Blooie's Blankie Fort

[FlyWheel]

I used to love playing with Legos. Of course that was when they were still bricks and anything you built from them required some imagination on the part of the builder (Hmm, I wonder if I could make a Lego MHP...

)

BTW, be careful what you say about chocolate, Blooie, you remember what happened when a certain president said he hated broccoli...

http://articles.latimes.com/1990-03-27/news/mn-263_1_white-house-press
(just in case you forgot)

 

[sasafras4u2]

I just set 44 shipped eggs. Afraid I wont have the 70% hatch rate that I did with my locals.

. Silke sizzles were in bad shape when they arrived. But the isabelles and ayam cemani's were looking good. As were the barnyard mix. MPC eggs should arrive around the 28th or 29th.oh wow. Wish me luck.

 

[Jessimom]

I just set 44 shipped eggs. Afraid I wont have the 70% hatch rate that I did with my locals.

. Silke sizzles were in bad shape when they arrived. But the isabelles and ayam cemani's were looking good. As were the barnyard mix. MPC eggs should arrive around the 28th or 29th.oh wow. Wish me luck.

Good luck!!! I've had pretty good luck with some shipped eggs, not ALL, but a lot of them. I do wish you luck with these!!!

 

[Blooie]

Looks like Katie won't get her Silkie or her Bantams. Those and the Nankin are still totally clear. The question-marked Cochen moved into the "embryo but large floating air cell" category. Still don't know about the Australorps - just can't see into them. Easter Egger is the strongest of the lot. It's also the only one that has the air cell reattached.

Had a real doozy of a late afternoon/evening. I thought sure that I'd lost my first chick under MHP. Went out to check on them and one was running around all over the run! Good grief, how did she get out??? Ken was helping me catch her and there was another one behind the dust bath bin....cold, stiffening, no life signs at all. So we caught the first one, put her back, and then dealt with the minuscule little gap we missed but they found. I was ready to wrap the "dead" one when she gasped in my hand. So I started rubbing her little chest - none too gently and she took another breath. I stuffed her into the incubator with the unhatched eggs until Ken finished rigging the emergency heating pad set up for her.


In the incubator. No breath sounds, no movement, I had to force her legs under her.


Out of the incubator and into a little basket sitting on a heating pad, which was then pulled up over the top of the basket as well.

Excuse my excited yelling at Ken...he was in the back of the house coming back to the front so he missed what I said the first time!

 

[Blooie]

Just a short time later....

And finally:

Longest 3 hours I can remember!! Gave her some Nutri-Drench, then some sugar water. Shortly after this last video, we took her back out before her peeping made me regret helping her! Loud, piercing....just annoying and and welcome as all get-out! Took the dim flashlight out there so we didn't wake up the whole crew, but she peeped all the way! I crouched in the pen, opened my hand and she literally zipped out of my hand and back under the cave. The peeping stopped, replaced but that little trilling sound they make....oh, and there were some protesting peeps from her buddies who had been nice and comfortable before she forced her way in. This morning I couldn't tell which of the 3 little White Orpingtons it was except for the small amount of feather damage. I had to look closely to pick her out.

Man, these little guys have the strongest survival instincts! She was literally being wrapped in a white garbage bag to put in the trash when she made a little, almost imperceptible mouth movement, like she was trying to gasp.

 

[User395221]

These little chicks have survived everything, managed to hatch, life-threatening adventures. They are special little chicken people, that's for sure.

 

[AmyLynn2374]

Just a short time later....

And finally:

Longest 3 hours I can remember!! Gave her some Nutri-Drench, then some sugar water. Shortly after this last video, we took her back out before her peeping made me regret helping her! Loud, piercing....just annoying and and welcome as all get-out! Took the dim flashlight out there so we didn't wake up the whole crew, but she peeped all the way! I crouched in the pen, opened my hand and she literally zipped out of my hand and back under the cave. The peeping stopped, replaced but that little trilling sound they make....oh, and there were some protesting peeps from her buddies who had been nice and comfortable before she forced her way in. This morning I couldn't tell which of the 3 little White Orpingtons it was except for the small amount of feather damage. I had to look closely to pick her out.

Man, these little guys have the strongest survival instincts! She was literally being wrapped in a white garbage bag to put in the trash when she made a little, almost imperceptible mouth movement, like she was trying to gasp.

So glad to hear it!! Yay!!!

 

[Finnie]

Blooie! I'm glad your little chick made it! I was following it along last night during my own event:

I had a chick in my shirt for a good part of the evening. I'm about 36 hours into my hatch. Last night I was horrified to look in and see blood dripping down from one of the chicks! Not just the smears you will see as they rub their newly hatched selves all over every surface. Actual active bleeding. It was awful. Without question I broke my "don't open the bator" rule and got that chick out. Her abdomen had not closed up after drawing in the yolk, and there was a little stringy thing hanging out too.

I don't want to make this into a long story. Antibiotic ointment, gauze, vet wrap, sit at computer for an hour holding her against my skin under my shirt while frantically searching BYC with one hand for other chicks like this. Eventually figured out that it's not all that uncommon and if you can get the bleeding to stop, the hole closes up on its own and chick is good to go. Most of them said to just leave the chick in the bator an extra day or two after the hatch is over. By this time her bleeding had stopped, but I didn't want to put her in with the other hatched chicks and egg shell fragments, so I was able to use a small dishwasher compartment to isolate her and put her back in the bator. (Had to break my rule a second time. Thankfully RH stayed right at 65% the whole time.)

She's still alive today, and there has been no more bleeding, so I think I can rest easy on that one. She is the only cream legbar pullet to hatch so far. She has two brothers and one or two more siblings that might be able to hatch. (Some of those eggs were iffy at lockdown.)

Phew! I feel like crawling under the blankie fort this morning and munching on some Oreos. I wish those eggs would all just DO something! Out of 22 eggs that looked good at lockdown, only 12 have hatched or pipped so far. And one zipped about an inch last night, but then no more progress at all. I'm not seeing that one move at all any more. And one only hatched half way. It's spent the last 20 hours sitting half folded up in it's bottom shell piece without hardly even trying to stand up. Dumb chicks. I am just going to go away and do other work today and try to ignore them. Yeah right!

 

[MyPetChicken]

Holy cow what an adventure with your chick! I'm so glad she is ok now.

I hate you are having trouble with the air sacs. Sounds like the PO is tossing the boxes. When you get more....just leave the eggs upright and not turned for the first 7 days. That will help them a lot.


Alex
My Pet Chicken

 

[FlyWheel]

Holy cow what an adventure with your chick! I'm so glad she is ok now.

I hate you are having trouble with the air sacs. Sounds like the PO is tossing the boxes. When you get more....just leave the eggs upright and not turned for the first 7 days. That will help them a lot.


Alex
My Pet Chicken

That is why I was surprised that you could actually have fertile breeding eggs shipped. Neither the US post office nor any other shipping service that does not specialize in shipping fertile eggs is regularly trained in fragile they really are.