped and working on it.  Throughout the day we had many chicks hatch, as we are now at 13 chicks!  I watched 3 chicks hatch out of their eggs!  It was super cool.  For the third one, I helped by shining the light on it, which made it break out of the shell (it was a bit stuck).

We've taken a few photos of the hatchings and will post in a bit.

Since we had so many hatched chicks in the incubator, we moved some of the nice dry, fluffy chicks out of the incubator, and into a cage.  We did this to stop them from shuffling the other eggs, which haven't hatched yet.  They are all snug under the heat light, eating and drinking.

I was up early this morning (6 am) to check on them, and so I need to go to bed now.  Looking forward to see how many chicks hatch tonight, and the Easter Bunny coming!

Cheeping... peeping... still cooking... and oh so CUTE!

Day 18

Today was lockdown. Lockdown happens when the chicks are getting close to hatching.  We stop them from being on the turner, so that they can figure out where the top is.  This will help them to get out, as they will pip and then break the shell in a circle before pushing off the end and coming out.  Also for lockdown, we can't open the incubator, in case one of the eggs has already piped, we don't want them to dry out.

Here's all the eggs that are viable (and have a chick inside) just before lockdown

For lockdown we placed the eggs into two different boxes.  One of them is a cereal and the other is a pudding box.  They are nice and short so that the top goes back on the incubator.

Here's the all the eggs ready for lockdown

We took the eggs from the turner and placed them in the boxes, then we removed the turner.  Before we put the top back on the incubator the egg with the number 2 on it (top left of left box) was really moving around on its own. There were a couple of other 'wobblers' as the chicks inside are getting ready to make an appearance. 

We figure that anytime from Friday to Monday we'll have some little chickadoos in the incubator.

On lockdown... still growing... still cooking... still wobbling... ready to hatch!  (oh and Buttercup, Edith and Margot are still CHEEPING!!)

Day 15

We went to Orangeville and got 3 really cute 2 week old chicks. The chicks names are Buttercup, Edith and Margo. Buttercup and Edith are white silkies, Margo is grey right now but will probably grow up really cool looking. Edith is super fluffy and is named after the little girl in Despicable Me; 'It's so Fluffy!'. The lady in Orangeville had lots of chickens, some of them were really cool and cute! There was a really pretty Polish hen, with orange and black feathers! There were some nice little chicks and lots of different breeds too.

This is one of the coolest chicks we've ever seen!  It is a frizzle and it looks like it pecked a socket, and all its feathers are standing on end!

She had a barn full of chickens, and some cool cages filled with silkie chicks... These were the nicest silkies that we have ever seen. So calm and fluffy and cute! Oh, and did I mention the two horses and a hackney pony? I got to play with the chicks and feed them corn from my hand. We brought some carrots to feed to the two horses and one hackney pony. We spent quite a bit of time deciding which chicks we wanted to bring home, and are quite happy with the choices made.

Although the drive was long, it was TOTALLY WORTH IT!

The chicks in the incubator are sitting at the right temperature, and we won't check them until lockdown (which is only a few days away now).

Here's a shot of the girls!

Cheeping..... and still cooking....and moving...and growing...

Day 13

This is day 12 of 21 for hatching. So far we have 14 white silkie eggs that are viable, but only 2 coloured chicks that should hatch from our eggs we bought at auction. There were 30 at the start, but only 16 that should hatch if all goes well.

Luckily we still have 2 of our special white silkie eggs from a farm in Orangeville, and 4 cool coloured ones from there too. Plus we still have the 3 surprise eggs from a friend that are all chick-ful!

So of the original 53 eggs we put in the incubator 13 days ago, we only have 25 viable eggs at this time. Not so great, but it's still early in the year and it's been really cold.

We candled them quickly again today, and a whole bunch of them were moving around. Pretty cool. I think I saw quite a few beaks and feet!

Here's a picture of what it looks like on day 12 of hatching, but it's someone else's picture because our camera doesn't take good pictures in the dark.

Still cooking....and moving...and growing...

Day 12

We're a week and a half away from hatching! Only one week away from 'lockdown'. A couple of days left before they hatch we take the eggs off the turner so that the chicks inside can get ready to hatch without being moved around.

The cracked egg we tried to fix didn't look good, so it got taken out of the incubator before it could contaminate the other eggs.

Still cooking...