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

[Toast n Jelly]

Quote: Bio-security is the most important thing along with making sure, if you take in chickens, that they were not vaccinated against ILT with a live vaccine. Apparently a modified vaccine is safe.
Still no guaranty that they won't get it from wild bird droppings.
It is in the lungs and birds cough up blood. Takes about 3 days to kill them as one by one they come down with it. A very miserable death and that's why it took so long for me to get back into it. I suggest you google it for more info.
And I cant find it for sale!

I suppose you'd have to go through a vet to get it. I've heard of one person that buys it and then sells to others that need it. (Canada) It's sold in large amounts for the commercial buyer.

 

[Sally Sunshine]

I am thoroughly frustrated! I was egging eggs from everyone good until Saturday, now I got one lousy CCL and one brahma egg I found in the bedding on the floor and a pullet egg no less!! ARGGGGG and ZERO serama (which ) in serama itself is just freaking weird! The WFS are going to town as usual and I got 6 eggs from their coop!!! WEIRD WEIRD WEIRD!!!!

What is going on???? Do they know of the impending storms and cold or what!!! Its back down to 2 degrees this morning, every waterer solid... I am so frustrated I have so many orders for eggs and ccl chicks I stopped taking deposits for fear of not being able to fill them!

they have 14 hours of LIGHT TOO!!!

 

[Sally Sunshine]

 

[dolfi]

Dolfi remember what I said, Humidity is NOT a number.  and if I ran 30-35 I would have big wet chicks. why? because of the high humidity here even with the coal stove going right now...  

If your not weighing, you need to watch air cells, and ONLY USE HUMIDITY AS A TOOL, NEVER a number.  

What I do is only add a tad, LIKE A SMALL 1"x 1" dish of water, ONLY IF the humidity gauge reads below 18% during the first week and then pencil air cells and compare to the drawings at day 7,10,14 and 18. I am always picking up eggs and candling to check the air cells and more than those times listed.  I have a good feel for them at this point, you will get there too the more you incubate. If the air cell looks good, I change nothing (I leave the dish)  if it looks too small I remove that little container, most times I have NO WATER in the bator until at least day 14..  It all depends on your area and humidity levels.  

so if air cells needs to get bigger at 18th day I guess I should wait until I get a internal pipe to add water.

 

[Sally Sunshine]

Quote: yes if the air cells are too small.... pics are always a plus in helping others! Are u saying they are too small?

But you need to keep a very close eye on them!! candle often too!

 

[cochins1088]

so if air cells needs to get bigger at 18th day I guess I should wait until I get a internal pipe to add water.

Dolfi, are you hatching your own eggs? or are they shipped eggs?

If they are your eggs, take an averaged sized fresh egg from the same breeding and weigh it.

Then take one of those eggs out of your incubator and weigh it.

Now take your second number and divide it by your first number. It will give you the fraction of mass that the egg didn't lose. It should be a bit less than .83 to .86 because eggs should lose 14% to 17% of their mass before hatch.

If you're having troubles figuring it out, ask away. We're here to help.

 

[dolfi]

Dolfi, are you hatching your own eggs? or are they shipped eggs?

If they are your eggs, take an averaged sized fresh egg from the same breeding and weigh it.

Then take one of those eggs out of your incubator and weigh it.

Now take your second number and divide it by your first number.  It will give you the fraction of mass that the egg didn't lose.  It should be a bit less than .83 to .86 because eggs should lose 14% to 17% of their mass before hatch.

If you're having troubles figuring it out, ask away.  We're here to help.

OK thank you. I had no idea how to do that. I will weigh them as soon as I get home. So funny yesterday I weigh one of my hen's egg . They are huge. It weight 87grams.

 

[cochins1088]

Quote:

Ideally you should weigh the eggs before you start incubating, but this will give you a good idea of whether or not they need to lose more mass.

 

[rbaker0345]

Quote:
I just went through ILT. I only lost seven birds out of over 100. I set up a level 2 biocontainment unit in my laundry room, I wore a tyvek suit and booties and I isolated every animal that showed signs. When they started to recover, I moved them out to level 1 in the pump room in the garage. In all fairness, I actually only lost three to the tracheitis. I actually lost two of them to coccidia which had been masked by the ILT, and I lost two of them to a racoon when they were in an outdoor-almost recovered- no longer contagious playpen. ILT is all about not panicking, taking your USDA worker with a grain of salt and isolating, isolating, isolating. Having them indoors in the A.C. didnt hurt their breathing either. I worked closely with my state vet who had faith in my opinion because I have a background in infectious diseases and I could talk the talk. So if any of you are going through this and you need someone to help you and stand up for you and give you the tools to get your flock through it without culling, just contact me. I live for biocontainment opportunities, its when I am truly in my element. I should have studied harder and gotten my Ph.D. so I could have gotten a job with USERL in level 4, but I digress. I feel, and my NPIP worker feels that there are very few instances where it is necessary for someone with a small flock to cull their entire flock. Culling your entire flock for ILT is like culling all of the humans who have any form of herpes or hepatitis C. Coincidentally, my poultry vet has raised the possiblity of controlling the spread of infection by birds that carry herpes viruses using acyclovir- they use it for parrots with ILT and for cats with fhv. I'm planning on trying it next time I take birds to a show. I love working in the veterinary field where "off label" is more of a guideline than a rule. Oh P.S. there is little way to prevent it as the wild reservoir or carrier for the virus is unknown. The initial signs that I've noticed are a really spectacular sneeze that almost looks like gapeworm and serious runny, swollen-eyed conjunctivitis with some congestion possible. The best prevention is vaccination with a recombinant mareks/ilt vaccine. This confers about one year of immunity for ilt and permanent immunity from mareks. It is called Innovax ILT and good luck getting it. There are other, less effective vaccines out there which are better than nothing but they do have their drawbacks.

 

[chicksooner]

Candled all my eggs this time and found 2 buff eggs are growing. Woohoo! That means the old rooster is not infertile just cold and missing his mark.

So went to get the last of my eggs last night after taking my girl to gymnastics and discovered a hen sitting in the same spot with eggs under her. Belly area plucked bare. Apparently she thinks this is fine weather for raising chicks. 10 degrees is not ideal chick weather and she was put on the roost. Hope the cool down last night helped her. If not I guess I will move her to the garage with a heat lamp. I am always willing to let a broody do the hard work.