i opened the eggs

[HayleyB]

Bladdy Hell Lynda, I go offline for a couple of days and now you're gonna put us all through Hell ALL OVER AGAIN *Bangs head on desk - twice

Sorry about the babies hun, these'll come right you see, I lurve Silkies *while rubbing bump on head

[lynda66]

lol ....... well at least it was not just all bad new to come back to

and you learned summat ......... banging head on desk ..... hurts

[Hilary B]

The best guide to how near hatching the chicks got is how far they filled the eggs. From the pic, they may have been about 5-7 days short of hatching.

[lynda66]

they'd have had a job growing for another 5-7 days .....apart from being dead ... there was no room left for them to grow

[Glutton4...]

I kept hens and had a cockerel for many years. We backed onto a private 15 acre woodland. The land was sold and a supermarket, school, pub, shops and 1500 houses took its place.

Then the complaints about my and my neighbours cockerel started to come in.

Bl**dy townies move into the countryside and then moan about countryside noises. Where do they think eggs come from?...

I sympathise - it's happening a lot in Essex - the new-build 'villages' are appearing everywhere.

My parents' ex neighbour (moved here from some european city) complained about the noise made by the Pigeons roosting in the trees at the end of his garden, and asked my Dad to shoot them. He refused - saying more would only move in anyway.

So the neighbour had the trees cut down . Lovely old mature trees that had been there since before he was born!

Luckily the old so-and-so has moved on to annoy someone else now.

[Hilary B]

they'd have had a job growing for another 5-7 days .....apart from being dead ... there was no room left for them to grow

Yep, those last days the yolk sort of 'moves in' to become a 'tummy' and then part of the chick, rather than being a 'lump on the outside'. More like 5 days than 7 anyway.