4th Annual BYC NYD Hatch-a-long

[TMNfarm]

I had to assist 2 more... One of my mystery eggs, and one OE. They had made extra large pip holes and even though they were moving their beaks around, they weren't zipping at all. They had been like that for at least 7 hurs. The mystery chick was starting to get some crystalized gunk around its beak. I steamed up the bathroom and put the space heater on, and one by one, I brought them in.

The Mystery chick still had blood vessels in the inner membrane, so I picked away a part of the shell and outer membrane, wet down the dry inner membrane, made the hole around its beak just a tad bigger, tried to clean a bit of the crystalized gunk off of its nostrils and from around the beak so it could open its mouth again, wrapped it in a warm wet paper towel, the put it back inteh incubator.

The OE chick had less of a space where the air sac should be, and all of its vessels were absorbed, so I chipped away shelll from the air sac area, wet down the inner membrane, and teased it back off of about half of the area I had exposed. I then wrapped it up in a warm wet paper towel and put it back next to the other one in the incubator...

I have to bring my daughter into town for confirmation classes in about 1/2 hour, so I'll check to make sure they are moist vefore I leave, the I'll be gone for at least 1 1/2 hours... Best way to make sure I keep my hand out of the bator and off of the eggs!!!

 

[caj1985]

This is just my luck. The fan in my room was turned off last night because it was too cool to have it on. Turns out that was the only thing between me and a massive temp spike.

I lost the three chicks that hatched and the six eggs I had left, 2 BA/RIRs and 4 serama. Nothing is moving in the eggs at all. I even float tested them again and got nothing. Maybe I just wasn't meant to have seramas?

I'm so sorry. That is terrible!

 

[Fuzzybird]

This is just my luck. The fan in my room was turned off last night because it was too cool to have it on. Turns out that was the only thing between me and a massive temp spike.

I lost the three chicks that hatched and the six eggs I had left, 2 BA/RIRs and 4 serama. Nothing is moving in the eggs at all. I even float tested them again and got nothing. Maybe I just wasn't meant to have seramas?

Oh DANG I am so sorry. That happened to me once.

 

[TMNfarm]

This is just my luck. The fan in my room was turned off last night because it was too cool to have it on. Turns out that was the only thing between me and a massive temp spike.

I lost the three chicks that hatched and the six eggs I had left, 2 BA/RIRs and 4 serama. Nothing is moving in the eggs at all. I even float tested them again and got nothing. Maybe I just wasn't meant to have seramas?

Oh No!!!!!!

 

[Jessiey]

I'm behind on posts ... update?

I slowly (over three hours) broke her sell away, and then when I got down to about 1/4 of the shell, I put her back into the bator, so she could get out and detach from the rest by herself. She did after an hour or so of resting, and is in the brooder now, doing fine.

 

[Razadia]

I'm so sorry. That is terrible!

I've never had this happen before. I think I made a huge mistake by putting the incubator on the taller dresser. CPL sent me those serama eggs and she even added in some extra special ones. I feel like I failed. I haven't had this bad of a hatch since the very first one.

 

[Sally Sunshine]

This is just my luck. The fan in my room was turned off last night because it was too cool to have it on. Turns out that was the only thing between me and a massive temp spike.

I lost the three chicks that hatched and the six eggs I had left, 2 BA/RIRs and 4 serama. Nothing is moving in the eggs at all. I even float tested them again and got nothing. Maybe I just wasn't meant to have seramas?

 

[Jessiey]

I've never had this happen before. I think I made a huge mistake by putting the incubator on the taller dresser. CPL sent me those serama eggs and she even added in some extra special ones. I feel like I failed. I haven't had this bad of a hatch since the very first one.

*hugs* so sorry.

 

[ronott1]

Just wanted to share a pic of my littles. Other than the 4 RIR and 2 lav Ams, I'm pretty much clueless as to which are my black mutts and which are BR or BAs. Well it will become clear over time I guess.

Feet color--BAs have slate legs with pink to flesh colored feet pads. BRs should have yellow legs but some have white.

 

[FeyRaine]

The new years hatch along serama

That is adorable how they are all snuggly into your hand

guess my eggies thought this was the January Hatch A Long...
I have five Jubilee Orpingtons out, a polish trying... and now a Barred Rock just popped out! I have some pips in there too...
the marans are being totally lazy tho... but I'm not ready to give up... I think they are just 'late bloomers'!!!

