NEW BABY!!

[Eggscaping]

Had to share on more than the original thread. I'm so happy!! Say Happy Birthday to Swedish Flower Hen chick number 1 - shipped egg, first ever try at hatching!

 

[MGG]

Had to share on more than the original thread. I'm so happy!! Say Happy Birthday to Swedish Flower Hen chick number 1 - shipped egg, first ever try at hatching!

Congrats! Fingers crossed it's a girl! I have that same incubator, I love it. Great job! Its adorable Happy happy birthday little baby!

 

[JaeG]

Oh, she's so adorable. Congratulations and I hope your other eggs follow her good example.

 

[Eggscaping]

The final tally on the 8 shipped Swedish Flower Hen eggs is 5 chicks now hatched, with some assistance on some of them, and 3 that have shown no signs of pipping yet. I will keep them in the incubator another day and candle but I'm pretty darn happy with 5 new chicks!
*Addition: Well, as I was getting number 5 chick from the incubator and checking the 3 unpipped eggs, I found that 2 of them are, indeed, pipping. This is 7 out of 8. The pips look good and the chicks look energetic.
Everyone wishing me luck must certainly have worked...I never dreamed I'd get 7 to hatch my first time. I'm sort of giddy right now. And one of them actually has a little comb. I hope it shows up in the picture. It's the 2nd picture where she is still resting in the shell and the one in-hand.

 

[JaeG]

Wow that's awesome! You should feel very proud of yourself. Your first must have been a good cheer leader.

 

[Eggscaping]

Wow that's awesome! You should feel very proud of yourself. Your first must have been a good cheer leader.

Thank you! Since this was the first ever time I've done this, I credit it to all the articles I've read here, and all the kind people who gave me advice! And luck!!! And yes, the first one was a loud cheeper!

 

[Eggscaping]

So now, we have 3 different age batches. The 4 first-graders, who are about 21/2 weeks old. They are starting to feather out, are outside in the coop with a mama heating pad, and are pretty big. They are starting to perch, and know how to go up and down the ramp into the run from the coop. Then we have the 3 kindergartners, the ones Boots got at Farr's yesterday. They are maybe 2-3 days old. They can run in and out of the MHP and know how to eat and drink. Then we have the pre-schoolers, the SFH babies, just hatched today. They don't know how to do anything. The problem is we only have 2 mama heating plates, so we had them under a red brooder light in a bin. But the temperature was going up too high and some of them were practically passed out from the heat. We tried putting the most advanced one in with the kindergartners, but those little savages started picking on them. So all day we've been fretting about how, exactly to maneuver these guys. I did not expect to have 7 chicks hatch out! Right now we have the kindergartners in the bin the pre-schoolers were in, so the pre-schoolers can be in the bin with the MHP and learn to use the MHP. They are very content under there, in that bin. But the kindergartners are not happy. The latest plan is to keep everyone where they are until right before dark, then throw them all in together under the MHP and immediately turn off the lights.
We had plans to use the 'look but don't touch' when we got ready to integrate the kindergartners with the first graders, but as stated, I didn't plan to have such success with shipped eggs that I'd end up with 7 pre-schoolers.
See...this is why I never had kids!