First hatch! Pics ***Update with new pics***

[Heather J]

So I've incubated several batches of eggs this summer, but this is my first one to result in a chicky. This morning (day 21) my dh heard some peeping from the bator, it was only piped internally, so we couldn't tell which one, but it made me so excited. Then, of course, I had to leave town for the afternoon/evening. This evening my dh came home from work and called to tell me one of the chicks was out and running around. I was so excited because I had started with 34 eggs, and was down to only 3. So I'm the new mommy of an adorable (extremely vocal) cochin chick. I'm still hoping his constant chatter will result in one of the other chicks deciding they want to come out and join him.

He's to tiny, I can hardly believe how small he looks on my hand.

Tomorrow if I don't have any more pips I'll probably try piping the air pocket to see if anything is still going on inside. By the way, is he going to be black? he came from a BBS and white partial frizzle run.

 

[BirdBoy88]

aww it looks just like my frizzle chick

Congrats Heather

 

[MissPrissy]

Congrats!

 

[Heather J]

Thanks! I was trying to decide whether to pip the air cell on the other two eggs because there was no noise, so I candled first. Looks like neither of them are really big enough to hatch--the silkie probably died first a week or so ago, and the other cochin several days back. I'm going to leave them in the bator another day or two to be sure, but I think this little peep is going to be spoiled rotten (suddenly my dh gets why I was so excited about hatching--it was love at first sight. lol)

 

[MissPrissy]

Baby chicks warm the hearts of the biggest gruffest of men LOL

 

[dangerouschicken]

Without the fuzzy feet, looks just like the babies I've been hatching this week! Weird!

Congrats on the cutie!

 

[playswithfowl]

Congrats!

 

[Heather J]

So my baby is a week old now and I can't believe how cute the little bugger is, or how much he's grown. I did the feather sexing thing and I'm 99% sure the chick's a male, so we're going with that for now (weren't people saying their first hatch in ever bunch of eggs always seemed to be a male?). He's grown so much, I had to share a pic.

Also, we thought he was going to be black, but look at these feathers--looks like Leah mixed up which pen she pulled the eggs from because I *thought* pen 2 was supposed to be the barred babies, and I'm pretty sure this egg wasn't marked pen 2.

We have him in a big cardboard box on our kitchen counter which is more than big enough for one little bird, and I love hearing him peeping at us all day. I put a mirror in the box with him a few days ago and he was totally fascinated. It was hilarious. Our other cochins (white) and silkies (white and BBS) are supposed to arrive in one week. I'm still hoping, praying, and wishing with unrealistic expectation that we'll have our chicken condo ready to put them in by the time they are a week old. Ah, well. A girl's gotta dream, doesn't she? I know I'll have to fence him off from them for a little bit while they catch up to his size, but at least they'll be able to peep at each other through the fencing or whatever. I'm still hoping he'll turn out to be frizzled.