Diary & Notes ~ Air Cell Detatched SHIPPED Chicken Eggs for incubation and hatching

[Doug Hodges]

Quote: Thanks. I didn't realize he was a member on this board and a few people on here knew him personally. All I can say is WOW!!!

 

[Doug Hodges]

Quote:

Ugh, had to assist all 3 of the late bloomers. Each was wedged in a bad position and unable to zip either at all or all the way. One had scratched his egg yolk and ruptured it and it had dried and glued him to the inside of his shell. I peeled each shell back slowly and used coconut oil to make the membranes translucent so I could confirm they had absorbed all the yolk and blood they needed before letting them out. All three out without bleeding and with all egg absorbed. The one with the ruptured yolk most concerns me as his naval doesn't look well. We'll see how it goes. He is a real fighter though. He was kicking like crazy inside his dry shell the whole time I was working on him.

This little guy had the exact same malposition as slow poke with his head above instead of below his wing - and back at the top of the shell with virtually no air cell. He had also pipped through the side and had a very dry membrane around his pip.



Only our 2nd Rhode Island White chick in the batch that made it to hatch - same malposition again as slow poke.


You can see how our yolk glued chick looked before I decided to intervene. He could not get past this point. There was virtually no air cell and he had pipped through the side. All kinds of messed up.



Busted yolk all over this baby. He is shellacked to the shell and himself. He tried really hard to free himself and was kicking like crazy and I could feel his toenails scratching the inside of the shell.



Long day/night/day with 2 hours sleep, but with any luck maybe all these babies will make it

So whats the end result? Did I miss it?

 

[sumi]

Quote: Thanks. I didn't realize he was a member on this board and a few people on here knew him personally. All I can say is WOW!!!
It was terrible story that, so sad...

And so unnecessary.

 

[ozexpat]

Oz, how did your hatch go?

The results

My hatches are always mixed. One of the things that used to surprise me is the variability of the hatch rates on eggs. I often found myself second guessing. Some batches were 100% fail. Others were 60% success. This variability could even be seen in like eggs. I had 8 from 24 Ameraucanas hatch from 1 supplier and 0/24 from another.

28% of eggs did not develop veining. They were either infertile or damaged in transit.

8% of eggs developed blood rings – most of these were from the same batches

33% Died between day 10 and 19 – this will be the focus of our attempts to improve

The number of eggs that came to full term and died hatching was minimal. We only lost 1% at eggtopsy from late failure to convert from internal pip to hatch. This tells me that we are getting better. We drilled a 1/8th hole in every egg’s air cell 2 days before hatch date.

30% hatched

0.5% culled for deformities.

Ducks – 0%
Peafowl 0%
Turkey 2%
Guineas 39%
Chukar 50%
Chickens 17%
Larger birds continue to be a problem. I will work on them next year.

Next trip Chickens and Quail

 

[familypendragon]

Those chicks are HUGE! no wonder they couldn't pip! awwww!!  are they ok?

They are actually only huge compared to the eggs, I think the eggs are still on the small side since the hens are on their first year laying maybe? But yes - they are ALL doing great so far

 

[familypendragon]

Quote:
So whats the end result? Did I miss it?

All alive and kicking so far

 

[Sally Sunshine]

so I think the only remaining spitz hen is my EGG eater, and SHE LOVES MUSTARD EGGS!!!! If she were bigger she would be eaten!

 

[familypendragon]

so I think the only remaining spitz hen is my EGG eater, and SHE LOVES MUSTARD EGGS!!!!  If she were bigger she would be eaten!

Oh no Bad chicken, go to time out!

 

[loveourbirds]

so I think the only remaining spitz hen is my EGG eater, and SHE LOVES MUSTARD EGGS!!!! If she were bigger she would be eaten!

its possible to break them from egg eating. i use a couple different methods. if it looks like they are lacking something i will feed them eggs until they wont eat any more, this works about 70% of the time.

if you think they are just doing it to do it, try a larger pen; then trim her beak right at the edge of the quick. put in a ceramic egg and let her peck it until she gets sore, this works about 80% of the time.

both methods sometimes need to be repeated on occasion.

 

[scooter16]

yeah finally tally?

I need someone to explaine NPIP ???? I see this with fertilized egg sales on ebay . I don't understand why everyone doesn't buy shipped eggs from everyone else on this site? Isn't there every breed covered? I would trust a BYC blogger over an unknown seller. Again....I don't own any chickens yet/unable....just a dream in the future....I hatch and give away after 4 weeks.. Wouldn't BYC "gurus" package eggs better than anyone for shipping. LMS