Consolidated Kansas

[chicken danz]

Okay chicken peeps! I really need some knowledge here. Today is day 20, eggs are due to hatch tomorrow morning. I hurried home from morning church because I have been struggling to keep the humidity level. Only to find one of the eggs is cracked from top to bottom lengthwise. The underlying membrane appears to be fully intact. This is an egg that I was concerned about because the air sac looked bigger than the others! What does this mean?

BTW, I am the one that had ordered hatching eggs that were lost in the snowstorm. They showed up several days later and I went ahead and got them going just so that I could feel like I did everything possible. I have several that were going strong on day 18 before going into lockdown. Oh, and one of the boxes is STILL missing with the USPS!

So any news on the split egg? It is a wonder any of those eggs developed. Can you tell if the chick is alive. I lost some eggs due to that storm as well plus sent some duck eggs I don't think faired very well in it.
Posted by mrsdanamiller

mrsdanamiller, He's adorable! And your chickens are lookin' good too.

trish, So, your husband is a spoiler of animals too! That's really nice unless you're the one having to trim the nails and they're hanging over your shoulder asking if they're okay. Those little dogs just seem to pick up on the sympathy factor real quick or else they're picking up on our irritation factor real quick. I would love for him to trim nails while I sympathize with the "poor little thing".

Danz, I'm so hoping you're taking it really easy today. You need a nice cup of hot mocha coffee. How are Big Spotty and the German roo doing? I figured out what happened with my chickens. DD decided to take some short cuts with the FF that didn't turn out too well. Bottom line was they weren't getting FF, they were getting wet feed that sat. Not good. Their health went right to heck in a hanky. We've had a conversation, but now I'm watching her more closely. I just got too busy to supervise properly. Of all the birds to lose, it's always the favorites. Poor little Lucy. I loved that little girl. She was so cute -- always looked like she was wearing a tea length dress.

medawinks and mommahen, Sometimes life just spins out of control. It's so nice to hear from both of you again! Sorry to hear about the health issues.

It's a really kind of sleepy day around here. We just had DD's second birthday party and I'm beat. I'm happy to have my house back to just us. I just put my second batch of eggs in the bator. I set the first batch a week ago and I've decided to collect eggs every 7 days. I'm getting some Swedish, Black split Ameraucanas, barnyard mixes and ducks. I'm ready for my Germans to start laying. They laid one egg and then nothing and it's been weeks so they better stop slacking and get with it -- all two of them!

I need to look back at the hoop house build instructions. I'd really like to get one or two of those built this week. It's a little chilly so I'll need to bundle up. I'd like to get it done while DS is home on spring break this week. Yay for help!

Kind of a busy day but a good one. Mammahen and some of her cherubs came and got some chicks, eggs, a rooster, and a dog. I made some more money to help pay for my new birds! Yay! I love visiting with her and her kids are awesome. Her son carried some feed bags for me. You can't beat that. I also got some home made bread and some milk out of the deal. Awesome. I am sending you a PM Mammahen. I forgot to give you vet papers.

 

[blueeyeskms]

Well, the cracked egg ended up cracking even more within an hour. Then cracked in another direction. I asked for help on a FB forum and a few folks had me convinced that the egg was getting ready to explode and I needed to get it out of the incubator. So I took it out even though I was sure it wasn't a bad egg because we candled it and it was very alive on Friday. Well then a few other FB folks said maybe it was trying to hatch and I needed to help it. So I put it back in the incubator until I could figure out what to do. By that time a triangular chunk of the shell had popped off. A FB person told me to peel back the membrane to try to help it out. I did but it was already dead. One thing I noticed is that there didn't appear to be any air cell. The chick filled up the egg- almost as if it had grown so much that it busted the egg open. Is that possible? It is my understanding from reading lots of material that the lack of an air cell is d/t too high humidity. Is this correct? However, when I looked at my "test" barnyard egg (non-shipped) it looks wonderful as far as the air cell is concerned. Well, so then we noticed that a 2nd egg was cracked on the underside. I rolled it slightly over and it had liquid coming out of a small hole in the cracked area. I don't know how long it had been cracked so I left it. Now the crack has closed up.

