Today is the last day of lockdown. So far I have 10 chicks out that were able to hatch completely on their own. I am super precautious about assisting in hatches. Personally, after assisting with any an all hatches in the past I have come to some personal rules regarding helping out. One- if a chick is unable to externally pip on its own I generally do not assist. In my own personal experience intervening before they externally pip usually does not work out well. I have found in those cases there is usually a reason they were unable to move past that point of the hatch. I have also found that chicks that present with a saddled air cell are generally unable to move past an external pip due to their positioning and I have to monitor those chicks closely during lockdown. Intervening too quickly is detrimental and too late also causes problems. I also have a rule about the potential causes of needing assistance. If I have been the cause of the problem- like I needed to open the Incubator during lockdown and a chick has gotten stuck unzipping as a result, I will intervene in those particular cases.
That caveat brings me to today. We are in lockdown, day 21, at By Divine Design Farmstead. I put American Bresse Hatching Eggs into the Incubator three weeks ago. I removed four eggs from the 20 that were set about ten days into Incubation. 3 of those were early deaths and 1 had not been fertilized. I candled the remaining 16 eggs at lockdown and carefully checked for movement on each egg at that time. They all were good. I did notice while setting them originally that a couple of the eggs appeared to have air cells that were slightly off. They were towards the correct end but not quite right. I put them in anyways because they were expensive eggs and this clutch is intended to be my foundation stock for Bresse moving forward. I also noted then, that several of eggs were much too small and had I been doing the quality controls, they wouldn't have been sold out of my farm.
That brings me to hatch day. I currently have 10 chicks that all hatched within about 18 hrs of each other. I'm aiming for a 12 hr window personally but that will probably not happen until I have the GQF cabinet up and running as cheap styrofoam incubators just are not capable of precision hatches. Yesterday, as all these little guys were hatching I was monitoring the eggs for external pips and started to get slightly worried when I wasn't seeing pips on about 8 of the eggs. I figured they were probably just pipped on the "backside" of the egg where I did not have a visual and that they would be fine. And about 3 of them were exactly that. I would stop at the Incubator and all of the sudden one of the eggs I hadn't seen a pip on would be half way unzipped or popping out. All was well! One of the eggs yesterday afternoon I noticed looked like the pip was much too low and that possibly the chick was positioned incorrectly. This morning, I took the remaining 4 chicks out of the Incubator and put them into the brooder with the other 6. I want to add here- that if you are inexperienced with hatching, I DO NOT RECOMMEND OPENING THE INCUBATOR DURING LOCKDOWN- ILL SAY IT AGAIN- DO NOT OPEN THE INCUBATOR DURING LOCKDOWN-IF YOU ARE INEXPERIENCED HATCHING CHICKS-
Okay, with that aside, I have a protocol for opening the Incubator of I need to in which I take the Incubator to my bathroom, increase the ambient humidity with the hot shower water to bring the room up to the same (or more) humidity level as the inside of the Incubator. I then, and only then, remove chicks or check what I needed to check. The chick that I had suspected was improperly positioned actually was completely upside down in the egg. So it's head was in the little end. If I intervene, I also have a rule that I intervene as little as possible. I don't pull chicks out of eggs. I see no need to rush any of it. Baby has lived in that egg for 20+ days and staying in it a bit longer will do no harm, hatching too soon absolutely will do harm. If it's stuck, I moisten the membrane, A&D ointment works very well for this or I will use coconut oil. Water based Lube is also a perfect choice. I just don't have any so I use alternatives. I always make sure the chick kicks its own bottom shell off because that movement is actually critical for proper uptake of the yolk and closing up the navel. Anyways - Because I was already checking out the upside down chick I decided to go ahead and candle the remaining eggs to see what was going on with them. I found 3 more eggs that had externally pipped on the wrong end of the egg. 2 of them were alive and unfortunately one had expired. The remaining two eggs are externally pipped now and are on the correct end so I imagine they will be out shortly. One had already started to unzip.
I have 5 eggs remaining in the Incubator at this time. The first one I am carefully watching and will moisten the membrane if necessary. I unzipped some of the shell the assist but it's actually very important that the chick work to get out, so my assistance is always kept to the bare minimum.
I'm off the research further reasons why so many would be upside down in a clutch and will be back to report my findings. I do find it worth noting that most of the eggs mal-positioned were the small eggs I was concerned about to begin with.
In other news- everyone that has hatched all appear to be correctly colored with yellow down, have straight combs, and have blue/pinkish shanks. So happy for that! I see too many people get Hatching eggs and chupacabras (probably not spelled right) end up hatching from them!
Either from outright fraud on the part of the seller or unknown fence jumpers.
I will band and weigh everyone later today and post the data from that once I have it.
.... I need to check my records actually on him. He is very dirty and needs a bath. He apparently likes to roll around in the mud instead of staying nice and clean for me!!!! His feathers actually aren't yellow, it's mud.
I could not find a way to simply edit the title here or move the entire thing, which blows bc I would actually prefer all of the notes and photos included here in my new title thread. Oh well. This is the next best option I think 
