Cole's pre-school teacher thought it would be fun to hatch some chicks in an incubator in the classroom (she wants chickens) . . . so she got some fertilized eggs from a friend at the local grange and set it up in the classroom.  The only problem was they ended up being due to hatch during spring break and she was going to be out of town.  We are friends with Cole's teacher and her twin boys are Cole's big buddies (see them as super heroes here), so we said we would keep the incubator at our house while she was gone . . . well all the chicks have hatched and we still have them here.  We will take them to the classroom on Tuesday (Cole has class Tuesday - Thursday) . . . a few chicks short as we have decided to keep some.  They are so cute and we love fresh eggs!  Here's hoping they do not all turn out to be roosters!  We have been looking at coop plans and trying to decide which ones to keep.  Here are some photos . . .

This gal (we hope) is our favorite


Here she is hatching (she was the first one).  She hatched at about 7:20 AM on April 1st.  I had just left to work so I missed it . . . but Maisie, Cole and Josh watched.  Maisie missed the bus in the excitement.


Here she is soon after she was born . . . and with another little chick who was born later that day.  They were the only ones born on April 1.


As more hatched, Josh put up a little barrier in their box so that the new chick wouldn't be overwhelmed by the older chicks.  In the photo below they are mostly sleeping.  They just sprawl out to sleep, at first it was alarming as they looked almost dead!


All that were going to hatch had done so by the end of Thursday.  Our girl (that I said is our favorite) is the one on the right, standing on the feeder.


There are ten in all . . .


They are not always graceful . . .


Josh and I had no idea how "in-to-it" we would be!  It has been so fun!  I go to sleep with visions of chicks swimming in my mind's eye.  The night before the first one hatched, Josh and I stared at the slightly moving eggs for  . . . HOURS . . . "did you see it move?  I think I saw it move!"  By the time we went to sleep it was WAY past my bedtime and we could hear the chirping (from inside the egg) from our bed.  Good thing we didn't try to wait as the first one didn't hatch until the next morning!  They hatched days late, so we thought none of them were going to make it, so we were so excited when they started!!

I am sure I will post more photos as they bigger and as we build the coop etc., etc!

Any name ideas?  This is like having a baby! (not quite!)