 

[chicken danz]

Normally no air cell means that the humidity is too high during incubation but I seriously doubt that is the case if you have another egg developing normally. Looking at this it looks like the chick did it's internal pip. The one leaking fluid is dead so I would get it out of there. I'd say the problem is more that fact that the eggs were damaged in shipping and became contaminated which caused the second chick to die. Eggs can have hairline cracks that aren't visible to the naked eye that can still develop until the inner lining dries out unless contamination occurs. My guess is that when the chick attempted to pip the egg those hairline cracks started opening. It looks to me like he simply didn't make the external pip through the membrane and sufficated right before hatch. Things happen...especially with shipped eggs. I've had perfectly sound looking eggs show cracks at various stages of development that I know were not visible. Most tend to crack open further when development begins and the chick dies. Looks like this one made it further. I try to candle shipped eggs to see if any cracks are visible before I incubate them. Some will show up and others won't.
I'm sorry this didn't go well for you.
Just remember when taking advice from others to every rule in hatching there's an exception. Don't jump to conclusion because someone said something. Your best sources are university studies and very experienced hatchers and still advice may not apply. If conditions in your incubator or shipping problems occur you can just throw away all the advice. The best thing you can do is make sure to double check temp and humidity in your incubator. Keep it disinfected, and use your gut feelings if you have conflicting information. Something simple like how old the egg was and how it was handled before shipping can cause a multitude of problems as well.

 

[chicken danz]

I woke up this morning and it was dark. Something told me to look outside. I slammed on my coat over my jammies and grabbed the flashlight. The breaker had tripped to the brooder house during the night. I just knew I was going to have dead chicks out there. All were fine, thank heavens. I had to hunt up another extension cord which seemed like an impossibility but finally got power back. I really do need to seriously run some lines underground to stop this madness. The ground faults get weak after they've tripped a couple of times and then they are pretty much worthless from then on. We are slowly replacing them with expensive covered box type outlets but at about $60 each we are just doing one at a time. The kind with flap type doors are just worthless.
I'm going to be on the run again today. I sure wish I could get this train to slow down a few days!!!
I'm hoping to move the final two boy pups today with luck. I am waiting to hear back from one of them today to see if they are coming or not. I am so over having puppies.
I feel just sick. I went to move eggs to the hatcher and found one of my sabastopol eggs had fallen out of the tray that was due to go into the hatcher in two days. There was perfectly formed little white sebbie chick there almost ready to hatch. I Moved the eggs to another incubator even though I am having trouble getting the temp stabilized just so I can assure that doesn't happen again. I could cry!!! This is my most dependable and stable incubator but it tilts way too far to be safe for bigger eggs.

 

[medawinks]

By sheer luck yesterday I got two auracauna pullets for 5 bucks a piece. They just started laying. This man is getting rid if them and has quite a few more if anyone is interested. Rumpless and beautiful blue eggs! Easter eggs for sure!

 

[Trish44]

I woke up this morning and it was dark. Something told me to look outside. I slammed on my coat over my jammies and grabbed the flashlight. The breaker had tripped to the brooder house during the night. I just knew I was going to have dead chicks out there. All were fine, thank heavens. I had to hunt up another extension cord which seemed like an impossibility but finally got power back. I really do need to seriously run some lines underground to stop this madness. The ground faults get weak after they've tripped a couple of times and then they are pretty much worthless from then on. We are slowly replacing them with expensive covered box type outlets but at about $60 each we are just doing one at a time. The kind with flap type doors are just worthless.
I'm going to be on the run again today. I sure wish I could get this train to slow down a few days!!!
I'm hoping to move the final two boy pups today with luck. I am waiting to hear back from one of them today to see if they are coming or not. I am so over having puppies.
I feel just sick. I went to move eggs to the hatcher and found one of my sabastopol eggs had fallen out of the tray that was due to go into the hatcher in two days. There was perfectly formed little white sebbie chick there almost ready to hatch. I Moved the eggs to another incubator even though I am having trouble getting the temp stabilized just so I can assure that doesn't happen again. I could cry!!! This is my most dependable and stable incubator but it tilts way too far to be safe for bigger eggs.

