Simulated Natural Nest Incubation~Experiment #1 So it begins....

[RoseMarie1]

Third one out, another black chick and yelling its lungs out!

The other two are the smallest in the brooder and are hangin' tough, running around with the big dogs and snuggling with ducks and they are ALL snuggling with an injured meaty chick that is the size of a bantam hen. When he eats, they all eat or climb on his back...it's hilarious!

Three more pips and movement and rocking in the other two.

It's been since the 70s when I had ducks last...maybe you all can help me out a little. They don't seem to want to eat out of the feeder but to dibble around in the bedding for pieces that have been flung out. They seem to have some in their crops if not bulging but they just do not want to eat the feed...and it's wet feed so they should be all about the wet feed, being ducks. I can't remember back to the 70s and how the ducklings handled ground feeds. Any insight would be helpful!

Is this the norm for ducklings or do they usually eat the feed like chicks, out of the feeder?


****Just built a much bigger feed trough and it's good looking if I do say so myself!

Toot. Toot. I love this style of trough..so easy to build and so workable. Takes about 10 min. and some scrap lumber and screws to get into a new feed trough. ****

oh I am sooooo excited Bee. I had to read this to the hubby and he's just a grinning over there. Fell out laughing at the chicks on the meat chicks back eating.
When I had ducks mine ate from their food bowl but it was dry food though not wet fermented feeds.
SOOOOOO mega excited you got all those hatching out. You gonna have you a herd of chickens. lol I got 9 chicks and filled the bator with 42 eggs Sunday was a week ago now. Working on the second bator full now. Got a BA wanting to be broody and already had her in the broody breaker pen once and she's at it again now only 2 weeks later. IF I could get someone to help me move that broody breaker pen to my carport I would let her sit on the eggs I have gathered up. She's soooo wanting to sit. BUT IF I allow her to sit out there in that pen all of those BA's gonna go broody on me!

and I NEED those eggs!

 

[RoseMarie1]

They use Dawn on birds in oil spills... would imagine baby shampoo to be just as mild (Dawn cuts grease, I imagine. You don't need to cut through grease)

Many babies for Bee!

hee hee you excited to! lol love it. Wish we were with Bee so we could celebrate together.

 

[RoseMarie1]

The first of my Crested Cream Legbars has pipped!

doing the happy dance

yea! soooo exciting when they start hatching. Gotta candle mine one day next week for the first time to see what I got goin on in there.

 

[RoseMarie1]

The only thing I can think of is the heat element. It doesn't cover the entire incubation area and so the fan circulates that heat to distribute it equally to all eggs. If the fan is turned off we would get hot spots in the incubator. Plus, there may be a concern over dropping temperatures depending on the time of year and what those temps get down to.

In your set up, you have the heat pad covering and in contact with all of your eggs, like a broody hen, without a bunch of warm air swirling around to dry them and the heat from the hen's body brings humidity somehow and your wet soil provided that along with whatever level of humidity was in your room. We put water in pans instead.

I am certainly not a "learned one" but I do have a smidgin of experience and that's about it.

I dry incubate in my bator until day 18 and then I put water in the trays. This is how my nephew did it in this bator I bought from him. I leave the plugs out all the time as he said he did. He said they always start hatching out on day 21. That's how they did for me as well. With the humidity we have down south he said we didn't have to have the humidity in there until day 18. Was thinking about doing my other bator the same way although its a still air one not circulated like the one I bought from him.

 

[Zombified]

I am an old mom, around these parts, most girls down South start way younger. In Holland it's more common to wait til late 20s, early 30s

Always said I didn't want kids of my own.. adopt some down the line, be a foster parent. Nature disagreed and when my late twenties came rolling around and I found myself pining for a family of my own. Tick tock!

Wouldn't change it all for the world. I can still foster some kids down the line, when the nest empties.

I sound like a broody chicken now.

(yup, you go ahead and stick those cornish X under me, I know they look nothing like me, but bring 'em on in anyway!)

Haha! That's really admirable of you. Anyone who fosters is so awesome to me, because I don't know if I could do it. I would just get too attached, and I'd end up taking all the children under my wing. (Pun not intended.)

 

[Windy Bay Farm]

Just caught up on this thread ... Great news so far, Bee ! Can't wait to see what else happens with these eggs !

 

[Beekissed]

Im sorry for hijacking too Bee. Really I am.

Sweety, you know that no one hijacks one of my threads!

I don't even like that word....I call it "conversation" and without the diversity of it, the threads would all be a boring as watching paint peel.

Bee, congratulations on your success so far! It seems like nest #4 has been your most successful. What did you do in this nest that was so different from the others?

And Bee, don't be discouraged by the quitters, even if it was something you did(and I don't know if that's true or not, I'm just saying that if it was something you did, don't be discouraged or beat yourself up). I killed I don't even know how many because of my ignorance. I don't know exactly when my two ducks(the two sharing a nest) started laying, but when I first counted(I'm guessing after like two and a half weeks or three weeks), they had 21. Today, they have 11, with three possible external pips.

Well, I hope anyway... But I didn't see any with internal pips, so I have no idea. They could just be cracks. But the eggs I candled(all of them) showed life and movement and just... Definitely looked different from the dead eggs that I found.

