Broody catastrophe with a happy ending.

[Smuvers Farm]

Was it wiggling?!?

 

[Redhead Rae]

Was it wiggling?!?

VERY wiggly, doesn't want to hatch yet though.

 

[Smuvers Farm]

VERY wiggly, doesn't want to hatch yet though.

Did you grease it up with coconut oil or something to keep it MOIST?!?!?

 

[Redhead Rae]

Did you grease it up with coconut oil or something to keep it MOIST?!?!?

Yes, I did.

You know, I'm not one of those people bothered by the word "moist".

 

[Redhead Rae]

Here is some cuteness.

 

[Redhead Rae]

I had to make some modifications to the broody box. This morning, when I went to check on the last egg, I lifted up Molly and she only had 7 babies under her. I look all over the run and I didn't see her other babies. I lifted the box and I found two of the older babies under neath the box, they missed the ramp entirely and were huddled up under the box shivering. Thankfully, they had only been that way for less than a hour or so.

So we used some leftover linoleum to close off the underside of the box.

 

[Redhead Rae]

@lazy gardener I think the older chicks grafted to her really well. You can tell them in the video by their larger wing feathers.

 

[ChirpyChicks1]

So cute, good idea on closing off the bottom. Good place for snakes to hide too

 

[Redhead Rae]

Unfortunately, I had to cull the last baby.


I ended up pulling its top half out of the shell and it still didn't kick free after a couple hours. I carefully dumped it from the bottom half of the shell and I found it had several loops of intestine (at least 6 inches) still outside its body.

 

[ChickNanny13]