Another newbie, another question! - Kinda urgent :(

lCaml

In the Brooder
May 24, 2015
10
0
22
Australia
Hi All,

First timer here. We got some chickens a while ago and as we had no hens go broody we borrowed an incubator..

Temp on 37.5 deg C, turning twice a day, no humidity control but the owner of the incubator gave me instructions to fill the middle section for the first 18 days, then add water to the outer ring on day 18 before lockdown..

We had 1 chick start pipping yesterday morning (day 22), but by this afternoon there was no progress, so I was told to open up the pip just a little more, and over the afternoon the little one had started to make its way out, barring its "back end" which seemed to be rather stuck to the membrane and egg. It eventually got itself out but I have noticed it's vent is not looking great at all, with a little bit of blood and the whole area appears to be 'under pressure'.

Can anybody tell me if this is its intestines? Should I stop stressing? Or what?! I am a single dad to a 6 year old autistic boy who is SUPER excited by all of this, so if I need to cull the chick, I kinda need to know now before he wakes up and sits there watching it, only to be told I am going to cull it. It's yet to turn around and stand up, which I have read does happen, more so the bulging vent that has me worried.. Thank you in advance, link to youtube video below.

http://youtu.be/mRqrHHcfxSk

Cheers,
Cam
 
Also, on the subject of not standing up. It appears to try and roll, and then throw it's head back, toes are all kinda pointed upwards. This is all new to me, so no idea if this is normal. I've followed the "assisted hatching" process on here for another 2 chicks that are chirping and not pipped, but they've not yet hatched. Helllllp!
 
Also, on the subject of not standing up. It appears to try and roll, and then throw it's head back, toes are all kinda pointed upwards. This is all new to me, so no idea if this is normal. I've followed the "assisted hatching" process on here for another 2 chicks that are chirping and not pipped, but they've not yet hatched. Helllllp!
Hi Cam!! Ok, the "navel" looks like it hasn't closed yet. Given time it might close and be fine. If you have an antibiotic w/out pain reliever in it you can rub some of that on it. To me it looks like it just took a little longer to absorb the yolk and that is where the "pressure" is coming from. I would suggest sav a chick electrolyte if you can get some to put in the water. If not, a teaspoon of sugar in the quart waterer and try to get him to take some.

As for the throwing it's head back. It sounds to me like "wry neck" or stargazing as it's called and I will find a link for that for you to look at, just give me a sec.......
 
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Ok, so wry neck, here are a couple links for you to look at and see if that's what you are seeing and what can be given to fix it:

http://www.raising-happy-chickens.com/wry-neck.html

http://www.fresheggsdaily.com/2014/04/preventing-and-treating-wry-neck-in.html


As for the two "chirping but not pipped", after the chick internally pips into the air cell sometime you can hear them chirping (pretty cool isn't it?) A chick can take a good 24 hours after it internally pips before you see the external pip and after it externally pips it can take another 24 before it actually hatches. How long has it been since you started hearing the chirping from inside the egg?
 
BTW
welcome-byc.gif
 
So, I was checking out your day one incubation vid. First off Jaiden is a cutie. I have a seven year old boy myself (Cayden) and we also homeschool. Actually that's how we got started raising chicks. It was a project for our oviparous animal lesson for science (we weren't planning on keeping chicks, but it didn't turn out that way)...lol

So, your incubator that you borrowed, never saw one like that. It's pretty cool. Does that have a fan in the top? (Fan forced?) And I can see that you are following directions on filling water channels instead of actually monitoring the humidity levels. Your video said you were open to constructive criticism so I'm going to put my two cents in here. If you decide to incubate again, this is what I would recommend:

Have an independent (checked and accurate) thermometer and hygrometer. Different people and different areas will find different percentages of humidity work best for them, and we can keep track of this through the air cells. If you are interested I highly recommend this method, (and the post describes why we control humidity which is great to help the kiddos understand the process as well.)
http://letsraisechickens.weebly.com...anuals-understanding-and-controlling-humidity

I hope you don't dissapear and let us know how it goes with the hatcher and the other eggs!
 
