Hatching Eggs Have Arrived!

We're gearing up for our annual Chickam web broadcast!

Chickam is something we've been doing every year since 2008 and has become immensely popular worldwide.  It will show baby chicks hatching, then the webcam will stay on them and we will broadcast the next 8 weeks of their lives 24/7, with sound.  Since we keep the brooder box in our dining room, this also means that everyone will hear US as well, but we've learned to try and keep pretty quiet during Chickam.  Generally we try to hatch some of our own eggs, plus get other eggs either online or from local breeders when we find some interesting birds that we want to add to our flock.

So today I got a box 'o eggs in the mail!

All of the markings on the box are because the US postal Service delights--delights, I tell you--in taking boxes of hatching eggs and doing things like running them through an x-ray machine, playing kickball with the boxes or otherwise doing their level best to assure you a zero hatch rate.  So people selling hatching eggs online must armor them like they are going into battle.

When I got them unwrapped, here's what greeted me!

The seller had packed the eggs amazingly well and only two got cracked.  This shipment ended up being 25 eggs of assorted hybrids:

Frizzled Ameraucana/Silkie Hybrid ~ Sizzles (the blue/green ones): ~Hybrid chicks from Frizzled Ameraucna Hens & Silkie Rooster ~
Easter Egger/Silkie Hybrid (also some of the green ones) : ~Hybrid chicks from Easter Egger & Olive Egger Hens & Silkie Rooster ~
Polish/Silkie Hybrid (White eggs on the right): ~Hybrid chicks from Polish Hens Frizzled & Smooth Bearded and Non-Bearded Bantam & Silkie Rooster ~
Salmon Faverolle/Silkie Hybrid: ~Hybrid chicks from Salmon Faverolle Hens & Silkie Rooster ~

Between these eggs and our own, we should have some really interesting and hilarious-looking chicks this year!