Here are the oldest three chicks. Chick 1 is 3 weeks old today. Unfortunately Chick 1 and 2 have been plucked by their stupid mother so she's been banished from the cage and Bean is now a single parent. He's doing a good job though and they'll be feathered normally by the time they're old enough for new homes. I'm hoping to be able to keep a chick from this clutch to set up a replacement pair for next year.

Chick 1 has a bit of feather showing on her wing pins so I can see that she is a hen. I can't tell the sex of Chick 2 yet but it's definitely a fallow green. I'll have to wait a few weeks to be able to tell if it's a pied fallow.

A couple of days ago I started to take out these 3 for cuddle sessions. Even at that young age, at first they would open their beaks and try to look fierce at me but now they're used to is and just snuggle down to go back to sleep.

Here are the younger three chicks. Chick 6 is 11 days old today but looks 2-3 days younger due to its rough start. You can see that its eyes are just starting to open. It also has a mucky beak!

The other two are doing well, Chick 4 already has a good covering of pin feathers and I actually find it tricky telling 4 from 3 when I look down into the box.

Just a quick update on Chick 6. Apparently Squid and Bean didn't approve of me shaming their parenting skills on the internet because they've started to feed Chick 6 again. It's already looking much plumper.

Here are the 6 chicks. Chicks 1, 2 and 3 and all growing in pin feathers now. Chicks 4 and 5 are getting bigger.

Chick 6 doesn't seem to be getting fed at all by the parents and is still tiny so I'm going to start to feed it as if I'd pulled it for hand rearing and hopefully that will get it growing. As an experiment I tried taking out the 2 eldest for a couple of hours to see if the parents fed chick 6 then but they still ignored it.

If you're on my waiting list, chick 6 is a spare so as long as the other 5 make it (and I think that they will), you're guaranteed a chick.

Here's 1 and 2. You can see how well the pin feathers are coming in on 1's wings and that 2's red eyes are opening.

You can also see how their beaks are starting to become the correct shape for a parrotlet.

Chick 6 has finally hatched. It was a bit dehydrated so I brought it out to give it a drink.

Here's a size comparison between Chick 1 and Chick 6. I'll keep a close on them to make sure that the youngest chicks manage to get fed. Chick 5 had a full crop which bodes well for Chick 6 also getting fed.

Chick 1's eyes are starting to open and you can see the dark lines along its wings where pin feathers are starting to grow. In a few more days it will be big enough to start coming out for cuddles :)

There are 5 chicks in the photo. Poor baby chick at the back got knocked over  I righted it before letting their mum back in :)

Chick 4 hatched today. It's the one at the front.

Here's the vicious beast I have to get past before I can check on the chicks. Don't miss the two little bums sticking out from under her!

The third chick had hatched when I checked them this morning. It's the one at the back with its head facing us. As each chick hatches it makes it really obvious how much the prevous chicks have grown. As you can see, chick 1 is now a little fatty!

Just incase you can't work out what on Earth is going on in the first photo, here's the edited version! Chick 2 was hiding from the camera to make the pile of babies look even more confusing.

The second parrotlet chick hatched today. It's the smaller pink blob on the right.

It caused me a moment of panic when I first looked at it because it doesn't have dark eyes like I'm used to (the eyes aren't open yet but you can see the colour through the skin). I then remember that lutino, albino and fallow parrotlets exist so it looks like my green pied pair are probably split for a red-eyed mutation unless this chick is a random fluke. I'll be interested to see what colour it ends up being.