The chicks have hatched!

In late February, we purchased 2 dozen fertile eggs from a local friend who raises Barred Rock chickens. With high hopes, we transported them over to another local friend who offered to incubate them for us.

20 eggs went into the incubator, but only 12 hatched and survived. One of them is a "runt" and I'm not sure how long it will survive, but it has made it over a week so far. 

I am not sure why there are batches where almost all hatch, and batches were barely any hatch, but it is definitely a lesson to be learned. That old saying "don't count your chickens before they hatch" was right on. We were expecting at least 15-18 chickens and were very surprised when only 12 did. 

But, we are thankful to have this many!  I cannot determine the gender of them yet, but I hope we have some pullets in there and not all roosters. We plan to keep all pullets and 1 roo. Aren't they cute?

Last week, I picked up 3 Easter Egger when we picked up our goats. More on them later!  I just love the green eggs my current Easter Egger gives us. Maybe I'll add an Ameracauna at some point for their beautiful blue eggs.