the fuzzies have arrived

As of Wednesday the fuzzies have started breaking out of their shells. The childern were in awe of the experience. And promptly following their hatching were named Madison,Degan, Martin, and Chickie. And now there are six more that are called by the same names cause the childern can't tell them apart.

Following their drying out we tried to put them in the barn. Notice I use tried. Our brooding box is a wire rabbit cage (a brooding box is where you put chicks to keep them warm till they feather out) apparently our other chicks bought from the farm store were bigger. When I went to check them before bed I started counting heads: one, two, three, four, five, six? Six? Where's the other four?

Right about then I realize I'm standing in a vacant barn bordered by trees and fields, in total darkness -and something is rustling in the hay. Now granted I'm a transplanted country girl (and the transplant is in world famous medical journals as the most sucessful transplant ever-right behind the pig heart) but my first thought was RUN! At least till I heard the chirping. So I freeze cause I'm thinking okay a snakes eating our chick or something. (None of the dozens of other chicks put in there ever got loose) so I shine the light down expecting the worse. And here come all four missing fuzzies so now we have had the Great Fuzzies Escape.

So far the ten are all we have out of nineteen. One poor little thing hatched but was very disabled and didn't get all the way out of the shell. Which is better than me not knowing what to do with it till Honeybear was there. Other than that we're just sitting and waiting on the others to hatch.