It's Starting!

I got home from work and looked into the coop and there it was, that first crack! It never gets old. I have been recharging extra batteries for my camera in preparation for the weekend.

A few hours later and I heard faint chirping coming from the egg.  I absolutely fall in love with each little egg and for three weeks I'm impatient and cannot wait until they are all hatched safe and sound in this world.

Each egg is shaped differently and they are all so unique already and will arrive on their own time. However, I do get anxious and a bit afraid for them. What if they can't make it out of the egg. I have read you are not to help them. My great-grandmother would take these stuck chicks and on a warm stove carefully help them out. She said they just needed a little push. But all the websites and the books say it is survival of the fittest and helping out a chick that would otherwise die could harm the flock or cause heartbreak sometime down the line when they prove too weak to continue living.