Even more

Three more chicks have hatched overnight, making this our most successful hatch yet - 18 out of 24 eggs! The fertility rates may have gone up, perhaps - I have been feeding the chickens on breeders' pellets which are supposed to give them a health boost, so maybe that has had something to do with it.

The light Sussex eggs arrived bright and early yesterday morning, but one of them was filthy. I was not pleased to find such a dirty egg in the selection and thought twice about using it. If I had planned to put it in the incubator in that state, I would have run the risk of introducing infections, so, although it is not recommended because of the impact on the hatch of the egg, I washed it. I thought that was the lesser of the two evils - I may lose the potential chick from that egg, but I am preserving the cleanliness of the incubator's environment.

The Barred Plymouth Rock eggs have yet to arrive.

Pictures of the chicks coming soon - we took some on the EFG's phone last night.