FEBRUARY Hatch-A-Long 2015:Please Read First Post To Join H-A-L

Dispatch273 said:

I've got two pips! Yay!

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LisaLouHoo said:

Update on my high drama hatch:
All seven OE babies have started eating and drinking. Even the weakling is much stronger and doing what all the others are doing. To those who haven't followed, I had to assist 3 eggs after my cat tipped over the cage, including the incubator that was in the cage. The remaining 3 eggs became shrink-wrapped after the incubator was flipped open and they spilled out. So here they are successfully learning about eating and drinking.

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cedarcovefarm said:

I got a chickie!! After finding my first pip this morning at 3:40 my little cream bar just hatched! Needs a little drying but here's the first look

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Cpolanco3 said:

Well, I originally started with 15 barnyard mixed eggs.... I have hatched out 25 so far throughout this month and have another dozen in lockdown right now. It will be a good month afterall!!!!!!

Claudia

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cedarcovefarm said:

I got a chickie!! After finding my first pip this morning at 3:40 my little cream bar just hatched! Needs a little drying but here's the first look

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Heron's Nest Farm said:

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LisaLouHoo said:

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Heron's Nest Farm said:

[COLOR=006400]Wow! What an amazing success.  How did you figure out they were shrink wrapped and assist?[/COLOR]



Well, I know from all my reading that humidity is SO important in a hatch, hence the lockdown. The other 4 chicks pipped and zipped out within an hour each and of the remaining 3, only one had started zipping and the other 2 hadn't even pipped yet. So when the cage got knocked over and the bator actually tipped over and everything spilled out including water, humidity, eggs, everything. I waited over an hour and the zipping chick had stopped but I could see it was alive and not making progress, so I opened it up and could see that it was trapped inside the shrunken white membranes, so I peeled them off using warm water and soaked paper towel. I was going to leave the other two that hadn't even pipped yet, but just had a feeling that they would probably never pip if they were shrink wrapped, too. I just pictured that they had a window of time if they were still alive. I ended up being right, but, of course took a chance. I have read that assisting should be a last resort for many reasons. If this was a natural occurence, then the chick needs to work at being born in order to survive. In this case, the cat messed it up and I took a chance.

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