Hatching Chicks - Lessons in Patience

We had a huge lesson in patience when friends gave us eggs to incubate.  We counted out the days and proceeded to turn our eggs and watch the temperature and attempt to increase the humidity in our little incubators for the 21 days that we had read it would take to hatch our chicks.

It helped to count out the days on our calender so the boys could grasp how far we had come and how many days we still had to wait, wait, wait...

Reading about the wait was one thing, but having to live it out proved to be a great lesson for the boys.  We've been talking about having patience as we wait for our little girl to grow and develop, so this was actually a lot easier on them since the gestation period for a chick is far shorter!

Day 21 came and went.

I decided to wait another day or two.  Just as it appeared that all hope was lost we heard some strong peeping coming from one of our eggs!

We took a peak and found this:

 A little chick struggling to get out.

When the chick still hadn't managed to break out almost 24 hours later, I called our friend for advice.  We ended up helping this little guy out since the chick got stuck to the membrane inside the shell due to our low humidity.

We were thrilled with our new little friend whom we fondly called "Pipsqueak" since he was such a loud chick. 

And then much to our surprise and delight the next day two more chicks quickly hatched out of their shells. 

Meet Fluffy, Thomas and Pipsqueak, each named by their quasi-owner.

Our friends were kind enough to let us keep them for several more weeks where they were affectionately and {somewhat vigorously} loved before we took them back.  Someday, someday maybe we'll get some chicks of our own to keep as long-term pets. 

:Sigh: This pregnant momma is ever hopeful that fresh eggs are on our horizon!

...and I'm ever thankful that we can tie together lessons in character and real life experiences into our learning adventures!  It was a truly magical experience!