The white hen sitting on 9 eggs hatched out 8 cute little fluffy chicks today! She immediately took them outside for a look around. She encouraged them to eat and look for bugs. I gave them yoghurt and boiled eggs which they loved. 
Here is a question I’ve wondered a lot about. What is the best strategy for reproducing our chickens and geese? We could let the mothers brood the eggs and raise the young. We could collect the eggs and incubate them in the incubator, then raise them ourselves. Or we could buy day-old chicks. And finally we could buy ready-to-lay 6-month-old hens or adult geese. I will do a blog post with a comparison soon.
I love seeing the hens raise their chicks, and on May 15 the goslings will likely hatch so I’ll see the goose raise her goslings. I can’t wait!
Abundant Acres Farm 
This is our last year with the incubator and then we are participating a program to raise an endangered heritage breed where the birds need to follow the natural cycle and self-propetuate. I’m a little nervous about it as we’ve never done it before so I’m looking forward to hearing the results of your comparison.
II love the photo of the hen and chicks looking at the last chick about to come out of the house… very cute. We get day old or two day old chicks and raise them. I think our last hens were 4 days old. For us this is easier as we don’t want a rooster right now.