4 eggs

Richard + Judy are sitting on 4 eggs!
The first was laid 2 weeks ago, the second 12 days ago and the new 2 have only been there a few days. I've candled them and this time written on in pencil the order they were laid. The first 2 are fertile and look like they're developing, the 3rd is starting to develop and the 4th is clear which means it is either newly laid and not started to develop, or it is infertile.
It looks like they might end up with 3 chicks! The 1st chick is helping them to hatch them and they are fighting yet, so I'll leave it in the same cage for a bit.

2nd Egg

Judy has laid the second egg in the nest today, so she will probably start sitting on them soon.

I still don't know the sex of the baby so haven't named it, but its still living with the parents and still growing.

ANOTHER egg

Richard and Judy have laid ANOTHER egg, and they still have the chick with them. They aren't sitting on it yet, but I presume they will.
I'll probably take the baby off and keep it, as it as so tame, and then sell the next ones which hatch as we don't have room for them.

School Chicks

We've been planning on hatching some eggs at school for quite a long time. It started when we went on a University lecture about DNA and were talking about all the things you can do to a developing chick like dying them different colours, and at the early stages if you mix up the ball of cells the chicks come out with feet on the end of their wings and things like that!

Anyway, school said we could think about hatching some eggs, so I kind of helped to organise it all because I've obviously hatched the quail chicks at home, helped to raise the turkeys on work experience and then at Ash End they had the incubators running every day of the year so I got to see quail, loads of rare breed chickens, turkeys, guinea fowl, loads of different ducks and geese which was really special :D
No-one else at school has ever hatched anything so we've got a few brochures in from different companies, I've written a hatching guide to help us all and bought a few books and hopefully we'll have some chicks in June/July. I'm really excited!

Chick - 12 days old

The Diamond Dove chick is 12 days old today, and has grown loads and doesn't look funny anymore :D It was on the bottom of the cage this morning, and I had him/her out for a bit, and it was just sitting on me, then it flew across to the cage! So I put it back in the bottom, then moved it back up to the nest where it stayed.




I still don't know what sex it is, so it remains nameless.