Sorry I haven't updated you guys forgive me. Blooie are you stick that way? Been a heck of week and a half last week we hatched out 22/24 eggs that went into lockdown the other two were dis. However two of them had to be humanely euthanized, we used the vinegar and baking soda method which was very quick although it was DH2B that did it and wouldn't let me be there.
One of the little ones got into our Macgyver-ed in fan before I got up, despite us checking for safety, and was pretty banged up. Needless to say I was horrified when I awoke to a bloodied bator. That being said most of the wounds were superficial and the chick seemed strong, a fighter. We decided to give it a chance and held and watched it for several hours when we decided shock was unlikely we placed it in a safe place in the brooder where it could see it's siblings but was safe and at the perfect temp. We found it a couple hours later non-responsive and believe it may have had internal damage we couldn't see. The fan had of course been turned off immediately upon finding the bloodied little baby.
We quickly cleaned the bator and went to bed after ending the chicks suffering. The next morning to my horror two of the last three eggs had hatched and the incubator was again covered in blood though this was more of a brown color and much thicker coating everything! There seemed to be one chick out and about and a second one still soaking wet and in an egg. The first chick I pulled out and looked over twice while double checking the fan. It didn't make sense since it was off. I went and put the first one in the starting brooder and came back thinking maybe I had missed a chick. When I got back to my horror the second baby got up out of its egg and traipsed across the incubator dragging a ruptured yolk sac behind it. Completely unabsorbed. Not sure what to do I carefully snatched up the baby and wrapped it in warm wet paper towels hoping it might absorb what was left of its yolk. The sticky bloody yolky mess covered nearly everything in the incubator including the eggs that were only on day 7 many of them had to be carefully wiped as I think that air would have been unable to pass through the gooey shell. The mess covered the chick causing it to seem wet and the incubator looked like a brutal crime scene. The egg the chick had been in contained almost half an inch in the very bottom at the deepest spot. I do believe based on the slightly less than fresh color of the blood and yolk that the chick ruptured it's yolk sac while still in the egg, probably turning. I couldn't believe it was alive. We decided to reassess at noon and decide what to do then. While the chick rested in a dish in the incubator. The last egg pipped rested in a separate dish.
At noon my mother(a RN), DH2B, and I took the baby out of its warm safe container after setting up a surgical station on the counter, ready to nip off the unabsorbed yolk sac in a last ditch effort to save the chicks life as it was growing weaker. We began an examination and were just about to snip it off when we discovered that it's intestines protruded from its abdomen and we're wrapped up around the umbilical close to the belly. We carefully nipped the yolk off to get a better look and see if we could reinsert them only to find that probably before hatching when the sac was ruptured it had somehow pulled out its intestines which it's navel had then closed on and was cutting off circulation. In the state it was in and taking into account the beginning necrosis and the amount of blood it had already lost we again had to make the awful decision to euthanize a baby. It was quick and the chick just layed down and slept. We had not seen the intestines before twisted as they were around the umbilical and coated in the blood and yolk mix.
We used a vacuum seal container and put the chick in a smaller container inside of it to keep it dry and allow us to produce a greater amount of co2. While the chick rested on paper towels in the other dish DH2B covered the bottom of the larger container with baking soda and poured in the white vinegar before closing the container. I don't know what exactly his process was, if he vacuumed out the air as the co2 was made or not, or how much vinegar and baking soda he used. I do know that it was quick only 10-15 seconds each time and the babies didn't cry although they were both weak and ready to go. We of course would never have made them suffer if we had known there was no chance. That being said it was a hard decision and I'm grateful that DH2B and Mom made me go spend time with the healthy chicks both times. I know that in their final moments they were cared for and loved by him and by us. We then took them out, wrapped them up, and buried them in the back yard.
I know we did all we could but I do wish we could have done more. It was an awful decision to have to make but it was the right one.
We have 20 healthy happy chicks from last week and two from the week before. The week before that a kindergarten class hatched out 14/18 eggs we gave them and we also have those chicks.
A good thing too BC last Friday we lost three 10 week old chicks(2 speckled Sussex pullets, and 1 white Rock cockeral) to a predator. The next day during the day while we were outside weed eating and mowing the predator came back and took my buff silkie Ginger. One of my favorite and sweetest birds all last winter no matter how cold she would try to chase me back to the house asking for one more hug one more pet. Even after we had a three foot ice covered snow drift between us, she was a determined little girl and would scale that thing like a mountain. Lol she went broody this spring and her two chicks she raised(she only got to keep one she hatched the other was adopted- the rest she hatched were sold) survive her and carry on. At nine weeks I can telm they miss their mother and have been more sedate, although she had mostly let them go their own ways. I hope I never forget my little Ginger Snap, she was truly one of a kind and my Gilligan's island girls aren't complete without her. Mary Anne and Lovey are both broody now again and safe but I miss my Ginger. We do however have some of her eggs the last ones she ever layed in the incubator set the day she was taken.
While I regret the deaths of the other flock mates we lost in May including our flock master slw rooster, a SLW hen, a slw/buff orp cockeral chick, the three ten week olds, I regret and mourn for none more than Ginger.
We never found a sign and the flock never spooked she was just gone. No birds of prey flew over head and our two dogs were out with us and the flock.
Hope all is well for all of you. We finished our coolerbator and have 103(one egg got cracked was 104) eggs in there and have our styrobator about 2/3 full too. We will probably set some more eggs before they aren't fertile any more, and are also planning to get some buckeyes chicken hatching eggs from someone on the WI thread hopefully the beginning of next week.
I'm so sorry all that stuff happened to your birds, but I sure commend you doing what you had to do. It's never an easy decision, even when the issues are so plain to see.
