The long awaited 21st day arrived and we came into Tiddy Hall to the sound of cheeping! It doesn’t matter how many times we see it, there was excitement all around and, as usual, the staff found these fluffy bundles are a great time-waster with a last minute rush to get set up before the children arrived! We removed the egg shells from the incubator and revisited with the children how the little chicks got out of the shell by using their egg tooth – the children were able to see the egg tooth still intact. We were lucky enough to see some chicks all fluffy and dry but also some of the children saw a chick come out of the egg still wet and very exhausted from the hatching – we have spoken about this over the past few weeks, so it was great to reinforce this. When very young they all move around for a short while and then collapse into sleep. We finished with 20 chicks, including lavender Pekin bantams. They stayed at Tiddy for a few days under a heat lamp and are now nice and cosy at Aleesha’s for the Easter holidays. They are eating ‘chick crumbs’ for food and water in a shallow bowl. It is amazing how quickly they grow and they are already showing signs of the first feathers on their wings. Big thanks also go to Theo B-C who selected the eggs and did a good job of making sure we ended up with a lovely selection of chickens and different bantams for the children to see.