April Hatch Along

[WVduckchick]

Surprisingly, my hatch is progressing better than I expected. 25 hatched and healthy so far, a couple died that zipped and couldn't pop out, and one died between eggs on its back. Bator too full!!
But I still have a few more pips, internal and external. So I might end up with a decent number after all.

 

[Jessimom]

I hatched 9 of 12 Biefelders, 4 of 4 Lavender Oprs, and 12 of 16 Tolbunt Polish last week. Here are the box of babies from the first pull:


Here are more..flash washed them.


One of the polish chicks...
.

And I have 8 Birchen/Splish Maran eggs that locked down last night

 

[rookhomestead]

I had my first and only guinea hatch yesterday. 100% hatch rate lol

 

[WVduckchick]

I hatched 9 of 12 Biefelders, 4 of 4 Lavender Oprs, and 12 of 16 Tolbunt Polish last week. Here are the box of babies from the first pull:
View attachment 548679

Here are more..flash washed them.
View attachment 548680

One of the polish chicks...
.View attachment 548681

And I have 8 Birchen/Splish Maran eggs that locked down last night

those lavs sure are pretty!

I had my first and only guinea hatch yesterday. 100% hatch rate lol

congrats! Where's the pic?

 

[WVduckchick]

Lavender Orpingtons, one black/lav split!

 

[Jessimom]

Adorable chicks!! But I want to start singing one of these things is not like the others, one of these things doesn't belong.....

 

[WVduckchick]

Adorable chicks!! But I want to start singing one of these things is not like the others, one of these things doesn't belong.....

 

[rookhomestead]

Well. Apparently the poor thing got squished/trampled it was in with a few week old chicks. I didn't have any other buddies for it. Dang it.

 

[Jessimom]

Well. Apparently the poor thing got squished/trampled it was in with a few week old chicks. I didn't have any other buddies for it. Dang it.

I'm so sorry Rook!!! That's too bad.

 

[WVduckchick]

Well. Apparently the poor thing got squished/trampled it was in with a few week old chicks. I didn't have any other buddies for it. Dang it.

I lost a tiny Serama chick the same way last week. It hatched with a couple Marans and a couple bantam cochins, but was so small compared to the others.

On a brighter note, I ended up with 29 lavender orpingtons! If I had saved the 3 that died (2 fully zipped, couldn't break out, and 1 hatched, but died on its back in between all the eggs), I would have been happier! But that means only 6 didn't hatch. A couple of those had internal pips, but never external.

I think I had a couple of issues with this incubation. The crowded hatcher caused the temp to go a little high. Not deathly high, but several hatched with raw navels and goopy gunk, and it almost looked like cooked yolk sac. I think the temp was just a little too high for just long enough to gel some of the yolks. I also think my humidity ran too high for these dense shells. Even with no water, it was running 30-35% or higher at times, so they didn't lose as much moisture as I had hoped. But overall, I'm very happy to have gotten as many as I did.