Well, it’s 24 hours since all the chickapaloosa party started! And we have five beautiful little chicks, all happy and healthy. I can’t believe we had such a good success rate. 50% for a homemade, first time chick hatching is really pretty nice. We are SO getting a real incubator as soon as we can, this was absolutely one of our favorite experiences so far! (Well, we have so many favs… for sure, but this has been pretty miraculous for sure!)

But, right now, we’re content with our little fellas. And in just 10 or 12 days they will have 25 other little chicks to play with when the broiler chicks come to the farm! I’m not sure what color they will be, I think pretty standard yellow chick looking, so we’ll be pretty okay with keeping our little personal flock children separate. And ours will be almost two weeks ahead, so they should look quite different.

Evee was pretty funny through the whole event. At first, she could care less, but as the evening moved on, she was growing more and more jealous of all the attention the white box thing was garnering. She hadn’t seen the reason behind all the oohs and ahhs, but it was clear to her that something was amiss. Finally about 4 in the morning, she conked out in the dining room with her squirrel baby and decided it was not worth staying up or worrying about. Once we moved them to the big aquarium, and she could see them, she watched for awhile, but then said, whatever and went off to play. Gypsy was pretty interested for awhile, but then I think she has also written them off as weird gerbils or something. It’s pretty funny to watch the inter-species relationship form and develope.

Diamond’s birth was slow, but she managed to get it done. She is a very light colored chick and does not have the top comb like the others. We suspect that her mom might be Mildred, the Americauna hen. That would be awesome because we love Mildred and her hawk like slim, small body. Ultimately I want to be raising all Marans and Americuana, or Aracuanas. We will also have half-breeds we are calling Maranacuanas… haha… I’m hoping to get 4 or 5 black copper Maran pullets next week from a local breeder… they are simply beautiful birds.

The real tough story of the night, though, was little Emerald. She was the last to hatch and she was really having a hard time. She had managed to break off her little end cap of shell, but somehow in the process had gotten her head jammed tight into the full part of the shell, with her little wing caught over it. She could breathe, but she was just having a heck of a time. Everything says you should not intervene, and just let them go at it. If they die, they are a weak bird. But there was just no way we could let her die. She had tried SO HARD… almost 3 hours. Everyone else was an hour or less. In my mind, she was a trouper and had tried EXTRA hard to make it to daylight!

So finally, I cracked a wee bit more of her shell, to help her get her head unstuck. And then I lifted the back end of the egg shell a wee bit so that she could use a little of nature’s own gravity to get herself free. She was so weak, but she managed to get hatched!

It was about 6:30 am, and I think I had gotten about an hour of sleep. Maggie had been up the WHOLE night. Jessy crashed about 5 am and was snoozing. I really was not sure if Emerald was going to make it. She lay so still, when the others were peeping and wobbling around after hatching. I moved her under the heat lamp and just waited. I will admit, I said a little prayer for her and I hoped that it was heard. It says that the Lord is watchful over even the little sparrows in the fields, so I hoped that a little tuff chick could get a little special nod.

It was a very long hour or so, and finally, she started to perk up. Her feathers were drying and she was a BEAUTIFUL jet black fluff. I think one of the dark girls is her mom… we do have 3 solid black hens and two black and white hens… we had to sort of block her from the others as they were just walking on her and pecking her hard, just being rough little guys. I tell you, being the first to hatch is the primo spot… Copper had a full couple hours before everyone else was born and then when they started, he was there, pecking at them and basically being a little punk.

Emerald just needed a little recovery time. She’s doing fine now, all fluffed out and walking around, running with the pack. She doesn’t look splay legged or too wobbly, she just got herself in a bad position and wore her little baby body out! So don’t tell anyone that we helped… just a wee little bit!

For someone who is afraid of birds… someone is becoming quite the little chicken fancier… haha…. Jessy has been just the little chickie mom and has been taking their pictures and looking up ID photos online and even…. TOUCHING THEM and moving their water and food and watching them a TON… haha…. I’m glad that she’s taking a fancy to them, and hopefully, in a tiny bit it’s helping her with her bird fear. She still is dreadfully afraid of this pair of barn swallows that is in the pig barn. I will admit, they are very aggressive, but it’s because they have a nest of babies in there. Once they fly the coop, so to speak, I will take down their cool little mud nest. They can find some other swell residence. Jessy can even handle the free range flock as long as they don’t mob her or try and rough her up for crackers. They will, they know when you’re holding out on baked goods. And she’s been very concerned about the turkeys!

Well, speaking of turkeys… turkey girl is doing much better today. She’s walking, though a little wobbly and she’s drinking and eating. She spent most of the day in her little hay nest, but by this evening, she was over by the food and water and I watched her do both. I suspect that she might have a little head trauma from the accident, as she has one eye closed and won’t open it. And she’s a little leaning, and wobbly. However, she’s young and she’s made it far longer than I thought. She doesn’t seem to be in pain, and like I said, she’s walking and peeping to her sibling. Hopefully, tomorrow will bring another good strong day of healing and we’ll see how she comes along. Her brother is very attentive of her, and I saw him this morning laying with her, and just making little turkey peep noises, almost a soft coo. I’m hoping my little prayer for her was well received, too.