And for those that would like to see the photos of the poor little deceased baby have a look in my gallery. I asked on BackYard chickens if there was anything obvious and actually they reminded me about the lethal gene that Aracuanas have so it could have been as simple as that that the poor little thing died.
So she is still sitting so that is great and there are 4 little chicks running around I havent' had a phone / camera every time I've spotted them so haven't managed a photo yet. I'm the other eggs will be OK but kind of loosing hope a little. they seem to have found the food so that is good She is obviously veyr cross with me for fiddling earlier and everytime she sees me she tells them danger so they run under her so not sure how well that bodes for our future relationships
I moved the feeder away from the wall so they can't get stuck - I'm guessing that was a newbie error on my part that could have spelt disaster for the poor chick if I'd not found it so quickly and has potentially killed off the remaining eggs anyway I'll stay positive until tomorrow and if there is no sign then I'll just have to be happy with my cute little dudes that I have oh my goodness they are soooooooooooooooo tiny and sooooooooooooooo cute
Todays update: I spent much of the morning researching, getting some help from other chicken people and working out a plan. I went down to check on her and she was off the nest again. I decided to collect the eggs up and candle them (looking through the shell with a torch) - couldn't see anything indicating life. We decided to try to float test I read about to see what that said: Couldn't work out what it meant We decided that there was no life at all in any of them so opened them one by one to see this in all 4: So happy as it meant I didn't actually have a whole load of dead chicks on my hands which was what I was worried about! So she knew what she was doing when she got off yesterday and I should have believed her . So the ones that didn't make it are the Orpington, the Australorp, an Araucana, and the 4th I'm not sure - either the surprise or the Bresse). I'm thrilled as while it's sad they weren't fertile as I thought they all would be I'm so pleased that of 5 fertile ones I have 4 live chicks
And here are the gorgeous little fluff balls - the 2 stripy ones and the pale grey are Araucanas and the other is possibly a Bresse or a mystery!
Well who knew - chicks are smaller than chicken wire I just spent the morning (in the massive heat!) running chicken wire around to make a safe run for hermione and the chicks and as soon as I'd let them out they just walked through! So now my afternoon is cutting the small hardcloth stuff to add!