Diary for my second shipped egg hatch due 8th oct 2015

[appps]

Well the turning the lights off has worked remarkably well. As long as the room is dark they just curl up and snooze. If I turn it on again they start peeping and trying to move around. Guess when the light is off they think they are safely under mum

Well I lifted the lid quickly to check on the umbilical cord situation so grabbed a couple of quick snaps.

This is our first hatcher, 18 hrs after hatching


and this is the second one about 4 hours after hatching.

You can see there is still a cord running back to the egg shell in the second photo but its all dried out now so Im thinking it will probably snap off once I take it out of confinement and it starts trying to drag the shell round again. Ill wait till later tonight to do that though.





I think Ill wait as late as I can stay awake tonight to put them under penny to give the second one a chance to dry out properly and that egg cord to break.

 

[maddogdodge]

Ohh they're gorgeous!! So glad you got two this year Hopefully Penny will take them well

 

[appps]

Well that didn't work. I just tried to sneak them under penny but she saw and then pecked at them. Don't know if I should try again later or if now she might peck at them when she sees them in the morning.

 

[maddogdodge]

Well that didn't work. I just tried to sneak them under penny but she saw and then pecked at them. Don't know if I should try again later or if now she might peck at them when she sees them in the morning.

How bad did she peck at them? Was she actually trying to hurt them, or just seeing what they are?...

If you ignore her and just stick them straight under her, what does she do?

 

[appps]

No she got all defensive pecked one of them, fluffed herself up and backed into the other corner then pulled the plastic egg under her and sat there puffed up and growling at them.

I though if it didn't work first time I'd just try again but I'm quite worried even if I do get them under she might attack them in the morning. The hard bit is I can't see what I'm doing at all in there so I need a little light. As soon as I do that and with the noise they make it's hardly a surprise what I'm up to.

I'm really surprised as she is the most placid broody I didn't think it would be an issue. I'm going to have to sort something out in the morning. Kids of course are thrilled sigh lol

 

[maddogdodge]

Oh dear, she really wasn't keen on them!! There always seems to be some kind of complication with chooks...

 

[appps]

Tell me about it. Oh well, here we go again lol. At least it looks like being a pretty warm spring so should be pretty easy to get them outside once they are a bit bigger.

Think the biggest problem is going to be the bigger one pecking at the weaker. It was pecking at it's toes last time I checked on them.

 

[appps]

Emergency brooder - tick

Sorry hermit crabs . I had a spare tank I was going to set up as an extra tank for my crabs when I needed to do a big clean of their main one and my main tank is a big four foot number with seperate day and night heating to stagger temps. So have pinched their night heating and thermostat and they will just have to get by with one temp day and night till I get something else for the chicks.

Just waiting for the temp to stabilise before I pop them in.

 

[appps]

And take two. Apparently glass isn't a very good insulator and I can only get up to 30c. Who would have thought duh

 

[appps]

Well just had a second try and it looked promising for ten minutes but then she attacked it. So looks like we are hand rearing scruff 1 and scruff 2