Thar Be Chickens Here! Again!

So we went to a local appliance store and scored some boxes...

 Which I then spent about 6 hours whacking up and assembling into a brooder box that takes up half the freakin' house, or seems to.

Just in time, because we have two little bantams that jumped the gun and hatched yesterday, even though the hatch isn't *officially* supposed to start until tomorrow!

We got them settled today into the brooder box, along with the traditional flamingo lamp for warmth and one of the kid's stuffed animals to cuddle with as a psuedomom.   The black thing on the left is the webcam.  Needless to say, the cam will have to relocate to safer, higher ground once the chicks get stronger and start to climb around.

Ninja is the little blond one, Jimmy is the black and creme colored one.  You can watch them on our Chickam UStream channel, here:  http://www.ustream.tv/channel/chickam2008

They are both nice and strong, although Jimmy was an assisted hatch after having become shrink-wrapped in the membrane of her egg from pipping too early and not *really* being ready to hatch yet.

Ninja, meanwhile, entertained herself by sitting on Jimmy's head.

Lockdown!

We've started the final three days! The brooder box is ready, as is the styrofoam incubator we'll have standing by as a chick-dryer-outer if we need it.

The eggs on the very bottom of the incubator are the current hatch. The eggs on the upper shelves are the next hatch, staggered for two weeks after this one.

The concentric rings are where I marked the progress of the air cells during incubation to make sure the eggs were on track. Usually I'd only do it 3-4 times, but with the new incubator I wanted to be extra cautious. The shot glass holds water to keep the humidity correct, and the little thing on the right is a hygrometer. The upper shelves have their own thermometer/hygrometer setup.

We've tested the cam and everything is as ready as it's going to get! When I did the final candling yesterday, I saw lively, squirmy chicks in all 15 of the eggs except two--these two may be late quitters, or merely fashionably late--I'm leaving them in the incubator to give them every chance. This morning one of the eggs peeped at my husband when he spoke to them, and wiggled energetically for me when I talked to them.