Lisa and John

Wow!  It has been an exciting couple of days!  We are hatching chicks day and night!  Actually, they are doing all the work.  (Well, I did have to help one little one.)  It is truly a miracle.

This is “spunky”.  This little chick is the one I helped.  When I went to bed Sunday night it was trying hard to hatch.  In the morning it was still working hard and hadn’t made any progress.  It’s shell membrane was attached all around and I think it got hard.  I’m not sure if it would have made it.  In the morning I cut a  bit of the membrane with some pieces of shell and it was finally able to hatch.  And, it has been rarin’ to go!  Very vibrant and spunky for it’s small size.  I think it is a bantam chick.  It’s egg was very small and the owner of the hen says that she is a smaller breed.  I think he/she is adorable!

Avy loves the chicks, as you can see from her smile.  They really are fun to watch!

Here is our first light colored chick to hatch.  I took this picture right as it was coming out of it’s shell.

Pretty scrawny looking, huh?  As it’s feathers dry out they fluff up pretty nicely.

And, here it is, all dry and cute and fluffy!  The black sheep yellow chick of the flock.  It is a pale yellow.  So cute!

So far we have 10 baby chicks.  One is yellow, two are brownish, the rest are black with touches of white.

It looks like two more will hatch today and then we have three more that still need to incubate another few days.  I wonder what color they will be….  So exciting.  So fun.  Really Miraclulous!

Eggs-citing happenings at the Pratt Farm!!!

Yes, they are starting to hatch!!

So far we have two charcoal gray chicks!!!  Scrawny, but cute!  There are several more eggs with little shell pieces popped out, so we are hoping for more before the day is through….

Our friends let us borrow their egg incubator.  We are so excited!  We got some eggs from them and we got some eggs from our own little hen and rooster.  So, now we wait…. for 21 days….

We have them labeled with an “X” on one side and an “O” on the other.  At night we have the Xs showing.  Then, we FLIP them in the morning.

During the day we have the Os showing.  It is fun.  We also keep their temperature at 98 degrees.  The incubator helps with that, but needs to be adjusted periodically.

In a little over a week we will start (hopefully) seeing some of our eggs hatch.  They say to never count your chickens before they hatch, but we sure hope we get a lot.  I guess the average is about 50%.  We’ll keep you posted.

Nothing says “SUMMER” like good ol’ Watermelon!

Miss Avalon can’t get enough.

Pure Delight!  Oops!  The green side isn’t so tatsy, little one….

Love that fat belly!  A profile for Grandma and Grandpa Allen.

Yup!  It’s dripping into her diaper and getting soaked up.

Getting windy!  Time to go inside!  (Avy probably ate about four of those pieces herself.)

I hope you are enjoying your summer as much as Avalon is enjoying her watermelon.

All Calvin wanted for his birthday was to go to Salem Pond and FISH and SWIM and open presents.  So, we invited all his friends and some of Ivan’s friends and we had a great time.  It poured down rain at the end, but everyone had a great time.  We roasted marshmallows and hot dogs and no one drowned.  A success!!

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