4th Annual BYC NYD Hatch-a-long

[TMNfarm]

That is adorable how they are all snuggly into your hand
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...

Wow!!! Just.... wow!!! Hoping for some live little chickies for you..

What a story you will have to tell about them!!!

 

[champer]

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

Ah, thank you so much! I should know better than to hatch a bunch of same-colored chicks! lol

 

[FeyRaine]

Wow!!! Just.... wow!!! Hoping for some live little chickies for you..

What a story you will have to tell about them!!!

You know the totally ironic thing that crossed my mind, is given the shrink wrap situation, and the fact that only the tiniest amt. of each beak internally piped, it is possible that they only actually internally piped BECAUSE the bator fell and forced their little beak tips through the membrain, b/c they really don't look like they could possibly have moved enough to do it on their own...and they were totally silent until after the fall, wouldn't that be the most ironic thing if the fall I thought killed them actually caused them to survive!

 

[champer]

Razadia, I'm so sorry that happened.

 

[Razadia]

Razadia, I'm so sorry that happened.

I'll just try again another time. I'm not one to give up easily. I can honestly say this is a lesson learned.

 

[RavenWood]

It could be. These chicks are a random grab bag of breeds of whatever she had amongst the 30 chickens, and whatever mated with whatever... LOL She did have like, four silkies in there, so it's possible it's silkie dad.... not full silkie though, the egg was full sized.

Grab bag sounds like a lot of fun though ... you never know what you are gonna get!

I opened up my egg. I had a feeling it was dead. I was right.

The others died earlier, so they didn't look like chicks yet. This one was fully formed, but maybe a bit small. So, I was right to put it into lockdown, (dark egg, so I wasn't 100% sure, but thoguht I still saw veins, and the egg was dark.) I am guessing it probably died right around the time I put it into lock down. I was frustrated when the rest died, but this guy made it so close... I am so sad.

It would have been dark with a light belly.

I have three inner pips on my shipped eggs finally..

Excellent!

Nope, her skin is pale. but my chicks are all random... haha.




it's a little hard to catch on the camera, but she's a reddish brown and black... it seems she has black skin on her face, but not all over.

Good job Jessiey. I have two pipped somewhere between 2am and 7am that aren't doing much ... not sure if I should wait or help. I did have to open the bator this morning to take out the Marans and turn Slowpoke over as he'd gotten himself upside down in the corner and was unable to get up. Hope I didn't shrink wrap 'em.

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 dear.

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.

You Rock!

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.

Ditto that. These guys don't seem very vigorous and half are a day late and slower than molasses at hatching. I have 2 pipped somewhere between 2am - 7am and one has made a slightly larger hole (with my assistance) and the other hasn't done squat. My own barnyard mixes were bang on time, full of pep, vigour and man are they smart! Not sure I'll do the Marans again.

 

[champer]

That is adorable how they are all snuggly into your hand
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...

Good lord, what an eventful 24 hours. We will all be anxiously awaiting the arrival of the 3 stuck chicks!

 

[RavenWood]

How do you know if a chick is shrink wrapped? I have a chick that pipped and then started to make it's hole bigger, but now it's just kinda sitting. I did open the bator briefly this morning because I had a hatchling on it's back in the corner unable to right itself, but I raised my humidity before I opened and it stayed stable. The peep is breathing and moving and all seems ok ... but I just wasn't sure how to tell if one was shrinkydinked.

 

[caj1985]

Good job Jessiey. I have two pipped somewhere between 2am and 7am that aren't doing much ... not sure if I should wait or help. I did have to open the bator this morning to take out the Marans and turn Slowpoke over as he'd gotten himself upside down in the corner and was unable to get up. Hope I didn't shrink wrap 'em.
Oh dear.

You Rock!

Ditto that. These guys don't seem very vigorous and half are a day late and slower than molasses at hatching. I have 2 pipped somewhere between 2am - 7am and one has made a slightly larger hole (with my assistance) and the other hasn't done squat. My own barnyard mixes were bang on time, full of pep, vigour and man are they smart! Not sure I'll do the Marans again.

I have to say my marans from crfarms have hatched slow but steady and have been VERY active and full of vigor. In addition they are very large healthy chicks.

 

[Coffeemama7]

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.

You are not a failure! Sometimes things go wrong, and no one thinks poorly of you for it!

We set 37 eggs, as of today we have tossed 11, 13 hatched, one chick is laying in the bator struggling because the rest of its cell mates ran over its egg (that was partly zipped) and cracked it in half! The poor chick has some of its back skin hanging funny from its self, I do not think it is going to make it.
It is just horrid watching it, but I don't know if it will recover, so I am hoping against hope!
We have two pipped, but I think one has died (no noise, no movement).

So, we all have struggles and mistakes. It is part of life.
Be kind to yourself, and try again.