I'm sorry about your Sebbie egg & the cords. It's just hard when you don't have electricity everywhere. I have cords running all over the place to my pens for the heated waterers. I don't have them in the new pens, at least it's close enough now to Spring to just leave the pans out water out. I did get the lids for my bucket waterers for in those pens, but haven't gotten the buckets yet or the pans for underneath. I use the 5 gallon waterers in most of the pens for the summer. It sure makes it a lot easier than hauling buckets all the time. I just take the hose around & fill them from the top since they have the spouts on the lids. I haven't figured out anything easier for winter though, I'm always hauling buckets of water around then.

By sheer luck yesterday I got two auracauna pullets for 5 bucks a piece. They just started laying. This man is getting rid if them and has quite a few more if anyone is interested. Rumpless and beautiful blue eggs! Easter eggs for sure!

Congrats on the new pullets, you got a good deal if they're true Araucanas. I had thought at one time of getting some of those, but decided on Ameraucanas instead since I was having a hard time getting the other ones.

I'm going to go & pick up some Welsummer eggs this Weds. from a lady on the Poultry Swap on FB. I have been wanting some more of those & saw that she has eggs & isn't too far to go get them. I really love the Wellies, they're pretty & they lay nice dark eggs to give some more color to my egg basket. They'll be hatching about the time I'm getting my other chicks, so that will be good timing.

Today is supposed to be a little warmer so I figured I had better take advantage of that & get some things done outside while I can. The end of the week looks just nasty again, ugh is spring ever going to get here?

 

[pikeman94]

By sheer luck yesterday I got two auracauna pullets for 5 bucks a piece. They just started laying. This man is getting rid if them and has quite a few more if anyone is interested. Rumpless and beautiful blue eggs! Easter eggs for sure!

Where is he located?

 

[medawinks]

At least I think they are arucaunas.... He just kept saying they were pure bred blue egg layers.... They don't have a comb to speak if and no tails.

I will post contact info when I get home. He is just north of Manhattan

 

[Frizzled Pink]

@ Trish--3 Sven SFH eggs in the incubator, i wish the girls would get to laying more but sooooo excited for these 3

 

[HEChicken]

everyone! I've been out of town since last Wednesday and it is good to be home, with no more trips planned for the rest of the year. I'm looking forward to getting some big stuff done that I couldn't start before I left as I didn't want to leave things half done.

I normally have a chicken sitter when I leave but this time, since night time temps while we were gone were not forecast to go below freezing, I decided to let the birds take care of themselves. I left out water pans everywhere and left enough feed to last the time we were gone, then took a big breath and hoped the automatic door would continue to function properly while I was gone. You know how it is - you worry the whole time you're gone, but we arrived back at 5:30 this morning after driving all night, and I immediately went out to check on them and found them all safe and happy on roosts, with water and feed still left over so it worked out fine.

It did occur to me that with no one collecting eggs, it might give a hen or two the idea to go broody. It never occurred to me a duck might go broody, but I returned home to find not one, but two broody ducks! I wish they'd waited just a little longer and can't help thinking if I had been here collecting eggs they might have given me a few more eggs before going broody. The first duck I found broody is the only one I knew for sure was laying, and sure enough, she was sitting on a small mountain of eggs. I had to reach under her and pull out all the chicken eggs and it was kind of surreal because my ducks are NOT handleable at all and will normally stay way out of touching range of me but she is so broody that there was no way she was budging from the nest so even when I was half lifting her off to see what else was under her (this is by flashlight at 5:30 in the morning!) all she did was give these kind of moans - a sound I've never heard the ducks make before - but as soon as I set her back down with only duck eggs under her, she gathered them back up under her and looked happy again. Then I turned around and found another duck on another nest and had to go through the same thing with her. This duck was not laying before I left as far as I know and was sitting on a total of 8 eggs but only one of them was a duck egg. I'm thinking she laid one egg and immediately went broody. Grrr. So no more duck eggs for eating, unless the two remaining ducks start to lay me some eggs. I'm thinking about taking the one egg away from her and giving it to the first broody and then putting some eggs under the second duck that were collected before we left and have been sitting at room temperature ever since. That way I can give her a bigger clutch to sit on without it being a staggered hatch.

