So 19 days after I put the eggs in the incubator, eggs started rolling all over the place and cheeping started emerging from inside the shells of my new little ones.

I didn’t think to bother googling if bantam eggs incubated at a faster rate to normal hens. I had planned to put them in to lockdown on the morning of the 19th day, but it turns out I was already too late.

The humidity was all wrong, the ventilation was all wrong, they were not placed properly and they were still being turned twice a day.

I was fully prepared to have nothing make it out of the egg at all. Ill be honest, I’d have cried a lot and probably would have had to take several days off work with stress and trauma, but I was prepared.

But then look what happened!

So this is where I sat for the next several hours with my face pressed up against the incubator watching the miracle of life.

Lots of people get to see this sort of stuff at school when they are growing up. I never actually did.
Which meant that I was actually completely unprepared for the slimy, boggly eyed, dinosaur looking creature that popped out of the egg.

I’m not going to lie, it was actually quite emotional.

But then they dry off and start too look more like the film adaptation of a fluffy Easter chick.

The first out of the egg race was Friday.
So named because she pipped on a Friday – obviously…
[S]he’s adorably snuggly and looks just like Jessie did when she was a day old. Brown and stripy with fluffy feet.

She also quickly found her feet. This was adorable at first, but when she walked straight over the only other pipped egg and stabbed straight through the membrane I nearly had a stroke.

There was blood everywhere.

I was freaking out, frantically googling and trying to find out what to do.

I managed to stop the (visible) bleeding, and it seemed like the chick inside was still moving so I upped the humidity and put the egg back in the incubator, knowing it was probably a lost cause.

By morning, the poor little baby inside had made a hole big enough for its head but was horrendously shrink wrapped.

I loosened it off and then all of a sudden – BAM! – the chick inside had kicked her way out of that egg in a fashion that would make Russell Crowe proud.

And thus, Attila the Hen was born.

By the end of the third day of hatching, it seemed like these two were the only ones we were going to get.

I opened up the incubator to remove the dud eggs and found one had pipped. It was the tiniest little crack and the egg was silent, but I could’ve sworn I heard something wiggle inside.

I decided to leave it overnight for one more night.

The next morning we found Pigwidgeon!

So now my big boy Jimmy the Horny Roo had 5 offspring and I was hooked.

So into the incubator went 9 more eggs. 6 are bantam eggs, 2 are from my white star crossbreed Chickira, and 1 from MrTs favourite girl Henny Kravitz – a giant copper maran lady.

So that’s 6 eggs that I know may be viable, 2 that would be a stretch for our rooster to be able to tread, and 1 that would be one hell of a feat and make him one hell of a brave little man.

Lets see how big Jimmy’s kahonees really are shall we…

Four days since my last post on here and my goodness – look at those feathers!

All that’s left of their little fluffy chick feathers is their pom-pom heads.

So grown up.