Don't count your chickens after they hatch either

In the last 24 hours we've had 5 chicks hatch. Or flock continues to grow. One of the little ones died between 1:28 and 5:00 this morning. I don't know why. At the earlier time it seemed to be in good conditon. There's one more egg that has pipped- made it's first crack in the shell-so it may hatch before the day is out. We have stopped collecting eggs for the incubator. At the moment we have 31 birds and there are still about 15 eggs left in the incubator. We want to end up with 40 birds and since many eggs in the incubator won't hatch for various reasons. 21 of the chickens have been born in the last month so it will be at least 4 more months before we start getting eggs from them. It's a lot of fun having the chickens around. They also do a fine job of reducing the insect population.