Eggs are cheeping!

The eggs in the incubator are due to hatch tomorrow-ish. They have started making little cheeping noises today and one has pecked out a tiny little bit of its shell. It is very exciting. We now have to hope we have kept the humidity approximately right. During the time it takes the chick to grow, some of the moisture in the egg evaporates leaving a 'bubble' inside the egg. The chick uses this bubble to get out of the egg, it pecks through the membrane and then breaths this air while it absorbs the remaining yolk in to its body and uses a special bit on the beak to peck through the shell. If the atmosphere has been too dry then the air bubble is tough and the chick cannot peck through it, if it has been too wet then the bubble is small and the chick suffocates before it makes it through the shell. So many things that to go wrong!

We have stopped turning then (as per instructions) and removed the separators so the chicks have room to move as they hatch. We need to rush out tomorrow and buy them a heat lamp. Ooops we should have done it before and it is a bank holiday today. Apparently it will take 24 hours for them to hatch and they stay in the incubator another 24 hours or so after that to dry off and get ready for life in the real world. Because they absorbed the remains of the yolk into their bodies they don't need to eat straight away.