Hatching day!

20 days ago, we set our 7 eggs in the incubator. The children have talked about the eggs daily, in terms of "the eggs are on the move" as the incubator mimics Mummy hen and moves them every so often. 

We have looked at the growing chicks using a special candle lamp and saw blood vessels and clear signs of growing chicks.

Still, nothing can every prepare you for the final, magical hatching and today we were lucky enough to witness it with our own eyes. Truly wonderful and quite rare as they tend to like hatching at night ( maybe because it's dark and quiet?!) and we are a day early.

So here we welcome chick number 1 ( who may already have been named- Miss Grant insists it's 'Dave' and since it was her birthday yesterday we might let her have that one!!)who struggled a bit and caused some concern towards the end of the whole process since he seemed to arrive backwards with a large part of shell attached to his head! 

And so here are some photos which show what we found this morning and finish with our lovely 'Dave' born around 3.40pm today!

Ahhhh! Lovely. 

Who know what we may find in the morning???!