We have a chicken that we think is a

rooster. We think it is a rooster because it has a very big comb, and it also has waddles that

are slowly growing bigger. He is about 6 weeks old so if he is a rooster he may start crowing any time now. He and Moe attack each other very often, and when they do fight their feathers stick straight out

so they look much bigger. When he first hatched he had fluffy grey feathers that were really soft but now he is getting his permanent feathers and those are brown.

Foxes

We had 2 foxes attacking one of our hens a few days ago. At first I heard something running around behind the fence that sounded like one of our chickens, so I got my mom and dad, we went outside to to see what the problem was. When we went outside we forgot to close the door so a hen ran into our house squawking, it was 10:00 at night so we tried to get it out as fast as we could because my little sister was asleep so it wouldn't wake her up. The hen's back didn't have many feathers left on it, so we think the foxes had it at one point. The chicken was very scared so it just went and hid under a piece of plywood after we chased it out of the house. Our dogs helped chase away the foxes.

Moe

We have a chick that we think will be a rooster. It's name is Moe, we named him Moe because it has a black line that looks like a mohawk. Moe is bigger than the other chicks, and he sort of herds the other chicks.

These are our four new chicks that have hatched this week. We finally have a chick we think will be a white hen. We now have a grand total of 16 chicks. We aren't going to name them now because their feathers aren't the color that they will be when they are fully grown. In the picture you can see in the water there are marbles in it so if they fall in they don't drown. From the chicks we hatched we have 5 that are black/grey, 4 that are brownish, and 1 that is white.

These are some pictures of the chicks that we bought. They are 5 weeks old. These chicks love worms, if they get fed a worm they get it in their mouth and run around so the other chicks cant get it. The chicks like to be hand fed, so we try to feed them worms or chicken feed by hand. The chicks also like to be held up high above the ground, either standing on your hand or sitting on a shoulder. It looks as if their wing span is about 10 inches long, and their length is probably 8 inches.

Video of Chick Hatching

Last night at around 10:00 PM we had a chick hatch. Here is a quick video of the chick hatching.

Egg Chart

This is my egg chart. This shows the date the egg was put in the incubator, the egg number, the date the chick started making a hole, the date the chick was removed from the incubator and the chicks health and color.

date	egg #	egg color	peeping/hatching	removed	chick color & health
10-May	#1	brown
10-May	#2	brown	30-May	31-May	orange/brown healthy
11-May	#3	brown	31-May	31-May	black healthy
11-May	#4	white
11-May	#5	brown	31-May	31-May	orange/brown healthy
11-May	#6	green	31-May	31-May	yellow/orange healthy
12-May	#7	brown	31-May	31-May	grey healthy

The chicks are doing very well, they are already growing wing feathers and trying to fly.

What We Did Different

This batch of eggs we did a few things different.

1. We didn't wash the eggs before we put them in the incubator
2. We didn't candle the eggs
3. We only opened the incubator to rotate the eggs twice a day
4. We put the incubator in a less drafty room
5. We kept the temperate at just over 100 degrees instead of just under 100 degree

5 Hatchings

Today we had 5 chicks hatch. The first to hatch started cracking a tiny hole at 8:00 AM the previous morning, and it finally hatched at about 1:30 AM the next day. At first we could only see a little beak poking out the small hole it had made. The chick gradually turned in the egg, making a long crack all the way around the egg. Once the chick had got the egg shell off it would wiggle until it was out of the egg. Once the chick was out it would lay and rest for a while. When all rested up the chick would try walking, most the time it would last only a few seconds before falling down though. The chicks were very curios, so they would peck the other eggs. Every chick did something either funny or amazing, one chick crawled back under its egg shell, another chick must have just pushed all it could because its egg shell burst open sending chunks of shell flying in all directions, and one chick was even doing backflips (because its balance was off and its belly was fat)! Once the chick's feathers were dry we put it in a box with a makeshift heat lamp and food. When all 5 chicks were in the box they started pecking each others face, and biting another's toes, some even cuddled up with each other and fell asleep.

My Chicken Tractor

I have built a chicken tractor so the chicks can be outside. The chicks will learn how to find their own food. The chicken tractor is about 3 times as big as their bin, so the chicks can get lots of exercise and have way more space. One side of the roof will have hinges so the roof can fold over so we can reach in and grab the chicks. I will soon build a hen house that can set on top of half of the tractor, it will have a ramp from the house to the ground inside the tractor