Thank you SO much for your reply!

Ok, antibiotic, I do have, will go and rub that into the area now. No luck on the electrolyte though, will try some sugar water.

As for Vitamin E or selenium, I don't have either of those individually, and it's 1:30am in Australia and I live in the country, so not going to be able to do either of those at the moment. I do have a multivitamin with a HOST of other vitamins (vitamin B, E (30mg), D, H, K / magnesium / zinc / fish oil / Selenuin (25mcg) etc etc), I would imagine that given all of the other ingredients it would be too much to give to a newborn chick, even in small amounts?!

I'm surprised to read that it is a Vit E deficiency, as well as a decent laying pellet they regularly get broccoli and get leftover avocado probably once a week.

As for the others who are chirping, they have all started in the last 5 hours, all of which have pipped internally. It was more the fact that I am now onto day 23 that I was starting to look at what to do, is this the point I should start giving them a helping hand?! This morning I honestly thought we were going to have none hatch, so to hear chirps was so relieving! Not to mention my boy was very excited, thus my concern when the first hatcher didn't look as I expected!

Always nice to meet other homeschoolers, albeit on the other side of the world! We moved to the country after 18 month of caravanning, so now we have 5 acres with fully enclosed stables, it was a perfect time to get some chooks! All of our chickens were "rescue hens", the first lot we got are:
1 x Australian australorp
1 x Buff Sussex
2 x Ancona
1 x golden laced Wyandotte.
2 x rode island Red Cross.
And I'm unsure of the rooster breed
A few weeks ago we picked up some verrrrrrrrrrrrrry fat
Rhode Island white X leghorn from another lady who rehomes rescue hens. They have a free range of the 5 acres and so far they have not flown over the fence into my veggie gardens, bonus!

Yes the incubator is fanforced, it has a rather large fan at the top, enough so it drove me mental for the last 22 days... Thank you for the link, I will check that out, we are looking at an incubator ourselves down the track, however finances have prevented such a purchase thus far, as I don't want to go and buy a crappy one.. I will look into an independent thermometer and hydrometer as well, thanks for the advice. I was a little worried about humidity, as it's winter over here and I am ~450m above sea level in the mountains so the temp varies massively, and humidity in the air is often very low, or very high. Would the lack of humidity be the issue behind them taking an extra few days? I probably checked them 50 times on day 21, I went to bed rather dejected that night! haha

I will certainly stick around, I've been silently scoping out the forums for some time for all kinds of information, I must say it's a wealth of knowledge! Not to mention the time zone differences mean I get replies at 1am when I am stressing out, woohoo!

Thanks again for the advice, sorry for the long reply, ex IT tech, I type too fast for my own good!

Cheers,
Cam
 
Thank you SO much for your reply!

Ok, antibiotic, I do have, will go and rub that into the area now. No luck on the electrolyte though, will try some sugar water.

As for Vitamin E or selenium, I don't have either of those individually, and it's 1:30am in Australia and I live in the country, so not going to be able to do either of those at the moment. I do have a multivitamin with a HOST of other vitamins (vitamin B, E (30mg), D, H, K / magnesium / zinc / fish oil / Selenuin (25mcg) etc etc), I would imagine that given all of the other ingredients it would be too much to give to a newborn chick, even in small amounts?!

I'm surprised to read that it is a Vit E deficiency, as well as a decent laying pellet they regularly get broccoli and get leftover avocado probably once a week.

As for the others who are chirping, they have all started in the last 5 hours, all of which have pipped internally. It was more the fact that I am now onto day 23 that I was starting to look at what to do, is this the point I should start giving them a helping hand?! This morning I honestly thought we were going to have none hatch, so to hear chirps was so relieving! Not to mention my boy was very excited, thus my concern when the first hatcher didn't look as I expected!

