Sorry I haven't checked back in, things have been hyper busy. We ended up with 12 chicks: 2 Porcelain Belgian d'Uccles, 1 Black Mottled Belgian d'Uccle, 1 Black Silkie, 1 Cuckoo Silkie, 1 Blue Giant Cochin, 2 Lemon Blue Giant Cochins, 2 Golden Laced Giant Cochins and 2 Salmon Faverolles. As for my suppliers, I got all of my eggs of ebay this year. The breeders are extremely nice, down-to-earth folks who replied with friendly emails, bent over backwards to please and in most cases put in an extra egg or two. They also wrapped the eggs extremely well and marked the boxes as to the contents. I did continue to have a low hatch rate this year, even for shipped eggs. I incubated 25 eggs in each incubator, and had 5 hatch in one incubator, 7 in the other. At least hatching eggs by mail this time tells me that it isn't my flock that's to blame. I opened the unhatched eggs, and found eggs at all stages of development, literally from just-started to full-term chicks. They seemed to be spread out equally, too--I didn't see a higher percentage of chicks at certain stages. And both incubators reflected the same results. So I really don't know WHAT is going on with the incubators. One is 10+ years old, the other 2 years old and are identical. I am following instructions religiously, temp and humidity are maintained correctly. From now one I'm not going to incubate more than a dozen or so eggs at a time and see how that goes. The incubator thing is making me crazy. Anyone else who hatches eggs in an incubator--how many eggs do you set at once? Have you ever loaded your incubator to it's maximum number? Velvet ~:>

You're welcome! We did lose one chick, the one that hatched two days early. :( I'd hoped it wouldn't happen, because she was a feisty little cuss and the child of one of my favorite hens...but obviously something was wrong inside her, possibly something that didn't form quite right since she hatched before she was officially 'done cookin'. But we did have one last chick that hatched late, so we have four chicks again--three Americaunas mix and one kind of 'mystery' bantam chick--who has our banty roo, Scott for a father, but I'm uncertain of who mom is since the chick is unexpectedly very blonde. The egg was good-sized though, and I thought was from our Silver Laced Wyandotte hen. Time will tell when she feathers out more and we get to see what she looks like! I brought Moet, our buff Frizzle Cochin hen in as acting mom, she's raised chicks before and is an old pro. I wasn't initially going to do this, but the babies were peeping so loudly for US, that I wanted to nip that stuff in the bud. *L* But it's kind of cool to see the mom and kids interact. We'll try another hatch with eggs gotten from elsewhere, I'm afraid my girls are getting a little too old for their eggs to reliably hatch successfully (they are at least 4 years old, some are more like 6-7). But this time I was really trying to get some chicks from some of my favorite hens. I'm thinking I'll get some eggs from the local feed store, they've got some ex-battery hens, Cinnamon Queens, that look lovely. :) Velvet ~:>

It's absolutely clear that the babies are responding to the mother's chirp. She chirps and a lot of mouths immediately open (but she can only carry one caterpillar at a time! and there are eight mouths!) It's going to be a busy few weeks for the parents. Claire

I came across this information http://www.sialis.org/chickadee.htm . It mentions that they can be prone to premature fledging if disturbed. They usually fledge at 16 days. They usually nest in a cavity so they wouldn't be able to fall out. All eight of the ones in my nesting box seem to get along and I never noticed the first born picking on the ones hatched later. Maybe something got at them.