By the time I got done collecting eggs from all the nests, it was more eggs than my egg basket can hold - I've never seen that many eggs from my coop before.

I had left my Rcom incubator in its final week of incubating and love how automatic this thing is, that I was able to go away for that long and trust that it would keep on taking care of the eggs in my absence. My only concern was that they were due to go in lockdown Sunday morning and I wouldn't be home until the early hours of Monday morning. I hoped that none of the chicks would pip while I had the turner on and humidity low, but didn't want to turn the turner off before we left. The Rcom has an option of turning every 1hr, 2hr or 3hr, so I thought the best thing was to set it for every 3 hours and that way if the chicks were trying to position themselves for hatch, they would be able to do it without getting turned every hour - best I could do. When we got back, even before I went out to the coop, I added water to the incubator, upped the humidity for hatching and turned off the turner. I opened it briefly to take out the dividers to make it easier for them to hatch and heard a muffled "peep" when I did. With the lid back on I sat for a moment and watched the eggs rocking and rolling as the chicks move around inside. There is now one egg pipped so I guess I got here just in the nick of time

. Deerfield, I hope your brooder is ready for chicks because they're almost here!

I don't know if I've told the story of these eggs on here but this is an 18-count that I smuggled through airport security in my carry on luggage as a sort of experiment to see if anything would hatch, the idea being that if this works out okay, it is a better option for eggs than shipping them (assuming of course you will be traveling anyway - obviously not a cost effective way otherwise).

So the brief story on these eggs is that I took the 18-count and double wrapped it in two plastic bags in case of breakage. Then in my small "suitcase" that is a carry on bag, I placed a layer of clothes on the bottom, the 18-count of eggs, and then more clothes on top so that they were packed in really tightly. I figured the less they could move around in there the better. Then I wheeled the bag to an airport shuttle where the driver picked it up and threw it in the back of the van before I could utter the words "careful with that!" At the airport, I wheeled it until I got to security, then put it on the belt to go through the x-ray. From there it was wheeled for long stretches to get to the right gate and went on the first plane in the overhead compartment. At the connecting airport, the bag was wheeled along endless passages in one terminal, then onto a train to change terminals, then wheeled to the gate, where I learned that the flight into Wichita was a tiny commuter jet and they weren't allowing anything bigger than a purse to be carried on - everything else had to be gate checked. I carefully handed my bag to the loader, who seemed to carefully put it on his cart but I'm sure once passengers are out of sight, they throw those bags to get the plane loaded faster. Upon arrival in Wichita, I expected to pick up the gate checked bags immediately but we were told they would be coming off the carousel, so I had to wait 20 minutes for my bag. My suitcase came down the carousel upside down and I just knew the eggs were goners, so I grabbed my bag, headed for the exit and didn't even open the suitcase until next day. When I did, I found that the eggs were completely unscathed. Not a broken egg among them, not even a crack. My incubator had arrived in my absence so I set it up, loaded in the eggs and away we went. I was stunned on first candling to find all but one developing. Last week I candled again, before we left, and all looked good except one that I think quit developing around day 10. I left it in there but don't expect it to hatch.

Anyway, although the experiment is not complete until we have live chicks, just the fact that they will develop after a journey like that seems promising. I keep telling myself that all the jostling they got on that trip was surely less than they get at the hands of the USPS. So - if you have travel plans and there is a breeder in the area you are going, it seems to me that picking up eggs and carrying them back yourself may be a better way to go than having them shipped.

I have a ton of stuff I need to do now that we're back and I wish the forecast wasn't for more wintry weather coming up but so it goes. I guess I've had my four hours sleep and its time to get back out there. Have a good day everyone.