Call (Me) the Chicken Midwife.

Here are the chicks the day after they all were hatched - nice and warm and dry in the brooder.

I'm happy to announce the arrival of 16 healthy happy chicks!  The one bantam cochin egg hatched a day early (which is not unusual for bantams) so s/he was all alone for a while.  Of course the first born needed a name - and "Primo" (or "Prima") was the first thing that occurred to me (you'll understand this if you speak Italian or have ever seen the movie Big Night - which, if you haven't, you simply must).  However, this little one soon earned another name:  Sarge - because for the next day and a half after hatching, s/he was busy running from egg to egg cheeping loudly and even pecking on the egg shells of the others telling them to hurry up and get out here!

It was a wonderful experience for both my 5 year old son and me.  All day long, I kept walking back and forth to the incubator and looking in the window and snapping photos and videos.  Here is a video of Sarge just after s/he was born.  Please excuse my nerdy commentary.

 

14 chicks hatched on the predicted day (day 21 of the incubation period).

Day 21 was when most of the action happened.  Here one of the cream crested legbars is hatching out of the pretty blue egg shell.  Sarge is surveying the recruits right in the center.

When I woke up on the 26th day of incubation, 15 eggs had hatched and my only viable Maran egg had pipped.  It took this little guy (or girl) a while - but s/he did it!  It was exhausting to watch - and I can only imagine how the chick felt after fighting that shell!

Here is the last chick to hatch.  S/he is a Maran - and after s/he dried off and fluffed up, was a pretty light charcoal color with a lighter underbelly.  This breed of chicken produces dark shelled eggs like the one s/he just hatched from.  So gorgeous!

So, my final count is 1 bantam Cochin, 1 Maran, 2 Brabanters, 9-10 (?) crested cream Legbars, and 2-3 (?) Welbars.  (the question marks are there because somehow, despite trying to keep accurate records, things just didn't add up - and apparently the Legbars and Welbars are somewhat similar looking as chicks - so I'll have to wait and see who grows into which breed!

Surprisingly, the crested cream Legbars had best hatch rate - I started 14 of those eggs because they came from my flock - and some were almost 2 weeks old!

The Brabanters had the lowest hatch rate.  5 of these eggs didn't develop at all - so I suspect that they weren't fertile.  Of the 7 that showed signs of development, only 2 hatched.  It was certainly a disappointment, but if the odds are with me, I will have one pullet and one cockerel - so someday I can hatch more from my own flock.  These were also the most expensive of the hatching eggs I purchased at $20/dozen.

I purchased the 6 Welbar and 2 Maran hatching eggs from another breeder and he told me that he typically only achieves a 50% hatch rate - so I wasn't too surprised by my outcome of 2 (or 3?) Welbars and 1 Maran hatching.

Overall, this was a fun and rewarding experience.  I would definitely do it again - but would probably invest in an automatic egg turner.

Here are my little ones in there big brooder (which will have a netting top as soon as they are able to jump/fly out).

You may have noticed that there are more than 16 chicks in the brooder picture above... lets just refer to this as chicken math - and the fact that a mail order breeder of bantam Cochins had a big sale on one of my favorite breeds...