gramsdaleducks
Hatching
- Sep 7, 2022
- 3
- 1
- 9
Hello all, I'm here with a sad case and some questions about genetics.
I have several female Cheshire Blues that I've had and bred for the past few years. By the way I do not use an incubator, all of our chicks are always hatched under a couple broody hens, usually the same ones.
The CB's have had a great hatching success rate and healthy chicks every year when bred with a Welsummer rooster and placed under my broody hens. This year I got a new golden Silkie rooster and thought the cross between Silkie and Cheshire Blue would be lovely.
I had 4 hens sitting on clutches of around 8 of these mixed eggs each. Each hen has ended up with only one successful and thriving chick. I have never had such failure and it's extremely distressing, especially knowing that a 5% failure rate is normal. Most of the eggs never hatch, but there have been several dead-in-shell, 3/4 hatched chicks.
Out of desperation, seeing one of these 3/4 hatched chicks last night not being sat on by its mother, I took it in and warmed it up and it finished hatching and seemed to be thriving. Reintroduced it to the mother and she immediately took it back and sat on it. This morning, with mom still sitting on it, I found it dead.
Like I've said, I've never had failures like this before, none of the variables have changed in our hatching process or chick rearing, even when an intervention like the one above was needed, besides the Silkie rooster.
Now I've been diving into information about genetics and found a study talking about 50% death rates in days 15-19 for hatching double tufted Araucana chicks. I know the CBs come from Araucanas, but their tufts are on the tops of their heads, not by the ears as in Araucanas. I've also just seen a study talking about cranial hernias related to tufted Silkie genes in hatching Silkie chicks.
I'm wondering, is the gene for Silkie tufting the same as the gene for Cheshire Blue head tufting?
Is this miserable failure rate a genetic issue to do with the head tufts in both breeds?
I feel terrible because I never would have bred them if I knew this could happen.
I also wonder about the different stages of chick development & death here. It sounds like the deaths within the egg on day 15-19 for double tufted chicks -if these two have the same genetics for this- could explain the very low hatching rate.
However, I'm still stumped on the 3/4 hatched dead-in-shell chicks. I may be wrong in assuming that genetic issues would have killed the chick prior to hatching. Obviously the one I caught yesterday wasn't being warmed by its mother during late hatching and maybe that had knock-on effects even after finishing hatching, so it may be an anomaly. But it doesn't explain all the cases of dead-in-shell hatchlings we've had this season.
Any thoughts are more than welcome here, I greatly appreciate any help.
I have several female Cheshire Blues that I've had and bred for the past few years. By the way I do not use an incubator, all of our chicks are always hatched under a couple broody hens, usually the same ones.
The CB's have had a great hatching success rate and healthy chicks every year when bred with a Welsummer rooster and placed under my broody hens. This year I got a new golden Silkie rooster and thought the cross between Silkie and Cheshire Blue would be lovely.
I had 4 hens sitting on clutches of around 8 of these mixed eggs each. Each hen has ended up with only one successful and thriving chick. I have never had such failure and it's extremely distressing, especially knowing that a 5% failure rate is normal. Most of the eggs never hatch, but there have been several dead-in-shell, 3/4 hatched chicks.
Out of desperation, seeing one of these 3/4 hatched chicks last night not being sat on by its mother, I took it in and warmed it up and it finished hatching and seemed to be thriving. Reintroduced it to the mother and she immediately took it back and sat on it. This morning, with mom still sitting on it, I found it dead.
Like I've said, I've never had failures like this before, none of the variables have changed in our hatching process or chick rearing, even when an intervention like the one above was needed, besides the Silkie rooster.
Now I've been diving into information about genetics and found a study talking about 50% death rates in days 15-19 for hatching double tufted Araucana chicks. I know the CBs come from Araucanas, but their tufts are on the tops of their heads, not by the ears as in Araucanas. I've also just seen a study talking about cranial hernias related to tufted Silkie genes in hatching Silkie chicks.
I'm wondering, is the gene for Silkie tufting the same as the gene for Cheshire Blue head tufting?
Is this miserable failure rate a genetic issue to do with the head tufts in both breeds?
I feel terrible because I never would have bred them if I knew this could happen.
I also wonder about the different stages of chick development & death here. It sounds like the deaths within the egg on day 15-19 for double tufted chicks -if these two have the same genetics for this- could explain the very low hatching rate.
However, I'm still stumped on the 3/4 hatched dead-in-shell chicks. I may be wrong in assuming that genetic issues would have killed the chick prior to hatching. Obviously the one I caught yesterday wasn't being warmed by its mother during late hatching and maybe that had knock-on effects even after finishing hatching, so it may be an anomaly. But it doesn't explain all the cases of dead-in-shell hatchlings we've had this season.
Any thoughts are more than welcome here, I greatly appreciate any help.