Anyways, keep us all updated on the progress!

Everyone has had problems this year with fertility, egg viability and fecundity due to the extreme cold we had in late winter/early spring and so I think I was experiencing the same thing....I had gathered eggs from that time period when all the embryos were dying from the cold weather before we could even get them into the house from the nests and, also, the roosters were just not able to fertilize for the same reason.

I think egg viability was a huge part of it and also the learning curve~definitely the case in the first few nests. The third nest I was confused as to humidity, especially near the end. This nest had more viable eggs, the temps were maintained carefully, humidity was added at the beginning of the set and then no more...broodies don't add humidity and each chick humidifies the next, and so on. I made the soil deeper, then layered leaves and then hay....no deep litter or composting materials in the base of the nest and this might have had bearing on maintaining temps as well. More mass makes for a steadier, more radiant heat at the center of the nest.

Pete had me turning X 3 a day instead of 2 or 4 times due to better fluid wash over the surface of the egg with the odd number of turnings, so that helped, I'm sure. Actually, Pete's advice about the humidity was utilized in this nest as well, and also a hand's off policy during hatching, so he really added some good solutions to this nest. Kudos go out to my good friend, Pete!

I experienced a huge loss of 8 active chicks on the 18th day and I have no idea how or why....unless I had sustained temp spikes in the night or something, I can't imagine what could have happened. I don't think I had a spike because the temps have been very stable and manageable in this nest.

oh I am sooooo excited Bee. I had to read this to the hubby and he's just a grinning over there. Fell out laughing at the chicks on the meat chicks back eating.
When I had ducks mine ate from their food bowl but it was dry food though not wet fermented feeds.
SOOOOOO mega excited you got all those hatching out. You gonna have you a herd of chickens. lol I got 9 chicks and filled the bator with 42 eggs Sunday was a week ago now. Working on the second bator full now. Got a BA wanting to be broody and already had her in the broody breaker pen once and she's at it again now only 2 weeks later. IF I could get someone to help me move that broody breaker pen to my carport I would let her sit on the eggs I have gathered up. She's soooo wanting to sit. BUT IF I allow her to sit out there in that pen all of those BA's gonna go broody on me!

and I NEED those eggs!

What you gonna do with all those chicks, Miss Rosemarie?

Haha! That's really admirable of you. Anyone who fosters is so awesome to me, because I don't know if I could do it. I would just get too attached, and I'd end up taking all the children under my wing. (Pun not intended.)

I've always wanted to foster also and I think that is possibly one of the most compassionate things a person can do in this world today...to rescue a child. Everyone talks about rescue dogs but hardly anyone realizes how many kids need a good, stable foster home.....how much better it would be if all those kind, compassionate people out there rescuing dogs could rescue children as well. It could literally save a life.

 

[Beekissed]

Another chick out! All chicks have been black with yellow markings so far~little carbon copies of Hootie. Say what you will about the foo foo Silver Laced Cochin cockerel, he is really putting his stamp on all these chicks....different hens/breeds and all the chicks look like the sire. That last one must have had a HUGE yolk because that chick's belly is bulging like he's had Thanksgiving dinner! He also has a huge head and a very thick neck....are there times in a the hatching process when a chick will get a swollen neck from all the effort to get out of the shell?

Both are very healthy and vigorous....and LOUD.

Four more to go....taking their own sweet time, ain't they?

I thank God for these chicks and for their healthy little lives. It's been a true miracle to watch this happening in this nest and it's a dream come true to see this method working. God is so very good!

 

[LindaB220]

Another chick out! All chicks have been black with yellow markings so far~little carbon copies of Hootie. Say what you will about the foo foo Silver Laced Cochin cockerel, he is really putting his stamp on all these chicks....different hens/breeds and all the chicks look like the sire. That last one must have had a HUGE yolk because that chick's belly is bulging like he's had Thanksgiving dinner! He also has a huge head and a very thick neck....are there times in a the hatching process when a chick will get a swollen neck from all the effort to get out of the shell?

Both are very healthy and vigorous....and LOUD.

Four more to go....taking their own sweet time, ain't they?

I thank God for these chicks and for their healthy little lives. It's been a true miracle to watch this happening in this nest and it's a dream come true to see this method working. God is so very good!

Admit it, you're gonna miss him.

 

[foxvalleyfarm]

Another chick out!  All chicks have been black with yellow markings so far~little carbon copies of Hootie.  Say what you will about the foo foo Silver Laced Cochin cockerel, he is really putting his stamp on all these chicks....different hens/breeds and all the chicks look like the sire.  That last one must have had a HUGE yolk because that chick's belly is bulging like he's had Thanksgiving dinner!  He also has a huge head and a very thick neck....are there times in a the hatching process when a chick will get a swollen neck from all the effort to get out of the shell? 

Both are very healthy and vigorous....and LOUD. 

Four more to go....taking their own sweet time, ain't they? 

I thank God for these chicks and for their healthy little lives.  It's been a true miracle to watch this happening in this nest and it's a dream come true to see this method working.  God is so very good! 

Congrats Bee!!!!

The only thing I have to say is do you have a way to check the humidity? I've heard a stolon chick can be caused by you high of humidity.