Anyone for a live chick hatching thread?

[UtterlyUnimaginativeUsername]

We've had a Silkie hen sitting on 6 eggs for the last 3 weeks. Two have hatched so far today. Two more eggs are making cheeping sounds, there's tapping coming from the 5th and the 6th is quiet at the moment; maybe having a nap?

Oooh me, me! I want to see.

Are they all her eggs op?

In!

Meeeeee please.

No, not her eggs. Some of hers went to someone else and hatched yesterday. I bought these so they wouldn't be related to our rooster, for future breeding. So our hen and rooster are white, but the first two chicks are black.

😍

What a cutie

Oh! The little darling! Please can we have lots of photos....pleeease? I love farmy things. 💗

Melee please,

Here's one of Princess, and another of two chicks and an egg just visible under her. She's in a box in the middle of the sitting room, because that's how we roll

Now op have you checked she is happy about having her dc on a public forum??

Ohhhh can I join? I need this today

@Aprilshowersandhail

Now op have you checked she is happy about having her dc on a public forum??

I asked her and she said 'bokbokbokbokbokbok'. So that's okay

Checking in for 🐣 updates!

Ooooh me! I love Silkies!

@FitYeDaeinYeMadRadge

Ooooh me! I love Silkies!

I've only known the two, but they're absolute dotes. Princess is just a little wisp of a thing and loves cuddles, and Roo is such a gentle rooster. He has 6 hens (and a random guinea fowl) and he takes such great care of them, and also happily spends time on any available human's lap, having a snooze.

Silence on the maternity ward now. We put in some chick feed and Princess had a massive dinner of it. I don't think the chicks touched it but that's not a problem yet. They all seem to be asleep now, there are no chicks visible at all, just white Princess fluff.

Awww lovely silkie and cute chicks.

Or it could have been boker off!!

It didn't sound rude, it was a very gentle little sound.

My dad was over earlier; he hadn't seen the chickens since last summer. He made some clucking noises at them, but he obviously doesn't speak chicken very well because they all shouted at him and ran away. They're normally very sedate and proper, so he must have said something terribly rude.

It was very fowl language

😍😍😍😍😍 Oh my heart 💓. How delicious.
With you saying there not all her eggs.
Do the eggs often get swapped around. Doesn’t that mean she’s rearing another mummy hens babies and someone else is raising hers. Switched a birth I suppose

We have 7 layers and they all lay their eggs in one spot. You can give 5 hens 10 nesting boxes and they'll often all lay in the same one (and shout loudly at each other to hurry up!). The idea seems to be to lay them all together so that if one hen goes broody, she'll sit on everybody's. Being broody is tough on a hen so it makes sense that only one will do it but the whole flock's chicks will get hatched.

It's normal for owner to buy, sell or swap eggs to incubate or put under a broody hen. Genetic diversity is important in a flock. Most people only have one rooster (if any), so you'd quickly end up with a massive inbreeding problem if you didn't.

They're awake and cheeping now. They're like human newborns; they don't sleep through the night for ages. They cheep at all hours.

Very fascinating. Can you smell the newness on them. Baby animals always seem to smell like candy floss or cotton candy if you're in the US.

No, they don't seem to smell of anything.

Number three just hatched, literally a minute ago.