New Baby Chicks are Here

Today, new baby chicks have hatched in our incubator. This is the second batch of our baby chick project using our homemade incubator.

These chicks hatched all by themselves without any help whatsoever. As you may know, hatching is a very strenuous effort for the little ones. Hatching has a few steps:

First, the chicks pip. Pipping is when chicks make a tiny break in the egg shell. It takes a healthy chick about 24 hours to emerge.

After pipping, chicks keep breaking the shell a little at time until a big crack occurs. At that point, a chick will push with its legs so hard, that the egg breaks and the chick frees itself.

When the chick emerges from the egg, it is wet and very tired. It goes to sleep for a few hours before it’s ready to move to the brooder. So, one by one, all our chicks left their first little homes and emerged to this world to enjoy their new life.

All chicks look and act very healthy and spright. I was so busy monitoring the hatching, removing the shells, and moving the chicks to the brooder, that I didn’t even have enough time to take pictures of the entire process.

However, pictures or not, we have 32 new baby chicks today!