Hands on hatching and help

[Lacrystol]

Yea, I'm pretty positive on the weight loss percentages. I've got an extremely accurate scale that weighs up to a tenth of a gram and it is dead on. Nickles weigh 5.0 grams on it.

I would say probably have a couple of early birds. then

 

[BigWeenMachine]

OMG that's aweful to say.. OMG.... She'll show up, just wait and see. OMG..

Yea, I'm not being very positive. Everyone forget I ever wrote that.......

 

[Lacrystol]

I must go check on my baby, AND YES, I WILL BE BACK. lol

 

[BigWeenMachine]

WOW, Bacteria infection THAT sucks.. MAN, did an egg explode or something? Or did it just not get cleaned out properly???

Yes, you can go from auto turning them to hand turning them at any time. as long as they get turned it doesn't really matter how...

That's good to know.

I think my bacteria came from one of two ways:

First, not being cleaned properly. I bought that Lyon bator ten days into my first batch of ducklings because my FI incubator was bouncing between 96 and 106 degrees. So when I got a hold of that bator I don't know how well the previous owner cleaned it. I sprayed it down with hydrogen peroxide and ran it with the hydrogen peroxide floating around until it dried out and then stuck the eggs in. Not sure how well that disinfected it.

Secondly, I had 4 different staggered hatches in there. My first group had tiny air sacs so I pulled the water for 2 days to grow the size of the air sac. When I put the first batch in the hatcher I put both hygrometers in my hatcher to watch it closely and stuck my water bottle back on the Lyon bator. Two days later I found that the air sacs looked huge on my eggs in the Lyon and I realized my water bottle hadn't been putting the same amount of water into the bator as it had before. So I stuck a hygrometer back in there and tried to get my humidity up to 60-65% to keep those eggs from shrinking anymore since they looked ready to hatch at 21 days. I kept adding more and more water to try to get the humidity up and ran it with 6 times the water that I had in it before I started tinkering with my humidity. I figured there were less eggs in there and they had already dried up quite a bit more than they should so I thought all the extra water I was putting in to up the humidity was due to having less moisture released from the eggs. Turns out that my hygrometer had went haywire. So by the time I got the humidity fixed the bacteria showed up in the eggs. That is probably my problem. Made it way too humid and encouraged the bacteria to take over.

Or, it could have been a combo of both.

 

[BigWeenMachine]

GRRRR!!! That miserable owl is back again. Just chased it off with my .45. Havn't seen it for 3 months since the last time I chased it off. A few days prior to that it got my Khaki Campbell. it had just snowed a couple days before and there was blood everywhere. That poor duck fought her little heart out but in the end that **** owl took her head. Wish I could shoot it but I'm not allowed to kill em cos they're protected by the government. Hope it doesn't come back cos my peacocks and turkeys won't let me put them up anymore and sleep in the trees.

 

[BigWeenMachine]

I must go check on my baby, AND YES, I WILL BE BACK. lol

Good luck with your baby! I'm heading to bed.

 

[Ravynscroft]

GRRRR!!!  That miserable owl is back again.  Just chased it off with my .45.  Havn't seen it for 3 months since the last time I chased it off.  A few days prior to that it got my Khaki Campbell.  it had just snowed a couple days before and there was blood everywhere.  That poor duck fought her little heart out but in the end that **** owl took her head.  Wish I could shoot it but I'm not allowed to kill em cos they're protected by the government.  Hope it doesn't come back cos my peacocks and turkeys won't let me put them up anymore and sleep in the trees.

Oh, man... owls are relentless... sorry for your KC, I lost a couple to one too... what state are you in, btw? Some states do have a law about protecting your property and livestock...

 

[Lacrystol]

Good luck with your baby! I'm heading to bed.

talk to ya tomorrow..

 

[MrPezman]

My first hatch was yesterday! 6 viable eggs. I lost the first chick in the shell because I never got involved early enough. The next one came by itself with no problems. Number three zipped but got stuck and I had to cut the membrane, that one is doing great! The next two I had to help with all the zipping, they are now up and walking and looking for food. The last chick I had to do everything, pip & zip, that one is standing but clearly in danger and looks like it has dried slime on it. I have been slowly trying too brush the crud off. No question; just wanted to share and say that this is my first eggs and I intervened with what seems at the moment to be pretty good success. Too bad I never got involved earlier as the one that did was the only white chick amoung 5 blacks ones.

 

[KTlovesGoosey]

Thanks you to all that helped me with this precious little baby. His neck has straightened out and he is up walking and really doing great. Trying to jump out of my brooder actually! He still has some gunk on him, but here's a pic