I had a rough hatch.Long story short, among other things, I had 2 malfunctioning thermometers, which resulted in a long draggy hatch. Only one of the CCL eggs hatched, a boy - but he can't walk, and one leg is all curled up - The other chicks were picking on him, so I put him in isolation. Whenever I hold him on his back to look at his leg, his head shakes, like a tremor. The other two eggs are still in the incubator, but I'm not holding my breath. One of the SL Marans got stuck zipping, and I had to help him out, which should have been my first clue that something wasn't right. He was completely stuck to the shell,I had to wet him down pretty good, before he could push himself out. The worst though - I checked on them this morning, and all was okay. When I got out of the shower and checked again, there was blood smeared everywhere. One of the chicks who I thought was fine - I even picked her up and almost put her in the brooder, but decided she needed a bit more fluffing, so she went back into the incubator - anyway - she had somehow managed to pull her guts out. The yolk, and everything. And she wasn't dead!!! She was flopping around trying to get away from the mess. So I had to put her down.
AND clean the incubator - WHICH STILL HAD EGGS IN IT!!! I wasn't about to leave everything all bloody and gross until after Tuesday, when the rest are due. I worked as quick as I could, and quickly removed the eggs, cleaned everything out and reset everything. At that point I noticed that my two hygrometers had massively different readings. So I put in a third. I have no idea how long they've been acting up. The third read closer to my backup, which was significantly higher than the main one. So I had no clue what the humidity was like, for reals. All in all - 2 CCL from thespoiledchicken are still in the incubator - I candled them quickly this morning and there was still movement, but I'm not holding my breath. The third, a boy, probably will need to be put down tomorrow if there's no improvement. From Donna - I have: 3 SBELS 2 SLEE (both girls!) 2 SLM (1 of each) 1 Blue Cuckoo Marans - oh my, I hope its a girl because it is adorable! The SBELS and SLEE are so cute and fluffy, little puff balls. I swapped for 16 eggs, and she sent 20. 8 is 50% of what I swapped for, so I'm happy, but totally bummed about the SBEL who disemboweled herself. I have rhodebar and rainbow layers that are supposed to hatch on Tuesday, but I don't have any idea what I'm going to get. I will be buying a "real" glass thermometer and wet bulb thermometer before I hatch again. which won't be for at least a month, I promised I'd turn of the incubator for a bit. I'm glad, because this was just horrible.
So sorry. If it makes you feel any better I have 3 CCL boys from papa that hatched yesterday. Ill have to contact my friend in Eugene and find out when she's coming up here. Ill make you a peep package.
