Introducing our 3 new chicks

Only three of the five remaining eggs in the incubator have hatched today. I candled the other two eggs and one looks as if it is infertile - it certainly has not developed properly, so I removed it. The other egg looks to be well developed so I have left it in the incubatior to see if it will hatch. It may be that the embryo has died at a late stage in its development, but I'll give it another day or two to see if it starts to hatch.

"Blondie" (photo above) was first to hatch today, closely followed by "Sooty" (photo below) who had started to peck a hole in the shell of his egg yesterday morning, but took over 24 hours to emerge.

Finally "Sweep" (had to be really!) hatched this afternoon. She is quite similar to Blondie, but has a few little patches of grey here and there.

I recorded a video of Sweep emerging from her egg and have uploaded it to YouTube. You should be able to view it by clicking on the window below.

It will be interesting to see how the chicks final feather colouring relate to their initial colouring, but I expect that Blondie and Sweep will end up looking something like their Light Sussex mums and that Sooty will look like his Araucana father, in which case he'll be a very handsome fellow!