The Chicks are Born!

This is hot off the presses...the first of the baby chickens have hatched!  After three long weeks of waiting, the borrowed hen** sitting on a collection of 24 eggs from a friend's assorted chickens have finally broken their way out of their shells!

This morning there were two...and one working on its shell...and by the end of the day, nine more!

Here we are entering the nursery where the hen is kept in isolation with straw in her own crate.

Grandma removes the hen and sifts through the egg pile to count the shells and chicks.

The chicks are removed from their birthplace once they have dried out, and brought here to be with their fellows in the warm crate.

A lucky girl and boy get to hold the chicks, for a brief moment.

And Grandma closes the crib back up to keep them warm. See you tomorrow!

**For the curious - Grandma had to borrow a hen to do this job, because evidently not all hens are well suited to the task of sitting on eggs!  Some are better than others, and out of Grandma's dozen or so chickens, none as so good as this one.  This hen is only a year and a half old, but has a very good track record of sitting on eggs until they hatch!  She has been sitting in her isolation crate, almost entirely motionless as far as I can tell, for the entire 3 weeks it takes to hatch the little ones.  Grandma keeps her full with feed and water in easy reach so she wants for nothing.

The eggs are from various chickens because the more the merrier - hens are not particular about whose eggs they are sitting on!  Starting with more eggs means more chicks!  And it gives the owner a variety of new chickens.