Cream Legbars

[Brada Puhi]

Aloha 'ino!

 

[Flaming Chicken]

It's been a rough week. Tuesday night we had a massive freak thunderstorm come through with 80 mph winds. About midnight the electricity went out and a 6x12 pen in the yard got picked up and smashed against the fence. Went out in the storm (and let me tell you storms don't scare me but this one was SCARY to be out in!!) and gathered up 40ish wet, terrified 6-12 week old chicks. Stuck them on the covered porch in crates for the night. Came in and wrapped the incubator which contained 140+ eggs, including about 35 cream legbar eggs and 20 isbar eggs. Sat up until 2 AM in the dark fretting about the eggs... finally temps were down to 89 in the incubator so I took 30 eggs out to hens sitting in nests. One was a broody that stuck so I know her eggs are OK, the other hens were just riding out the storm on a nest so of course they were off the eggs in the morning when I finally dragged out of bed at 7:30 and they were cold. Threw them back in the incubator just in case. At least we had electricity again- I have some friends that STILL don't have electricity tonight! Lost $600 worth of eggs most likely but I won't know until I candle in a few days.

I also cleaned out the baby pen (3-5 week olds) and gave them all new shavings because the blowing wind had drenched their bedding. Started them on Corid "just in case." Went out this morning and my sweet little Channing boy was dead. The one that won the photo contest. I am just heartbroken. He was the lightest male I have hatched yet and I had such high hopes for him!

I am so glad tomorrow is FRIDAY.... sore from helping my sister paint at her new house on top of the chicken emergencies. My crazy week isn't over though until Sunday afternoon- then I am going to CRASH.

Oh Rinda,

So sorry all this happened to you. Hopefully some of the eggs hatch in spite of the storm. Those eggs can surprise us with their durability. Sorry too about Channing, it seems like it is always the special ones that this happens too.

Hang in there.

 

[cleansquared]

The incubator your talking about is on the brinsa website it called something like a contact touch incubator and cools off the eggs in between cycles of touch super expensive but as you said they claim better hatch rates than keeping temp steady it was something like 1000+$ so mabye your storm mimiced the expensive bator here is hoping for you and your hatchlings

 

[cleansquared]

The incubator your talking about is on the brinsa website it called something like a contact touch incubator and cools off the eggs in between cycles of touch super expensive but as you said they claim better hatch rates than keeping temp steady it was something like 1000+$ so mabye your storm mimiced the expensive bator here is hoping for you and your hatchlings

 

[faykokoWV]

It's been a rough week. Tuesday night we had a massive freak thunderstorm come through with 80 mph winds. About midnight the electricity went out and a 6x12 pen in the yard got picked up and smashed against the fence. Went out in the storm (and let me tell you storms don't scare me but this one was SCARY to be out in!!) and gathered up 40ish wet, terrified 6-12 week old chicks. Stuck them on the covered porch in crates for the night. Came in and wrapped the incubator which contained 140+ eggs, including about 35 cream legbar eggs and 20 isbar eggs. Sat up until 2 AM in the dark fretting about the eggs... finally temps were down to 89 in the incubator so I took 30 eggs out to hens sitting in nests. One was a broody that stuck so I know her eggs are OK, the other hens were just riding out the storm on a nest so of course they were off the eggs in the morning when I finally dragged out of bed at 7:30 and they were cold. Threw them back in the incubator just in case. At least we had electricity again- I have some friends that STILL don't have electricity tonight! Lost $600 worth of eggs most likely but I won't know until I candle in a few days.

I also cleaned out the baby pen (3-5 week olds) and gave them all new shavings because the blowing wind had drenched their bedding. Started them on Corid "just in case." Went out this morning and my sweet little Channing boy was dead. The one that won the photo contest. I am just heartbroken. He was the lightest male I have hatched yet and I had such high hopes for him!

I am so glad tomorrow is FRIDAY.... sore from helping my sister paint at her new house on top of the chicken emergencies. My crazy week isn't over though until Sunday afternoon- then I am going to CRASH.

so sorry that that happened. I hope your eggs are still viable. Any time I'm incubating, I keep a bunch of 'hot hands" hand warmers around. Unless you have a bunch, it wouldn't get you through days without electricity, but each set lasts for around 5 hours, so they can get you through a night easily enough. I lost a batch of my best Welsummer eggs due to the thermostat going out on my incubator... so I didn't even know it wasn't working. At least when you know you can take action like you did. Again - hope things get better!!!

 

[FridayYet]

It's been a rough week. Tuesday night we had a massive freak thunderstorm come through with 80 mph winds. About midnight the electricity went out and a 6x12 pen in the yard got picked up and smashed against the fence. Went out in the storm (and let me tell you storms don't scare me but this one was SCARY to be out in!!) and gathered up 40ish wet, terrified 6-12 week old chicks. Stuck them on the covered porch in crates for the night. Came in and wrapped the incubator which contained 140+ eggs, including about 35 cream legbar eggs and 20 isbar eggs. Sat up until 2 AM in the dark fretting about the eggs... finally temps were down to 89 in the incubator so I took 30 eggs out to hens sitting in nests. One was a broody that stuck so I know her eggs are OK, the other hens were just riding out the storm on a nest so of course they were off the eggs in the morning when I finally dragged out of bed at 7:30 and they were cold. Threw them back in the incubator just in case. At least we had electricity again- I have some friends that STILL don't have electricity tonight! Lost $600 worth of eggs most likely but I won't know until I candle in a few days.

I also cleaned out the baby pen (3-5 week olds) and gave them all new shavings because the blowing wind had drenched their bedding. Started them on Corid "just in case." Went out this morning and my sweet little Channing boy was dead. The one that won the photo contest. I am just heartbroken. He was the lightest male I have hatched yet and I had such high hopes for him!

I am so glad tomorrow is FRIDAY.... sore from helping my sister paint at her new house on top of the chicken emergencies. My crazy week isn't over though until Sunday afternoon- then I am going to CRASH.

I'm so sorry this happened to you! Sounds like you did all you could to make the best of a bad situation - sorry about your Channing boy

Hope you get some chicks from your broody and a few miracles from the incubator.

 

[ChicKat]

It's been a rough week.

So sorry to hear it.

 

[racinchickins]

Had some luck today. First to hatch is a girl...

 

[sol2go]

lonnyandrinda - sorry for your troubles and sadness, I hope your hatch has some success and your weekend some relief.

GaryDean26 - Brinsea also makes smaller incubators in the 100's of dollars range that have an automated adjustable cooling cycle.

faykokoWV - thanks for the hot hand warmer idea. I've also found an UPS (uninterrupted power supply) battery back-up is a useful connection for the incubator - especially to maintain the digital settings during short power outages.

 

[lonnyandrinda]

The battery backup from my computer managed to raise the temp in the incubator by 4 degrees before it went kaput. The hot hand warmers seem like a good idea for small incubators, Diane have you tried doing that in a big cabinet incubator though?