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No longer incubating of course, but about a week after they hatched the chicks are in a larger area to give them space to run around whilst they’re under the heat lamp. In all we had twenty-one hatch, but sadly one of the female Cream Legbar chicks appeared to have some sort of problem with one of her legs leaving her unable to stand up and I was forced to put her out of her misery.

The remaining twenty however are doing well, with wing feathers well developed and tail feathers starting to show.

In the foreground here are two of the White Leghorns, with a male Cream Legbar in the centre towards the back, peering over the Marans.

And on the left here with the stripe across the eye are two of the female Cream Legbar chicks.

They’ll stay where they are for a few weeks now until they’re ready to face the big wide world without a heat lamp and are big enough to be safe from predators that we can’t keep out of their main run. I’ll take some more photos in a few days time.

Well, they’ve been arriving thick and fast (and somewhat noisily) today. Fifteen so far I think, with another three eggs that have pipped though it’s not easy to tell looking through the lids. Sadly we also had one Marans that broke through the shell but seems to be stuck to the inner membrane of the egg. The chick is still alive, but I’m not sure of his chances. Sadly there’s not much we can do other than wait it out and see what happens. I’ll give the remaining eggs a few more days, but after Sunday I’d be surprised if any more hatch.

In terms of incubator performance, far more of the eggs in the Brinsea incubator have hatched or pipped (fourteen-ish) so far than in the Suro (only six-ish), despite the humidity control in the Suro (again the numbers aren’t definite because telling which eggs have pipped is tricky as mentioned earlier). That’s quite disappointing. Across the breeds, seven of the Marans and Cream Legbars have hatched or pipped so far and six of the Leghorns (that figure for the Marans does include the one that may not make the trip), so the viability seems fairly consistent across the breeds.

Those that have hatched have been transferred to a large plastic box which is big enough to allow them to run around and has space for water and food as well as a heater. That’s where they’ll stay for the next week or thereabouts depending on how fast they develop. There’s also a mesh lid on the box. The cats can’t be trusted to do anything other than what comes naturally.

A few pictures of the first few out. The first is a Cream Legbar hen. They’re an “autosexing” breed — the chicks have different colouring depending on their sex. The second is a Marans and I can’t recall if the third is a Cream Legbar cockerel or a Leghorn.

Well, he (or she) wasn’t hanging about. We have a hatched chick!

It’s not a great photo unfortunately. I’ll get a better one tomorrow when we move it out of the incubator after it has dried off.

One of the cats has already been to investigate. Somehow he knows he shouldn’t though, as any time I go near the incubators he jumps down again. We’re such cruel creatures, humans, putting toys where they can’t play with them…

The long peck to freedom!

Alerted by cheeping from one of the incubators I’ve just gone to have a look and one of the chicks is already well on the way out. It’s not a great photo but it is possible to see that the chick is working its way around the shell, breaking the end off.

Hopefully by tomorrow morning it will have made its way out, doubtless driving the cats bonkers in the process.

Now here’s a thought… What is it that drives developing birds to take the end off the egg like this?

Today I took the incubators off the cradles and removed the dividers so the eggs are just lying on the incubator floors. I also lowered the temperature half a degree and pushed the humidity up a little.

At the same time I weighed the trays for the final time. The eggs in the Suro incubator have lost 148g, or 12.9% of their weight. Those in the Brinsea incubator have lost 13.4% of their weight. I think I can be happy enough with that though in a perfect world I might prefer 0.5% less.

Sadly I just haven’t had time to organise anything camera-wise, but I’ll try to take some pictures as they hatch.