A Chick is Born!!

We are proud to announce the birth of a healthy baby chick number 1!! Mother hen and baby chick are both doing fine as you can see in my picture above. The hatching happened this morning.  A lot of chirping and cheeping can be heard from the chicken pen now, and also a tapping sound.  This means the imminent arrival of more baby chicks who are knocking on the eggshells, trying to hatch.... As soon as I can take a picture of the first baby chick looking my way, I will add it to this post.

Mother nature has done everything during this incubating and hatching period, and I guess the mother hen will look after the chicks as they arrive, one by one over the next couple of days.  Survival rate of the remaining chicks could be 50% or even lower, from what I have read, so let's see what happens next...

I couldn't resist having a look inside the chicken hutch just now.  I found mother hen had taken baby chick -1 out of the nesting box and they were having a quiet moment together as seen above and below.

There is still only one chick that has arrived, and no sign of any others....

What puzzles me is the fact that there are now 18 eggs in chicken nesting box 2!! There were 14 eggs 2 days ago, so I still don't understand where these new eggs are coming from! Soon there will be no room to accommodate all the future chicks that are about to be hatched.  Chicks start hatching from Day 21 - Day 23 of the incubation period.  At the moment it is Day 21 or 22!

Today's new born chick hatched from the broken eggshell you can see in the top left hand corner... 

Watch this space!!