5th Annual BYC New Year's Day 2014 Hatch-A-Long

[Whoops]

Quote:
Her name is George.

 

[bantambury]

I have to work most of the evening to make preps for the weather.
We're getting a big snow tonight another Sunday and another next Friday. Along with that are the lowest temperatures we've had in 15 years.
It is 34 right now and dropping. Lots of sub zeros on the way.
I think I'm going to spend the night moving all the birds to new quarters. I've had 7 flocks for a while and I'm trying to figure out how to get them into 3 buildings. 2 flocks of hens/juveniles and a building of just roosters so I can put a minute amount of heat on them to keep their bachelor pad above 15-20 degrees.

for a while I have thought about building a coop for just my roos. how does that work for you? or, do you let them free range in day and lock up at night?

I don't want my hens to be mating 24/7 so I want to separate the roos to give them a break.

 

[ShayBaby]

Well, it's official. I had a 0% hatch rate. 0 out of the original 16. The one I had left that went into lockdown..I still saw no movement, so when went to raise the humidity, I candled. I know technically you're supposed to leave them in a few days, but I've hatched enough to know the zero movement I saw inside meant death. Sure enough, I opened her up and it died at about day 18. Not surprisingly enough, about the day I switched it into the blasted Brinsea. Oh well. It would have been nice to have New Years chicks, but I'll have more fuzzybutts soon enough. In the meantime, I'll live vicariously through everyone else's chick pics.

ETA: @ronott1
How do I go about proving this? Or is word enough? Seems morbid, but the only picture I'd be able to get is of this last dead chick. I doubt anyone wants to see that. Haha..

 

[bantambury]

Well, it's official. I had a 0% hatch rate. 0 out of the original 16. The one I had left that went into lockdown..I still saw no movement, so when went to raise the humidity, I candled. I know technically you're supposed to leave them in a few days, but I've hatched enough to know the zero movement I saw inside meant death. Sure enough, I opened her up and it died at about day 18. Not surprisingly enough, about the day I switched it into the blasted Brinsea. Oh well. It would have been nice to have New Years chicks, but I'll have more fuzzybutts soon enough. In the meantime, I'll live vicariously through everyone else's chick pics.

well, then I guess you have a chance on winning the worst hatch rate contest....

im sorry about your chicks! at least you will be hatching more soon

 

[Whoops]

Well, it's official. I had a 0% hatch rate. 0 out of the original 16. The one I had left that went into lockdown..I still saw no movement, so when went to raise the humidity, I candled. I know technically you're supposed to leave them in a few days, but I've hatched enough to know the zero movement I saw inside meant death. Sure enough, I opened her up and it died at about day 18. Not surprisingly enough, about the day I switched it into the blasted Brinsea. Oh well. It would have been nice to have New Years chicks, but I'll have more fuzzybutts soon enough. In the meantime, I'll live vicariously through everyone else's chick pics.

I'm sorry. That sucks.

 

[Aphrael]

Well, I think all but one of my remaining eggs is dead.

One is alive for sure cause I hear it peeping. One is dead for sure. I opened it because on candling I could see it was internally pipped but not breathing or moving. I just don't understand what went wrong. It was fully formed, internally pipped and even had the yolk fully absorbed. It just died without externally pipping. The other 3 have not even internally pipped and I can see no signs of movement in them at all. Still leaving them just in case, but I don't really expect anything from them.

 

[Brookhavens]

Went to bed at 1am and had pips galore but no chicks. Woke up this morning to 13 chickies and 1 duckling running around the bator. Left for the day and just came home to this. Love seeing all those empty shells. Out of 18 eggs that went into lockdown 16 had hatched, #17 had just busted the top off the shell and number 18 is pipped and wiggling. 3 more duck eggs are pipped and nothing on my quail eggs yet.

 

[coopsbyty]

Well, it's official. I had a 0% hatch rate. 0 out of the original 16. The one I had left that went into lockdown..I still saw no movement, so when went to raise the humidity, I candled. I know technically you're supposed to leave them in a few days, but I've hatched enough to know the zero movement I saw inside meant death. Sure enough, I opened her up and it died at about day 18. Not surprisingly enough, about the day I switched it into the blasted Brinsea. Oh well. It would have been nice to have New Years chicks, but I'll have more fuzzybutts soon enough. In the meantime, I'll live vicariously through everyone else's chick pics. ETA: @ronott1 How do I go about proving this? Or is word enough? Seems morbid, but the only picture I'd be able to get is of this last dead chick. I doubt anyone wants to see that. Haha..

So sorry for your loses

 

[SilkieSensation]

This is the best most hilarious pic I have seen. You really are a great photographer, all your pictures really are beautiful.

thank you!

