its tougher than it seems...UPDATE

peeling the eggshell from Goober.

Well, yesterday the baby chick in the former blog posting died. So did another lighter colored chick. As a first time mother , MEREDITH is clumsy with her newborns. With some brainstorming from Truvey, I realised that when MEREDITH was taking breaks, other hens were hopping up to the nest and stomping on some of the eggs. One egg producd a fetus and was cracked too much. Another egg had a healthy chick but when MEREDITH was taking a short break, several hens ate the fetus as well as the healthy egg. For me, the hatching experience has been unnerving, because I am emotionally involved! TODAY I became very concerned when a new chick looked very squashed as she was hatching from her egg. Truvey came over with his incubator to help some of the eggs along and give me advice and instruction on helping MEREDITH raise her first brood of chicks. He is so gifted! The "squashed" egg had been hatching for about 20 hrs and it appeared that the chick was having
problems... so Truvey "helped" the chick by carefully peeling away some shell so
that the delicate membranes and veins would not tear. I never realised how delicate the hatching process really is! The chick is OK, she is now in the incubator, and looking better. We have called her GOOBER but that name is subject to change :)
Goober is now in the incubator along with 3 other eggs which will hatch in the nest day or so. On the weekend I will put little Goober and her friends back with MEREDITH.
When I pick up one of the eggs, I can actually HEAR it peeping -- AMAZING!
In conclusion, out of EIGHT eggs, 2 birds died, one was a dead fetus, and one was eaten by greedy hens, one has survived with help (so far so good) and 3 are in the incubator. SUCH IS LIFE.

This is how I found "Goober" amongst eggs that had been squashed by MEREDITH'S coop mates