Sorry the pic is hard to see. These two hatched today, they are from the first setting. The others are (2) internally pipped and (2) working on it. The others have quite on me. Hopefully the other 3 buffs and the one gray will arrive ok. I guess maybe the gray, if its a boy, can hang with Luna the girl. (I used my 12 year old, and we sexed Luna, it actually was easy with the help of a good set of eyes.
I got a great mother's day present: Goslings hatched!
Out of 5 Buff Saddleback Pomeranian eggs from Kawonu that went into lock-down (started with 6-one quit last week), I now have three goslings fully hatched and one half way out. I was helping the 5th one throughout the day, but it was very weak and sadly did not make it.
I put the oldest in the brooder with the 2 one-wee-old Pomeranian goslings Celtic sent this past week (the larger two graduated to a kennel on the floor with the bigger juveniles).
I still have 5 eggs from my Pommers that will hatch throughout the first 10 days of June and then per the agreement I have with my husband, my incubators get turned off for the season.
Now I am busy securing eggs for next year. I have located two flocks of historic Pomeranians (come from old original German lines). Not only do they have completely pink beaks, legs and feet, but they have them in white, buff, gray, gray saddleback, and buff saddleback as well. I am emailing back and forth with breeder number one trying to secure hatching eggs for next season and am awaiting a reply from breeder number two to see if he sells eggs, goslings, or adult birds. If I can get these lined up for next season I will be the happiest woman in the world.
Heck, I may even convince my husband that I need some of the other colors, especially the solid buff (even though they are not admitted to the APA standard). Wish me luck!
Marty, congrats on the new hatches!
Iain, yes the shoes work wonders on the curled feet. Sooner the better to get them on, watch for straddle leg as they slide in the shoes more often.
Erin...x1000 what Marty said. If the bator is smelling you have something going wrong. If you can put the eggs in another bator I would fill a storage box with a hot water, a couple of drops of soap and a cap full of bleach. Submerge the bator bottom (assuming its styro) and weight down with a brick or something heavy. Let it soak 10-15 minutes. Scrubb and rinse with hot water. Then you can air dry it. The top you will have to just hand scrub to protect the heating element.
Aaajjss .... You are early in incubation, I wouldn't raise the humidity at all. I actually run ours much lower than that until they internally pip. If I run it that high I end up loosing eggs to too much fluid left at hatch.
Hope everyone had a relaxing weekend and lovely mothers day. We have an EE chicken order hatching to ship this week. Goslings leaving for their new homes again this week too. We even have a couple of goslings extra this week to list for sale.
The bobcat managed to rip a welded wire door off a building (similar to the wire on the pet kennels) this weekend. Hubby lost a female adult French white Scovy as she panicked and headed for the pasture. Our male Pyr was on it, but the cat went back over the fence, the poor duck tried to go through the fence and broke her neck from what we could tell.
So we cut wood to build solid doors for all three stalls on that building. They have double hinges and double latches on each. No more break ins going to happen now. We have to cut vents and screen the, in now though to give extra ventalation. Luckily the building has airflow soffits that are covered in window screen and hardware cloth. So will do the same for the new vent windows we cut and build.
Well on our way to having half of the front fenced in as well as the gates done on the driveway. Had one too many "drop in" customers even though the signs say open Sat only. Now during the week I won't have anyone pulling up the drive unwanted.
