Chicks hatched from eggs I threw away! Life will find a way!

[Auventera]

My Hamburg hen quit the nest immediately after one chick hatched out. I found the eggs cold, listened to them and they were completely lifeless, so I tossed them into a wheelbarrow to be wheeled out to the compost pile. Two days later we heard a chick screaming its head off, and my husband said "It's coming from these eggs!!" pointing at the wheelbarrow.

So I helped the one screamer get out of the egg since the membrane was completely dry and caked on him like a leather blanket. He lost a few fuzzies but I got him out and he's doing great now. At 1 day old he's already doing the double footed scratch....must be a rooster....LOL

So I put the other two eggs plus the newly hatched chick underneath my Dark Cornish hen, and now today Chick #2 has hatched out!!! Same deal with the leathery membrane they can't break through so I had to peel him out of the egg also but he's strong and healthy and drying off now. Don't know yet if Chick #3 is still viable or not but I'll leave him a few more days.

The temperatures have only been in the 70s and down to the 60s at night - actually one night they were in the wheelbarrow it was down around 53 degrees!

LIFE WILL FIND A WAY! I will never again throw out eggs that were abandoned. I'll candle them and incubate them one way or another to see if they hatch.

 

[sumi]

Amazing! I got caught out by a late bloomer once (it nearly hatched in the rubbish bin

) so I check before I toss nowadays!

 

[Majd]

Wowww.... that's great... I don't toss until I candle and everything. ... and never had a late hatch... only rotten eggs .

 

[grannychicken54]

My Hamburg hen quit the nest immediately after one chick hatched out. I found the eggs cold, listened to them and they were completely lifeless, so I tossed them into a wheelbarrow to be wheeled out to the compost pile. Two days later we heard a chick screaming its head off, and my husband said "It's coming from these eggs!!" pointing at the wheelbarrow.

So I helped the one screamer get out of the egg since the membrane was completely dry and caked on him like a leather blanket. He lost a few fuzzies but I got him out and he's doing great now. At 1 day old he's already doing the double footed scratch....must be a rooster....LOL

So I put the other two eggs plus the newly hatched chick underneath my Dark Cornish hen, and now today Chick #2 has hatched out!!! Same deal with the leathery membrane they can't break through so I had to peel him out of the egg also but he's strong and healthy and drying off now. Don't know yet if Chick #3 is still viable or not but I'll leave him a few more days.

The temperatures have only been in the 70s and down to the 60s at night - actually one night they were in the wheelbarrow it was down around 53 degrees!

LIFE WILL FIND A WAY! I will never again throw out eggs that were abandoned. I'll candle them and incubate them one way or another to see if they hatch.

What a great ending to have happen congratulations

 

[CAjerseychick]

Grt post! Its a reminder not to give up too quickly-- we ourselves are experiencing a hatch at day 23 and I was ready to give up hope too......

 

[Auventera]

23 days, wow you just never know what can happen do you?

So I have two wheelbarrow chicks alive and fluffy and very healthy. #3 still might hatch. The hen that laid all the eggs laid one per day of course, in a nest a hen was already setting in, so the incubation of her 3 eggs were all offset by a day.

In the future I am not going to be MUCH more careful!

 

[Auventera]

But now I need names for the wheelbarrow chicks.....