Thanks marigold. a quite reassuring reply. However a disaster has unfolded meantime, and half of it is my fault. I came down this morning to find pippin at the furthest end of the lodge having absolutely no interest in her nest. Having felt the eggs, they were very cold so i knew she hadnt been on them in quite some time. I took the four eggs and turned on the lamp i used for the previous eggs, in the hope of keeping them warm and hopefully surviving. I noticed one egg was rather cracked on one side and picked a little at the shell. there was no baby inside however, just a gooey mess, covering about a fifth of the shell. disheartened i did the same on the second shell and again there was no baby. i did the same on the third and fourth and some more goo came out, on the last one a spot of blood also came out. Having thought all the shells were empty i wanted out of curiosity and for experience sake to fully check the last two eggs also when to my horror, as i was checking the third egg there was a baby in it. it was still breathing. But obviously i`d now opened the protective membrane, and though i tried to do my best to keep the air from getting in I had to dispose of a wee, dead chick. Id say it just needed another couple of days before it was due. So now i have one last little egg under the lamp with a very small opening and prob dead chick inside. Hopefully I`ll have learned a lot from your forum by the time my next chicks arrive. I have a couple of photos I`m going to try to download. I`m hopelessly bad at technology though, so we`ll see. Thanks again for all your advice. Susie