Hatching Chickens - Success!

The excitement started building yesterday as the arrival of our new chicks rolled closer! One of the six eggs in our incubator was very slightly cracked and occasionally there was some movement of the eggs as the chicks inside rolled around. This morning when I got up at 6.45am to check, I was greeted by the cheeps of our first hatchling. It was hard to believe that an egg had turned from yolk and white into a baby chicken, and was hatching right on time in 21 days!

Since then, two more have hatched. The last three eggs haven't been showing any signs of life while all the drama has been unfolding around them, but one of them has just gotten its first crack. So hopefully soon they'll catch up.

Here is a picture of the chicks still in the incubator which has been holding temperature nicely.

 

Update: There are now five chicks successfully hatched. Although the last one may be slightly late, there is still a reasonable chance that he will make it so he's still in the incubator by himself. His brothers and sisters are all in the brooder now.

They seem to generally like to huddle together under the light bulb which indicates it's not warm enough in there, but they're not emitting those piercing chirps that they do when they're far away from the light, so I guess they're about right. They're also occasionally pecking at the bits of mash on the floor, and some of them are heading over to the water for a drink. They actually don't change the way they drink their whole lives, because they act exactly like the bigger versions when they're drinking! Lean forward, get some water in their beak, lean back with mouth open and glug glug glug...

Here is a video. Although it was created for my nephew Caleb you might enjoy the sound of the chicks chirping!