- Apr 2, 2010
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This is my first time attempting to hatch 21 baby chicks (12 barred rocks and 9 buff orps). I've done everything by the book, and I've been very attentive... until now.
Today is day 18 and time for lockdown. I am using a forced air incubator, and an automatic egg turner. I removed the egg turner and laid them flat in the bottom. Moments later, I read that they're better in an egg carton, so I rush back in there and move them all to an egg carton. I walk away, keep reading (more like obsessing) over whether that was the right thing to do. I peruse the forums and find a thread talking about how "nature's way" is best, so I panic and run BACK in there and take them all back out again. (Yes, I realize I'm doing more harm than good at this point, but I'm fretting over it all being perfect.) Here's where the emergency comes in...
In moving them from the carton to the floor of the incubator for the SECOND time, I dropped one and the shell cracked slightly. You can't see into the egg and nothing is leaking out. It cracked about the midway point. I immediately started crying thinking I've really gone and screwed the whole thing up now and had I just left them alone after the first time I laid them on their sides they would've been fine. I feel terrible.
Since then, I've watched the egg wiggle and move. So, what I'm hoping you experts can tell me is that maybe (just maybe) it won't die. Because right now I don't know if it is moving because it is drowning/dying/suffocating or if it's just carrying on as normal. No harm, no fowl. (Bad pun.) Have any of you had something like this happen with a GOOD ENDING? Pretty please?
This is so typical of me. My first go at it and I've committed involuntary chicken slaughter. (sniff sniff)
Today is day 18 and time for lockdown. I am using a forced air incubator, and an automatic egg turner. I removed the egg turner and laid them flat in the bottom. Moments later, I read that they're better in an egg carton, so I rush back in there and move them all to an egg carton. I walk away, keep reading (more like obsessing) over whether that was the right thing to do. I peruse the forums and find a thread talking about how "nature's way" is best, so I panic and run BACK in there and take them all back out again. (Yes, I realize I'm doing more harm than good at this point, but I'm fretting over it all being perfect.) Here's where the emergency comes in...
In moving them from the carton to the floor of the incubator for the SECOND time, I dropped one and the shell cracked slightly. You can't see into the egg and nothing is leaking out. It cracked about the midway point. I immediately started crying thinking I've really gone and screwed the whole thing up now and had I just left them alone after the first time I laid them on their sides they would've been fine. I feel terrible.
Since then, I've watched the egg wiggle and move. So, what I'm hoping you experts can tell me is that maybe (just maybe) it won't die. Because right now I don't know if it is moving because it is drowning/dying/suffocating or if it's just carrying on as normal. No harm, no fowl. (Bad pun.) Have any of you had something like this happen with a GOOD ENDING? Pretty please?
This is so typical of me. My first go at it and I've committed involuntary chicken slaughter. (sniff sniff)
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