I burst out laughing, and then the mother in me thought, "Oh no, I hope it didn't fall very far!"

hahahah! nope! actuailly fell in her standing spot! in my hand!

I did.... I wasn't going to say anything, but since you ask this is what she said- Since she breeds to have chickens that are healthy and make healthy chicks she would most likely cull the chick. Now if you are just raising the chick to have a pet, she would wait to see if it gets worse. Her experience is that it usually does, and you need to prepare yourself for that.... Not great news, but it happens when you are bringing new life into the world.... sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. And she says to make sure to tell you the hen that the egg came from should be used for eating eggs and not to use her for chicks.

Yeah....that was my thinking/...cull. I relly don't want to....if it IS a hen then we will keep her for eating eggs.....if it is a rooster we will give him back to my breeder. my question is....all my birds have come from my breeder. if I try to mate my jap bantams or silkies....could they possibly BE siblings? I don't want them to end up having chicks with defects....how does your sister breed? how does she make shure NONE of her birds are siblings?

omg LMBO tooo freaking funny

thank you! hahahah! nope! actuailly fell in her standing spot! in my hand! Yeah....that was my thinking/...cull. I relly don't want to....if it IS a hen then we will keep her for eating eggs.....if it is a rooster we will give him back to my breeder. my question is....all my birds have come from my breeder. if I try to mate my jap bantams or silkies....could they possibly BE siblings? I don't want them to end up having chicks with defects....how does your sister breed? how does she make shure NONE of her birds are siblings?

I hope someone will correct me if I am wrong, but I think the cross breeding that you try to avoid in dogs and such don't apply to chickens. You want to have a wide gene pool but I really wouldn't think to much about it. I know that some people hatch a rooster from a hen then breed that roo (her son) back to the hen. Maybe someone else has a better answer?

im depressed about the slipped beaked chick......should I keep her? I dot know what I would do with a special chicken if I have to end up deep feeding her....

Is the beak getting worse? I thought I had one with cross beak but it worked out fine for her.

this was from today.... and yesterday: I don't think it got any worse that I know of.....I haven't checked on the chicks enough to see her eat though.

[@=/u/236831/bantambury]@bantambury[/@] I would keep her. Her crossbeak might not get any worse and may stay like that. Haha I'm biased because I love special needs birds QUOTE] ok! ill just see how she gets once older! my sister may want her.....she love rehabilitating things. thanks for your advise!

Ok...cross beak: That chick does not look bad at all. Time will tell how bad it will get. I have had a few this way. 1 was very minor, almost imperceptible without very close inspection. She never needed any special feeding. 1 was pretty severe and I eventually rehomed her to someone who had time to do special feedings for her. The other was between the 2 in severity and all I did for her was mix yogurt with her crumbles (this was before I started fermenting feed) to make it clump together so she could grab it easier. I would sit her on the coop roof to eat by herself while I fed & watered all my other pens. This gave her about 15 minutes to fill her crop with no competition. Then I would plop her & the remaining mash in the run & her buddies would help her finish it off. She did fine with only this assistance. It really all depends on the bird, the severity, it's personality & how much assistance you are willing to give it. Inbreeding: It does not hurt to breed siblings back in the way you will be doing because it will be a single back-breeding. What it will do however, is greatly enhance all of the faults AND the best qualities at the same time. What this means is that you will have some chicks that show the faults of the parents to the extreme & others that show the best qualities. You will want to breed the best birds & cull or sell off the others as pets. Do not be surprised if you have a bit lower hatch rates as this will be the most severe faults culling out on their own.

 

[fosterson]

Got one pip and zip and hatch today, all in under 20 minutes. Had to leave the house to get access to internet and I'm hoping some of the rest do SOMETHING today. My incubator went nutzo last night with temp and humidity and I'm not hopeful now.

Had to assist 2 chicks yesterday, but they're both very lively and fluffed up now. Pictures tomorrow because I forgot to upload the photos to the laptop.

Will post pictures of the assisted hatching. I got discouraged when the first one bled on me and my former veterinary apprentice sweetie stepped in, showed me how to crush blood vessels to staunch bleeding, and walked through the assisted hatch like he'd done it before. Second assisted hatch worked like a charm even with a lot of bleeding. I don't see a lot of discussion of crushing blood vessels while doing an assisted hatch, so if these chicks make it through, we may have stumbled on a technique for emergencies!

Got one smokey grey (the first chickie I posted yesterday, the sassy thing---that should go into the photo contest!), one black naked neck, one big big big buff/red chick and another black naked neck today...

This tells me something. I tells me the day the meat roosters got in with the flock, they partied HARD. Barnyard surprise indeed!