The 6th Annual BYC Easter Hatch-a-long!

[Chrysolinsbirds]

one Still in bator and the pipped one died in shell

 

[NikkiCole5]

I have my first baby
So tired lol

 

[mlm Mike]

Do we have a total of how many chicks hatched for Easter yet?

No, people are still turning in their totals.

 

[Cowboy44]

No, people are still turning in their totals.

Gotcha! Thanks hopefully they'll have them soon...excited to know the grand total!!

 

[chickwhispers]

Congratulations on every ones chicks!

And if you're still waiting on some Best Wishes!!!

And if you had trouble I'm so sorry.

I have had such a difficult time keeping up with BYC this last week or so! But my total is 7. I had the 8 BCM's none of which were viable. I incubated egg yolks.

I wasn't sure and I didn't want to waste one checking if I wasn't seeing what I thought I was seeing, not really knowing what I was seeing for sure. Ok confusing I know, but you get the idea - I just didn't want to take chance if those were embryos and not yolks. But now I know so NEXT time I'll be able to see it sooner.

More bad news: Final total -7 - No more chicks for my total. The last one didn't make it. We had a power outage last night and it got down to 63. So I checked them all and 3 were shrink wrapped 3 were not but just not hatched and the 1 was ready to pip but didn't make it. We also had a heat spike earlier in the week according to the digital thermometer, so I'm guessing that finished off the the other ones that were slow to finish.

When I am able to this again, I will have a digital heater set up so there are less temp swing and less of a chance for a spike. I've got my eye on one but it's a little pricey for me. I hope to make my own bator and set it up to work for me. so it's reliable, quiet and I can hook it up to my computer to analyse the temp and humidity. I also want a humidistat to add the water. automatically. Basically I want to ME PROOF it! Until then I believe I will take advantage of my broodies.

Thanks to all the others for enabling me, and for the support when I needed it!
And a Big Thank You! to the staff, mods and admin for having the Hatch-A-Longs!
Some times stressful, sometimes not, but always interesting and fun! (Even with some stress!)

 

[prizepete]

At the moment we have 17 chicks, We are candling later tonight, water test probably if we can't find any thing on the candling. The baby that thinks I'm her mom, is still insistint that i am her mother, sorry if there are any typos, she is trying to play with me and there is crawling baby chick all over my neck. she also seems to like talking to me. she won't stop until i talk back

 

[Skitt-Chicks]

One pipped egg, and the chick died during hatching. We watched it take its last breath. :-( Humidty is at 62%, temp at 98.5. We've lost 5 out of 7!! :-(

 

[coop410silkies]

Well, after the nightmare that was my HAL there is a silver lining! I had to surgically extract multiple chicks who got stuck in their shells while zipping (mom has a very thick membrane-not going to hatch from her again) and two actually made it! One of the them is the cutest chick I've ever hatched...here he is...his name is Butters.



He also likes to pose for the camera



And sleep like a lawn dart



He's a large fowl splash Cochin, and truly precious to me! It took a lot of hard, delicate work to get him out, but I wanted to share one success story on an assist. Having to do that is always heartbreaking, because you know most of them won't make it (and I did lose two and the other assist is having some issues but fighting hard.)

I did a combination of a few different suggestions on this forum to get them out- I put the eggs in a warm, wet towel during transport from the incubator (hot enough to be steamy, but not too hot) made my bathroom as steamy as possible, and used Polysporin to lubricate the membranes. Then I used a pair of cuticle scissors to CAREFULLY trim the fluff that was really stuck. I soaked the easier stuck pieces in warm water with a cotton pad and they rolled off.

All of the chicks I assisted were stuck while zipping, but I still lost 2 of the 4 I had to help. It was gnarly, but so worth it!

Ooooh, he looks gorgeous and sweet. Have done hatches like your HAL, and I can only appreciate the kind of love that yields this kind of result.

 

[Cynthia12]

I think I'm tired on top of being sick..thought this was funny, but only because of the rooster and chickens singing. Yep.

 

[venymae]

Still no action from the last 3 bator eggs.

All 8 of our hatches, including the two assisted, are doing GREAT though!
67% hatch rate for us so far, 100% fertility.
I'm a bit disappointing we didn't get more, but hey it could have been worse!

EDIT: moved to new reply