Eggs they are a hatchin!

So I incubated a total of 52 eggs starting, I guess, 3 weeks ago.  There were 4 different batches since I ordered them off Ebay and they arrived at different times.  The first chick hatched right on time, 21 days after the start of incubation, on my Dad's birthday (7/31)!  Then another hatched in the early morning of 8/1 and a third was peeping inside the shell, but when the 2nd one hatched, the shell encased the other egg and I believe it suffocated the chick inside the egg unfortunately.  I cracked the egg open yesterday to find a fully developed chick inside, only problem was it was dead.  So out of the first 7 eggs incubated, we had 2 hatch.  They were both speckled sussex chicks (I did an image search on google to figure out exactly what they were).  

Here's the link on Ebay where I got them - it's an assortment of several different breeds of "rare" chickens.  There's blue/splash orpingtons, swedish flower hens, black/blue marans, speckled sussex, and silver laced wyandottes.

12 more of these "rare" breed eggs are supposed to hatch on Monday.  However, 4 of the eggs pipped late yesterday - a couple of days early.  I was worried that the chicks would hatch with intestines hanging out and stuff like many chicks do that are incubated at too high of a temperature and hatch early.  But when I went out to the incubator this morning to check on them, there were 4 seemingly healthy chicks in the incubator (and no guts hanging out).  

I could tell that one was another speckled sussex.  There were 2 white chicks in there that I was baffled as to what breed they may be.  From searching google images, I believe they must be splash orpingtons.  That is, if the breeds in the description are the only ones I have to choose from.  The other chick looks like it is black, so possibly a black maran, but there were no dark maran eggs in the hatch so that's weird.  I will be able to get a better look at the 4 new chicks once they dry off more, I mean they are brand spankin new :)  So I will post pics of them once they get all fluffy later today or tomorrow.

Still in the incubator are 12 helmeted guineas and 6 cuckoo orpingtons that are supposed to hatch on Thursday, 8/7.  Despite the fast shipping on the guineas, it doesn't look like many at all are going to hatch out of that batch.  The cuckoo orpingtons look pretty grim as well.  They took almost a week to get to the house, so I understand why that hatch rate would be low.

Finally, there are 15 more guinea eggs due to hatch on 8/14 (guineas take 28 days to hatch instead of the 21 days for chickens).  Those look very promising - I think there are only a couple that didn't have a chick growing in them when I candled them last week.

I'm not sure why I find hatching chicks so much fun, but I assure you it is!  Maybe next year, we will have tons of eggs out at the farm from all of these chickens.  Might have to do away with our 2 blue english orpingtons (I call them hussies - guess it shows my disgust with them...) because they have yet again gone broody after only laying again for a week or 2 since the last time they were broody.  It's funny because our new roo (got him as a chick back in March) is fighting with one of the hussies.  Here's a pic of it.  It was an interesting sight.  I've seen 2 roosters fight like that, but not a roo and a hen!  Her laying ethic equates her more to a rooster than a hen though...

That's the hussie in the air and the roo down low

Roo on the left, hussie on the right

Here are some of our promising birds for next year's egg laying.  This is the very first chicken I hatched out this spring (well, ever actually).  She is a white wyandotte.  The other 2 chickens are chocolate/buff orpingtons.  I got 4 of them from a lady in Newnan, and they look to me to all be turning out to be roosters unfortunately.  With all of these roosters, I'm thinking of trying to find someone locally who will process chickens.  It's either that or sell them on craigslist, but I'd rather keep them and enjoy the free range birds for dinner.  Plus, we could probably sell some of the meat too.

Our white wyandotte hen

In front is another chocolate/buff orpington.  There's 2 blue orpingtons in the background (both hens) - these can hopefully replace those damn hussies we have now.  There's also a welsummer hen on the very right and 2 welsummer roos.

There's a hussie drinking some water.  That one on the left is not my favorite either.  She's a rescue chicken and doesn't seem to lay any eggs.  She needs to go at some point.

This is one of 2 buff orpingtons that we have.  These ladies are wonderful.  They lay eggs for us almost every day.  They did go broody a couple of months ago, but not for nearly as long as the hussies.

Just gotta throw this one in there.  I let the goats out of the fence and let Dolly llama go out there as well.  She enjoyed chowing down on some "other side of the fence" grass for about an hour.  She's more of a goat llama than a llama llama.