Swedish Flower Hen Thread

[LauraNJ]

Had a 3rd hatch, this was one of the ones I did not help (didn't even realize it had pipped) but this one hatched bleeding. Got the blood to stop but it is weak. I put some electrolyte/vitamin water on my finger to try to get the chick to get a little.

One of the other eggs the chick died in it. Not sure why except it was misposiitioned.

Have 6 left that I opened the end of the egg up. They are all doing ok so far. I am leaving them until tomorrow and then I'll see. Some still have many blood veins still.

Have 3 left that I haven't touched, I am considering that my control group. I will probably break in tomorrow though since at that point they will be 2 days late.

I just recalibrated one of the thermometers, then put it back in the incubator and the others have the same reading so my temps are correct. maybe the temp needs to be slightly higher for shipped eggs? Like perhaps one degree higher? Or half a degree higher? I think I will try that also next time.

The 2 that hatched earlier are running around and super energized.

 

[ki4got]

My latest SFH eggs are hatching, a day late but that is ok.

I am having issues with chicks fully developed but not pipping. They seem to be in the right position but are big without a lot of room to manuever. The air cells are the correct size.

I am experienced with rare parrots and have had 100% hatch rate with them so not sure if it is just that shipped eggs are weaker , xrayed, or what is going on. Open to advice if I am doing something wrong with the chicken eggs.

Circulated, forced air incubator, temp at 99.5F (have 3 calibrated thermometers), humidy is 50-54% until lockdown then I increase it to about 72% humidy. I check temps and humidy many times a day and I really try to keep it consistent as parrot eggs are sensitive to temp and humidy fluctuations.

my first guess is your humidity is way too high during incubation. all that excess fluid is preventing the chicks from turning around normally, and the excess fluids also put a big strain on the heart and developing lungs, so the chicks are essentially drowning...

sfh especially, i'm finding are more sensitive to humidity than some others... some hatched just normally, others were wet and goopy and needed help because the goop had essentially glued them in. a few were DIS as well because they didn't pip a big enough area and the goop ended up clogging their nostrils.

over all tho i'm pleased... I got 18 eggs developed from dahlisgrams (shipped of course) and of the 18, had 6 that were DIS or quit prior to pipping.

bulldogma and I are going to do some testing to see what we can determine... some of the eggs I hatched were moved from one incubator to another midway thru incubation (to make room for some other eggs). so we're wondering if those are the ones that had problems or if there was any correlation between the problems and moving or if it was just random coincidence.

 

[LauraNJ]

Next batch of eggs I will try a dry hatch, see if it improves anything with the hatch rate. I think I will also raise the temp just a half a degree or so. We had certain parrot breeds that did better slightly higher than normal, others that did best at the average temp. So, I will do dry hatch and a little higher temps and see what that does. Can't hurt to try.

I am really pleased the two are doing so great and the 3rd chick is beginning to perk up, he is chirping now so a good sign. The other 6 eggs look good, keeping my fingers crossed they hatch tonight and I just wake up to 6 healthy chicks.

 

[ChickNmamma]

Next batch of eggs I will try a dry hatch, see if it improves anything with the hatch rate. I think I will also raise the temp just a half a degree or so. We had certain parrot breeds that did better slightly higher than normal, others that did best at the average temp. So, I will do dry hatch and a little higher temps and see what that does. Can't hurt to try.

I am really pleased the two are doing so great and the 3rd chick is beginning to perk up, he is chirping now so a good sign. The other 6 eggs look good, keeping my fingers crossed they hatch tonight and I just wake up to 6 healthy chicks.

for the chicks. My batch of Sillies..um Silkies is due tomorrow so I know how you feel.

 

[LauraNJ]

Good luck on the silkies! Hope they all hatch!

So, the 3 chicks kept me up all night! Chirping running around, just very noisy! I have the incubators in my room along with the newchick brooder so not that far from the bed. Our Lab actually left my bedroom to sleep with one of the kids they were so noisy.

