The Early Bird Hatches From the Egg!

Today is Day 20 on our incubation calendar, making tomorrow our "Hatch Day," but we have 6 early birds (pun intended)! When I arrived at school this morning eight chicks had "pipped" their eggs, meaning that they had made their first hole in the hatch process. Last year, after the eggs were pipped, the chicks stuck their beaks out of the holes and stayed like that, peeping and breathing, for a full school day. This year, after pipping, many of the chicks got right to work and by the end of the school day we had 6 fully hatched chicks and several more on the way! We have a total of 13 eggs so we will see how many hatch over the next few days! Below are photos we took throughout the day of different chicks at different stages of the hatch process. The hatched chicks are making lots of noise, learning to walk around, and drying off. By tomorrow they should be fluffed up, running around, and ready to transfer to a large terrarium where they will live for the rest of the week.

Please remember, Friday afternoon from 2-3 visitors are welcome to come meet the chicks before they head back to the farm at UVM!

This free photo slideshow created with Smilebox