Always nice to meet other homeschoolers, albeit on the other side of the world! We moved to the country after 18 month of caravanning, so now we have 5 acres with fully enclosed stables, it was a perfect time to get some chooks! All of our chickens were "rescue hens", the first lot we got are:
1 x Australian australorp
1 x Buff Sussex
2 x Ancona
1 x golden laced Wyandotte.
2 x rode island Red Cross.
And I'm unsure of the rooster breed
A few weeks ago we picked up some verrrrrrrrrrrrrry fat
Rhode Island white X leghorn from another lady who rehomes rescue hens. They have a free range of the 5 acres and so far they have not flown over the fence into my veggie gardens, bonus!

Yes the incubator is fanforced, it has a rather large fan at the top, enough so it drove me mental for the last 22 days... Thank you for the link, I will check that out, we are looking at an incubator ourselves down the track, however finances have prevented such a purchase thus far, as I don't want to go and buy a crappy one.. I will look into an independent thermometer and hydrometer as well, thanks for the advice. I was a little worried about humidity, as it's winter over here and I am ~450m above sea level in the mountains so the temp varies massively, and humidity in the air is often very low, or very high. Would the lack of humidity be the issue behind them taking an extra few days? I probably checked them 50 times on day 21, I went to bed rather dejected that night! haha

I will certainly stick around, I've been silently scoping out the forums for some time for all kinds of information, I must say it's a wealth of knowledge! Not to mention the time zone differences mean I get replies at 1am when I am stressing out, woohoo!

Thanks again for the advice, sorry for the long reply, ex IT tech, I type too fast for my own good!

Cheers,
Cam
High elevations are harder to incubate in and you wouldn't want to do a low humidity incubation. There are some links for incubating in higher elevations, this is one I usually share: http://www.thepoultrysite.com/articles/2908/incubating-eggs-at-high-altitudes/

Usually delayed hatches are caused by average lower than normal temps over the incubation. The bator could be 5 tenths off reading higher than it is. When you are counting the days are you starting your count 24 hours after you set or are you counting the day you set them as day 1? Because they need 21 days of incubation, so you don't start day one until they've had one full day of incubation. If you started count the day you set them, then actually they started hatching on day 21.

As for the in shell chirpers. 5 hours is nothing. Like I said, once they internally pip it could take 24 hours before you see anything. There is nothing you can do at this point and you never want to help unless it's needed. I do assist if I feel it's necessary, but before an external pip is a no no (I only make allowences for in shell pips that have been peeping longer than 24 hours. (Then if the hatcher feels more comfy making a small breathing hole or pip in the air cell, that's the most I would ever advise before a chick externally pips.) Even after the external pip it takes hours before the vasular system between the chick and egg shut down and if you do too much assisting before that happens there's a high chance of causing the chick to bleed out, plus some chicks are delayed in absorbing the yolk, and you want to make sure that job is done as well. (My pip to zip average is somewhere between 12-18 hours.)

Careful of the avocado. While the flesh is fine for them, the pits and skin contain persin, which can be toxic to chickens in significant quantities. Alot of people believe that the whole thing is poison, but in reality it is the pits and skin. I think when it's a singular case of wry neck it's more of that chick might be vit e or selinium deficient and not so much the overall lack of proper feed. If you have multiple wry neck chicks, then I think it points more to an overall flock deficiency. So unless you have more hatching with wry neck, I wouldn't be too overly concerned over the feed thing.

I saw your spread of land and chickens. Really nice. Good looking chickens too.

I myself have mostly a bunch of mixed...lol I have some pure Silver spangled Appenzeller Spitzhaubens and a couple Japanese Banties. Silkie and some nns. Mostly though mixes. I really like my mixes...lol

I hope the first little chick starts showing improvement and you see some activity from the others soon.
 
Ok, so our little "chirpy" did not make it through the night, despite being up till 3:40am playing "Dr Cam".

But the good news is so far the other 3 are still chirping along happily.

I woke to see my son standing in the kitchen, whispering to himself, I asked him what was wrong "Chirpy is dead dad", but then his face lit up "but dad there's still some alive, I can hear them!". So whilst we lost one, he's still feeling upbeat about it all, taking it very well for a first timer! Although he is a documentary nut, so is well versed with death and such things..

As for counting the days, I did not include day 1. We put them in on Friday the morning and in Australia, it's currently 10am on Monday morning.
 

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