5th Annual BYC New Year's Day 2014 Hatch-A-Long

[Cynthia12]

gardeningmama and roostereggs...thank you. Feeling a bit better. Hoping morning will be even better. I'll take feeling a little weak after having had this all day. I so want to feel well...getting a Christmas phone call from our son in GA. tomorrow night! Can't wait!

 

[Penny Hen]

Yep...guess I need to get ANOTHER bator...the Brinsea has been perfect for growing...but I need space for hatching! Wish I could separate them somehow...I have 12 CCL, 9 blue and/or black copper Marans, and 9 eggs that are 5 different barnyard mixes. So 8 different types...and 30 chicks in a Brinsea 20.

Hopefully I will be awake when they are hatching as I plan to color code them with zip ties. I'm just worried about needing to take some out and shrink wrapping the others.

Well...I am off for a final candling, marking cells, and lockdown!!! I will try to take some pics

Keep a spray bottle of warm water on hand and spray the eggs when you open he bator then remove the chick.

 

[Cynthia12]

 

[roostereggs]

So we had one more casualty tonight but I am not surprised. The one with the air cell reattached on the side...it stopped growing. It was moving on Sunday, but it looked small and not the same as the others. It is quite fuzzy and had the little pip thing on its beak. It was the same tonite...no growth and it flopped when I candled it. No movement and no veins. It was a Marans, the only one of my 21 shipped to not make it to lockdown!

Of my 33 original, 1 was not fertile and 3 stopped on days 12, 13, and 16. So I have 29 under lockdown now. My 13yo helped me with outlining the air cells. I feel like the ones doing the best are the whites and 2 greens...but that could just be because they are so much easier to see inside.

I am super eggcited!

And today I bought my rest of my supplies...sand, electrolytes, and medicated feed. I am ready for L&D!

 

[roostereggs]

Good job getting caught up!

257 posts yesterday and the busiest thread on BYC!

Yay for us!

Wow!

 

[ronott1]

So we had one more casualty tonight but I am not surprised. The one with the air cell reattached on the side...it stopped growing. It was moving on Sunday, but it looked small and not the same as the others. It is quite fuzzy and had the little pip thing on its beak. It was the same tonite...no growth and it flopped when I candled it. No movement and no veins. It was a Marans, the only one of my 21 shipped to not make it to lockdown!

Of my 33 original, 1 was not fertile and 3 stopped on days 12, 13, and 16. So I have 29 under lockdown now. My 13yo helped me with outlining the air cells. I feel like the ones doing the best are the whites and 2 greens...but that could just be because they are so much easier to see inside.

I am super eggcited!

And today I bought my rest of my supplies...sand, electrolytes, and medicated feed. I am ready for L&D!

Good job!

 

[roostereggs]

Merry Christmas everyone!
May all your eggs be fertile.
May all your egg shipments hatch.
And may all your hatches have only one rooster....

 

[ronott1]

are these big butts up? do they hatch just as well on the bator grate?

The big part of the air cell is facing up. The chick will pip pretty much in the top center of the egg.

I

 

[roostereggs]

Bantambury you will "kill" a farm animal if you stay in agriculture. You will be tired or mad or distracted and miss a critical clue until it is too late to remedy it. Just accept that it will happen and forgive yourself when it does and try not to make the same mistake. I lost a pregnant ewe when she bloated and even though I tubed her and drenched her it wouldn't stop the bloat. She swelled so much it stopped her heart. I gave her CPR and revived her for half a minute and then lost her for good. It was an hour later when I remembered how to save her by puncturing her stomach and letting the air out. You might kill her doing that with a pocket knife but she was dying anyway and their was a chance at survival but I couldn't think of it in the heat of the moment.

While I was taking chemotherapy I had a dog attack an Angora goat of mine. I doctored him up but I missed a cut under his long fiber and it went septic and I lost him. I had my arms full and was headed to the door one day when a kitten darted underfoot and I stepped on his head. It was immediately obvious that he was terminally injured. He was a tiny kitten, his head no bigger than a tiny tangerine. I had been a soldier so I thought I could use the technique used to break a rabbits neck to quickly finish the kitten. I had never tried it before but I thought that a kitten would be easier than a rabbit. It failed horribly leaving the kitten in what looked like an epileptic fit. I finally drowned it in order not to cause it more pain. For small creatures that remains my preferred method for once a person is past the fighting for air part it becomes euphoric. I am making an assumption that it is the same for animals. For a larger animal like a dog or sheep a bullet through the ear or from below through the jawbones straight into the brain. Don't ever shoot a sheep or cow between the eyes. Some of them have thick enough skulls to bounce the bullet back at you.

That said I had a ram that had a stroke and couldn't walk. I fed him and watered him and cleaned him up for a week. He realized that he was not going to be able to recover and he quit eating. He was such a loving creature. He once entered the house and lay down on the couch to watch Saturday morning cartoons with my daughter. I could not bring myself to shoot him. It was winter though and I decided that he was not going to die cold. It was the third day since he had quit eating and I knew that night was going to be his last. It was also going to be cold. I gathered all the old blankets I had and wrapped him 4 inches deep and hooded his head with them. I sat with him for a while and talked to him and sang to him. Each time I would speak he would rouse just a little and answer me with a short bleat. I told him what an awesome ram he had been and how I had enjoyed his company for the years I had him. I thanked him for his lambs that he left me with to carry on. At last I was cold and checking him one last time to see that he was warm I went inside for the night. In the morning I checked on him and he was gone. I slipped my hand underneath the blankets and he was still warm. He had died warm knowing that he was loved.

All life on this earth is born out of death. All things must consume something whether it be plant life or animal life to continue. We must have the courage to face that truth and come to terms with the life we consume and respect and love it. Fleeing from it leads to denial and a separation of from the lifeforms that feed us. After that a guilty contempt creeps in for other lifeforms. In some people they separate themselves from the reality so far as to believe that meat and milk magically appear at the grocery stores. We, who heed the Call to be stewards of these lifeforms both plant and animal, must work to reconnect others to there source of sustenance. But first we must come to terms with it ourselves then we can teach others how to love and respect the lifeforms that keep us living.

I have come to the conclusion that all you can do is the best you can do at the moment under what ever circumstances exist. Each death has taught me a lesson

This is the best post I have read all month on every forum I have been on! This should be in one of the Chicken Soup for the Animal Lovers Soul...if there is even such a book lol!

 

[Gardeningmama]

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