I wish I'd been aware at the start that marans are not only impossible to candle, but also appear to be the latest bloomers! But knowing it now is also helpful, and certainly in future I'll keep it in mind.

OK So here is my situation update as of 4pm Eastern

I was going to do the hot shower steam the bathroom & help Egg W hatch plan, but I being the cautious type I did RE-read Sally Sunshines's info (again) THANKS SALLY. So w/ all those pictures fresh in my mind I pulled out Egg W and discovered that my little wet paper towel tents I had around the 3 eggs I'd piped 2 hrs early had actually re-hydrated the inner membrane just a enough to make me better able to see what was going on. (so basically instead of using the steam room/finger to do it, it was already done ). This gave me the ability to decide to wait longer. While Egg W doesn't look like the "way too early to help" picture (from Sally's info) it also doesn't now w/ the re-moistened membrane look like the completely ready picture either.

So all 3 eggs I'm trying to save got fresh wet paper towel tents at 2pmE , I've got humidity in the bator up to 78% (if I can believe this monitor device). I had left the PC fan off for most of the time since last night trying to keep humidity up and so I can actually hear peeps which I can't over the fan. I have it running now for 10 mins then I'm going to turn it off again so those wet towel tents stay really moist.

I'll just keep redoing the moist towels if I have to and wait to see if my some miracle these 3 make it out on their own.
I'm not sure how long I'm going to wait but so far all my maran eggs remain silent but maybe a couple of them could still be alive like there were so I'm just in a holding pattern now. I'm 90% certain I'll have to help these 3 out eventually, but they can breath even if they can't move so that is ok for now. Correct me if I'm making a mistake...

Thanks to everyone who has been giving me advice and enouragement.

And my total sympathies to the several people who have had complete losses!!!
Last night I was convinced that was me too, and it was terrible.

Ya'll will NOT believe what happened:

Since I'd had all the low humidity problems & no signs of life I moved into trouble shooting the failed hatch mode.

I've had the digital remote unit in the center next to the eggs, but I also had a meat thermometer slit into a hole reading temps up top by the lightbulb & it was always reading less than the other which was odd but I figured it was b/d of the fan moving the air.
My DH suguested we use a human temp. digital and slid it into the other vent holes & see what it said. Well the top one was 97, but when we slid it in the drain plug at the bottom, touching the nearest egg it went to 103 !! I was about in tears (& I NEVER cry) I've moved the eggs around every other day to avoid uneven-ness but if spots in the bator were 103 when the digital said 100 well I'd just roasted all the eggs in turn ! : (

My DH went to stand up (he is 6ft 5 over 400#) set his hand on the table w/ the bator to steady himself and b/f I could shout don't put weight on that - The table w/ the bator collapsed! BATOR FELL 2 ft, directly down w/ a giant thud. DH trying not to fall on it rolled to side and gave himself a nasty hit on the back of the head on a chair leg. Total chaos! We got his head ok, and then well just stared at the bator, and I said, well if any of them were alive before they are certainly all dead now so I might as well candle them and clean up the mess so we can redesign this before I try duck eggs. So I started candling and then we saw one w/ movement and thought we heard a faint peep but couldn't tell where (we had unplugged the fan figuring the crashed bator was end-game).

So then I set everything back up to up humidity to max, left the eggs arranged as was (figured the live ones must be in the ok temp spot, the hot spot ones oh well, but left it all in place just to keep the same conditions for volume etc. Watched nothing happen until 2am & went to bed. This am is when I went into action to pip for the egg that had peeped 12 hrs prior , also finding its neighboring 2 eggs peeping slightly.

So now I have 3 peepers, who I've pipped, who are almost certainly shrink wrapped to where they'll not hatch, but who have survived a 2 foot fall in the bator and all sorts of other bad odds. & maybe just maybe a couple of those dark maran eggs may even still be alive also, even though I hear nothing and see no internal pip on candle last night.

WOW I did not expect such a roller coaster ride w/ this entire hatching thing, but I sure am gonna be thrilled if I end up w/ any actual live chicks!

I'm gonna have some coffee now, and think happy thoughts for all the chicks in the NYD Hatchalong...