BEBE CHICKETH!!

We have been pretty quiet, patiently and cautiously incubating these eggs, being absolutely anally retentive about the humidity levels and temperature and coddling these eggs, I have candled a few times, not daily, but enough to be confident of development and movement, yesterday was the due date for the first egg to hatch....and, well, we were in Vancouver visiting friends so we had to get updates from my husband. I face timed him in the morning, about 8:30 to be sure he added water to the incubator reservoir, and he had forgotten, so he did it when we were on the phone with us, then he mentioned something about the chick beeping all night, I'm like "WHAT!?" BEEPING?! (good news) they beep in the shell before they hatch, and right on time she was making noises which was confidence instilling to say the least. When he opened the incubator to add water I asked him to show us the egg and BLAM, a pip. SHE PIPPED THROUGH THE EGG! We were very excited but left her be to bust through that cursed shell, it can take 1-2 days for a chick to fully emerge from a shell, think of it as the birthing process and the first pip being a contraction, they pip, wait a while, gain their strength, then pip again, then so on...

first pip in the morning, RIGHT on target as she hit the date I wrote on the egg shell

So off to Science world we went, we had tons of fun and sadly found this chicken egg information thingy as the car meter was on it's last few minutes, but I managed to snap a photo and talk to Winter (My daughter) quickly about where our chicks were at as far as development...

Totally cool to see them, I'd be tempted to make our own formaldehyde dead baby chick display but I'd have a hard time murdering embryos with intent aside from to eat, so we'll stick to coloring pages for now

So yay, science world, it was Winter's first time and zomg she had fun, so did I. WINTERLOOKATTHISWINTERLOOKATTHAT I felt like I had a sensory overload, I can't imagine how her tiny self felt.

Anyways, we got back to our island at about 7pm or so and I immediately checked for more pipping...

She'd done some damage, but that's a days worth of pipping, still her little beak sticking through there, she was breaking and beeping away, so I let her be and we tucked the kids in. I posted a progress shot on instagram and people expressed interest in the fact that it was taking her so long to crack the rest of the shell , (which is normal) but I guess she has internet access and wanted to show them up, because a few minutes after I posted that, she knocked a sizable chunk off of the shell...

take THAT nay sayers! You can see her little beak still on the left hand side, and the membrane has been nicely sliced through there on the bottom. So After this photo was taken, I went back into the room with the kids, fell asleep on the floor (Seriously, I was wiped) and woke up to a flurry of very loud chick beeps. 'BLEEP BLEEP BLEEEEEEP" I rushed out of the room and sure enough, there she was, all exhausted and spread eagle--err chicken out of her shell..

life, it is the hardest.

She lay like that panting for a bit, then kicked a few more times and managed to get herself onto her feet where she proved she was pure silkie on diva attitude alone. She snuggled the other eggs and eventually fell asleep in her food dish. Some people say you shouldn't touch them until they're dry, and those people will be upset to see this video but my soft mom heart felt like she needed a loving touch to be born into, so I held her for a minute inside my hand so she felt the comfort of something warm and egg shaped and it calmed her down, then I put her back in for the night.

She fell asleep and my heart melted. She's already so fancy with her fluffy feathers all mcdreamy style.

Silkies are cool chickens, these are bantam silkies so that means they're a small chicken, but their skin is black, and they have black bones too I'll have to borrow an image from the internet to demonstrate this, as I'm not willing to skin one of my silkies.

I find their temperament to be a lot milder than other breeds, they're sweet and ours snuggle, I guess they're more delicate and they must realize it, they absolutely need unicorn horns and tiaras.

Also: silkies have an extra toe:

So after her first night, she dried out a bit, fluffed up, and she's getting cuter.

She's a little annoyed that she is alone in all this but will make a good big sister to her hatching siblings (hopeful that she's not a rooster, can you tell?)

Winter was SO EXCITED when she got to meet her this morning, all attention is on the incubator this morning, but we're letting her adjust as much as we can.

The next door neighbors even came to visit the new arrival, they checked in several times, they're good neighbor also are cousins so that's a plus!

7am visit from her new cousins! This is a very excited and tired Makenna

And this is a very excited Saige, you can see how small the chick is in her hand! 

Oh! I almost forgot, Winter named the chick already, so this post is to introduce our new baby chick to the world, her name?

Science world.

Yes, Winter named her Science World, fitting only because her parents are named 'Cedar' (rooster) and "Star with 3 magic wands and 3 moons" (hen)

So welcome to our home Science world!

Here is a video of her beeping up a storm

(Video of Conrad and Winter viewing a video of the video I just posted)