Easter Peeps

     I feel like we've been living and thinking chickens for two months now!  We got two dozen fertile eggs from a local farmer and split them between us and three other families to hatch.  We made our own incubator and began the 21 day waiting game.

We candled the eggs after 7 days and then again on day 14.  We thought we could see the "eye" but we weren't sure.  The other families said they could see movement after 14, so we were excited!

Well, much to my girls' disappointment, our eggs did not hatch.  Each of the other families got three or four chicks.  So we were anxiously watching while getting the texts from everyone else.  We even waited two extra days just in case ours were just late.  But after the last possible hatch day Jason broke the eggs to see what happened and there was little to nothing inside any if ours.  We decided there must have been a temperature spike in our incubator early on.

We were happy that if anyone's did not hatch it was ours instead of the ones we gave to other people!  So we went and played with everyone else's chicks.  And we went and got another 24 from the farmer to try again.

     In the meantime, we waited on the other families to get tired of the chicks and give them to us.  We got them after about two weeks.  Tink was not amused.  She is both jealous of and protective of the chicks.  We can't decide if the protective part is motherly or "this could be food."  So we keep a close watch on her around the chicks.

Finally all 11 if the babies were together!

We all got a big surprise with our second batch!  The day before hatch day,  Celee and I both had heard chirping and after listening, decided it was birds outside.  Then later she went in to look in the incubator and there was a little peep all the way out!  We didn't even know it was hatching!  Soon after another one pipped out.

Tink wanted to know what was making that chirping sound!

So now we have two more tiny peeps, Peep and Cookie.  One other batch has also hatched three more, and we're still waiting on the last two batches.  But we did decide that we did not get enough Buff Orpingtons (the gold chicks) so we went and bought eight babies today. At least the store-bought ones are supposed to be hens.  

We are definitely up to the ears in chickens!  In a few weeks though they'll all be outside all the time. Until then, the peeps live upstairs (because they aren't as stinky) and the awkward Tweens live in the basement.

And so starts our little homestead!