Had another 3 hatch, the large one died, the 2 others are weak but breathing so I am hopeful they rebound. I checked a couple of the unbroken, unpipped eggs, all appear dead at this point.

Still if I end up with 6 out of the 18 (20 but 2 were clear) I will be ecstatic.


Ki4got- That sounds really interesting. I'll look forward to how the experiment goes. I'm doing dry hatch and raising temps by .5 degrees so I will be at exactly 100F next time. If we all post what we do maybe we can figure out what is optimum for SFHs.

 

[ChickNmamma]

Good luck on the silkies! Hope they all hatch!

So, the 3 chicks kept me up all night! Chirping running around, just very noisy! I have the incubators in my room along with the newchick brooder so not that far from the bed. Our Lab actually left my bedroom to sleep with one of the kids they were so noisy.

Had another 3 hatch, the large one died, the 2 others are weak but breathing so I am hopeful they rebound. I checked a couple of the unbroken, unpipped eggs, all appear dead at this point.

Still if I end up with 6 out of the 18 (20 but 2 were clear) I will be ecstatic.


Ki4got- That sounds really interesting. I'll look forward to how the experiment goes. I'm doing dry hatch and raising temps by .5 degrees so I will be at exactly 100F next time. If we all post what we do maybe we can figure out what is optimum for SFHs.

Thank you, I hope so too.. no sounds yet...

I hope more hatch for you, but it doesn't sound great. I will watch for the results of your experiment, hopefully we as a community can figure out what the SFH want for incubation so more people can be successful at hatching these eggs. I have.. um .. a few SFH eggs n the incubator too (21) from Papa Brooder. He is close by so I am hoping the one day trip in the mail didn't hurt them. I can't candle right now because of lockdown on the other eggs - so I will candle when that hatch is done.

 

[ki4got]

Good luck on the silkies! Hope they all hatch!

So, the 3 chicks kept me up all night! Chirping running around, just very noisy! I have the incubators in my room along with the newchick brooder so not that far from the bed. Our Lab actually left my bedroom to sleep with one of the kids they were so noisy.

Had another 3 hatch, the large one died, the 2 others are weak but breathing so I am hopeful they rebound. I checked a couple of the unbroken, unpipped eggs, all appear dead at this point.

Still if I end up with 6 out of the 18 (20 but 2 were clear) I will be ecstatic.


Ki4got- That sounds really interesting. I'll look forward to how the experiment goes. I'm doing dry hatch and raising temps by .5 degrees so I will be at exactly 100F next time. If we all post what we do maybe we can figure out what is optimum for SFHs.

why are you raising temps? did i miss something? i incubate everything (and hatch) right at 99.5 with circulating air in the hatcher and incubators... if anything, when you have higher humidity, you can LOWER the temp by .5 degrees, to compensate for the humidity. i don't.

 

[chiques chicks]

3 out of three yesterday. My own eggs, actually set as tutors for my Turkey hatch. They were my own eggs. Three different colored chicks from the same hen and roo. That makes seven from the pair I hatcher last summer, I also have 5 I hatched earlier this year from shipped eggs, so I guess I'm up to 14 of various ages all groom eggs. Yipee!

 

[OldChurchEggery1]

Have you all noticed behavioral differences in SFH compared to other breeds? I've noticed that the SFH chicks are the first to come investigate things I add to the brooder. Over the weekend I pulled up some weeds from the garden (chickweed, bunch grasses, etc) and put them with roots and soil still attached in the brooder. The SFH chicks zipped right up and started scratching and pecking while the other breeds (legbars and Easter Eggers) gave a few sidelong glances and hung back for a good while. They do the same thing when I replace the water in the waterer. Who takes the first sip? The little SFH busy bees.

 

[Spifflove]

2 month update.

Unfortunately nowadays the USPS uses workers who couldn't otherwise hold a job. Consider a private carrier.