I HAVE BABIES!!!!

Last night two eggs were pipped, and I wanted to stay up and watch, but I was afraid it would be a lot like human labor... many hours worth of worried waiting, so I went to bed. Good thing I did. I got up (LATE) at 7:20 this morning, and rushed downstairs (priorities, you know) to check on the eggs, and there were still no babies. Thank GOODNESS I didn't stay up! But the holes were bigger, I could hear peeping, and I could see the egg tooth coming and going through some of the holes, and there were more holes in more eggs. I was SO excited! I definitely did not want to come to work. But... staying home to watch chickens hatch probably doesn't merit missing a day of work (well, ok, let's be truthful - if I had a "desk job" type of job where I didn't have to spend several hours writing tedious sub plans, and if my "sick days" weren't in need of constantly being rationed, I totally WOULD have stayed home today...)

So I rushed home at lunch, an hour ago, as soon as my morning classes were done, and found two adorable black, sticky wet babies flopping around the incubator. I am SO SO psyched. What an unbelievable "high" witnessing this new life is.  I don't care if I AM the dorkiest person around. I am just so thrilled that three weeks ago these were eggs, just plain eggs that anyone could have cracked open and scrambled up for breakfast, but instead, just a mere 21 days later ON.THE. DOT., I have baby chickens.

What a miracle this is. Wow. And there were five more pipped, too, so IF all goes well, I will have been able to hatch out at least 7. I have 43 eggs in the incubator, and I know from candling some of them that not all were fertile. And some I couldn't candle because the shells were too dark. But three days ago, I was afraid this wasn't going to happen at all, that none would hatch, terrified that I had inadvertently done something terribly wrong, and now, today, I'm on cloud 9. 

Unfortunately, my motherinlaw took back her camera that I had been "borrowing," so my pictures, from MY camera, above, are really crummy, but at least I do have a documentation, however poor, that I was able to do this. I am so in love with baby chickens. Good thing I like the grown up version, too, or this wouldn't be quite as exciting!  Wow, I'm excited. 

I totally wish I had some little chicken cigars to hand out to people here!   :)