Chicks!

After 18 days in the incubator and 3 days earlier than we expected the chicks started hatching.

We now have about 25 chicks (hard to count as they're so active) now and only three eggs left to hatch. There are a mix of Pekins and Buff Orpingtons.

Here's a picture of my favourite, Mo!

Pekin

Here they are all together,

A couple of the last chicks to hatch have had some problems, we think the incubator may have lost some of it's humidity as we were taking out the chicks that had hatched. Two of the eggs had quite large cracks in and you could see the chicks in there trying to get out but the eggs had dried out so much the eggs were impossible for the chicks to break open and they were getting exhausted. After almost 2 days of them trying to get out Dad stepped in (with the help of my best tweezers) and helped them out.  Dad has done this before and the chicks haven't made it but as they would have died anyway we thought it was worth a shot and here they are...

Because they were stuck in the same position for so long their feet aren't as they should be but they're relieved to be out and coping!