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

[Sally Sunshine]

Is actually warming up here. I think it got into the mid to upper 50s here! Balmy.

oh YAY! I felt so bad for lucas we had to walk a mile into the doc office and its freezing snowflakin and windy as all heck! nasty even in the mnts at home, chickens stayed in today.

 

[Knittycat]

Le sigh. End of day 22. 5 of 14 and 2 of 6 hatched. 1 of 6 piped and died due to malpositioning. Not great. I expected a better hatch rate from the 6 local eggs at least!

The shipped eggs were far more vigorous when they hatched. All of them piped to zip to climbing out of the shell in 3 hours or less (one in less than one hour!) 1 of the 6 had naval problems, although things are looking good at this point. I had hoped for a better hatch from the shipped eggs, but considering their state upon arrival, I'm not surprised. 4 of them were pecking back when I tapped the shell earlier today, so we'll see, but I'm not holding out huge amounts of hope.

 

[Sally Sunshine]

Le sigh. End of day 22. 5 of 14 and 2 of 6 hatched. 1 of 6 piped and died due to malpositioning. Not great. I expected a better hatch rate from the 6 local eggs at least!

The shipped eggs were far more vigorous when they hatched. All of them piped to zip to climbing out of the shell in 3 hours or less (one in less than one hour!) 1 of the 6 had naval problems, although things are looking good at this point. I had hoped for a better hatch from the shipped eggs, but considering their state upon arrival, I'm not surprised. 4 of them were pecking back when I tapped the shell earlier today, so we'll see, but I'm not holding out huge amounts of hope.

so what do you think is going wrong? I hope the others get out.

 

[Knittycat]

The humidity issue I've had during lockdown surely hasn't helped things. The shipped eggs were BADLY mishandled and delivered 3 days late to boot. I'm glad any of them hatched at all to tell you the truth. I am very confused as to why the local eggs did so poorly though. I'm sure it has a lot to do with my inexperience and home made incubator. This is why I didn't get cream legbars as my first hatch (although, they are my second!)
For hatch #2 I'll be replacing the wooden lid with a plexiglass one. I really think that was the big issue here. The warped lid just let all the humidity out. Right now, with all the damp cloths in there, it's still sitting at 52%
I think the other issue may have been high temps during inucbation. Try as I might, I kept spiking to 102. I've been doing well to keep it at 100. I'll have a different knob on the thermostat for hatch #2 too. The super glue just didn't work to hold the wood dowel to the plastic knob, so adjusting the temp involved opening the incubator and taking the thermostat out of it's plastic housing. I tried to do that as little as possible.

 

[ozexpat]

long day at the office. evening all

 

[hillfloweranch]

our 1yr old hen...Alex named her splits! lol..cuz she used to stretch one leg behind her to sleep!

 

[Sally Sunshine]

our 1yr old hen...Alex named her splits! lol..cuz she used to stretch one leg behind her to sleep!

LOL Great pic and so beautiful!

 

[Sally Sunshine]

long day at the office. evening all

 

[frankensusan]

Just keep trying. It may be too late already, but it can't hurt to try. If there is no improvement after another week, then you could probably call it quits. At that point you can stop bracing it and let her figure it out. She will walk funny, most likely using her hock, and will be your 'special' chicken. Charlie gets around fine and lays eggs for me daily, she's a great hen. No need to cull.

Just keeping straightening her leg. Are you able to get it perfectly straight? Or does it always have a bend?

I could make it straight but it seems so much more painful and more stiff now than it was in the beginning to make it straight, and more swollen. She's been in the same splint all day today and it's staying on. She still won't put weight on it though. If I make it straight even if I'm not sure about the tendon would that be better than leaving a little bend?

Poor thing, I'm sad she had to be my experiment. She's already stunted in size compared to the others. But I put her back in the brooder instead of her hospital bed. She loaded up on food and I saw her drinking from the brooder bottle. She's always in a different spot in the brooder when I check.

 

[Sally Sunshine]

The humidity issue I've had during lockdown surely hasn't helped things. The shipped eggs were BADLY mishandled and delivered 3 days late to boot. I'm glad any of them hatched at all to tell you the truth. I am very confused as to why the local eggs did so poorly though. I'm sure it has a lot to do with my inexperience and home made incubator. This is why I didn't get cream legbars as my first hatch (although, they are my second!)
For hatch #2 I'll be replacing the wooden lid with a plexiglass one. I really think that was the big issue here. The warped lid just let all the humidity out. Right now, with all the damp cloths in there, it's still sitting at 52%
I think the other issue may have been high temps during inucbation. Try as I might, I kept spiking to 102. I've been doing well to keep it at 100. I'll have a different knob on the thermostat for hatch #2 too. The super glue just didn't work to hold the wood dowel to the plastic knob, so adjusting the temp involved opening the incubator and taking the thermostat out of it's plastic housing. I tried to do that as little as possible.

Sounds like you gottum covered!