They're A-Hatchin!

When I woke up this morning and saw no chicks wandering around the incubator I was a bit surprised given the amount of chirping we were hearing all last night. Upon closer inspection, though, it was plain to see that there were little tiny pips (cracked holes) in about 5 of the eggs, and bit of chirping was still happening. I got online to try to find out how long it takes a chick to hatch, and it said that the chick pecks the inside of the shell THOUSANDS of times to make that first little pip hole! Wow. Then they rest for 3-8 hours and regain their strength before maneuvering their head to the fat end of the shell and pushing against it with their head until they finally break the egg in two pieces and pop free. It reminds me of that scene in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective when he's wearing the tutu snooping in the mental institution and attempts to hide in a box when he hears somebody coming, and once they're gone he splays out flat on his back with all his limbs sticking straight out and explodes out of the box. Anyway... here's a picture of the eggs this morning with pips.About 2 pm our first chick hatched from one of the brown eggs, of course one back in the far back corner and almost impossible to get a decent shot of. But here's a short video showing just after it has broken the shell and was attempting to free itself.

Here's a picture of it just hatched for any of you who maybe can't get the video to work for some reason. Right after that one hatched the other eggs must have felt inspired because about three of them nearby started rocking, which is especially strange to see from an egg that hasn't even piped yet. Here's a video of that. ITS ALIIIIIIIIVE!!!!!
You can see in that video the egg with the good sized hole in it, and that chick hatched about 15 minutes after the first one. It just so happened to hatch just when my father-in-law and sister-in-law walked in the door so they got to witness their first chick hatching. :) Here's Summer, Jesse, and Jerry crowded around the incubator with bated breath.We're currently up to 9 chicks hatched and taking a much deserved rest in the brooder under their red heat lamp, and two more over in the incubator getting ready to break through. There are a half dozen others in there that have pipped, but I worry that all the thrashing around of the new chicks has perhaps messed them up somehow. You're not supposed to turn them 3 days before they hatch so the chicks can get into position. So how does their siblings thrashing and rolling them all over the incubator not hurt them? So I'm now snatching the newly hatched chicks and putting them directly under the heat lamp in the brooder instead of letting them fuzz out in the incubator like the directions say. I had 7 chicks thrashing around in there earlier and it was hours later and they still had not fuzzed out. A little while under the cozy heat lamp, though, and they start looking like real chicks in no time. There were 33 eggs in there this morning, and only about 11 chicks accounted for so far. Hmm. I keep telling myself that I was not expecting them to hatch until tomorrow, so maybe everybody else is still doing OK.
Just so the chickens don't get too cocky thinking this post is all about them, I have to post this cute picture of my sister-in-law, Summer, with Sable the lap goat. Who would have gone on sitting on her lap indefinitely if she had not had to go run off and do an Easter egg hunt with Ayden.