First Day :)

[MagsC]

Sis, keep us updated.

Right now I have silkies and americauna in the hatcher but nothing yet. I can only hope!

 

[sis]

I put 30 eggs in two and a half egg cartons. I cut lid off and trimmed it a little.
one egg had a tiny hole in the side. I hear chirping and sometimes tapping.
I keep looking in the window, I can hardly wait, I have the camera ready.
Maybe I should practice posting a picture, first time.

 

[sis]

this is the bator before I took out the 6 white eggs that didn't develope or were not fertile.
this is before I put 30 of them in egg cartons. that leaves the 8 silver sebrights that need another week.
Update, no more activity. I wasn't in the kitchen to listen, . hope they are all ok.
I feel like a real mother hen!

 

[LilRalphieRoosmama]

Your pic came through!! Looks good!

 

[turtle1173]

Yesterday was quite a sad day for my lone egg.

Please indulge my long story.

I got up yesterday morning to leave for the church building at around 7:30am. I'm a preacher, so I always get there early to study. The wind was howling like crazy and limbs and trees were down. We were getting the "left-overs" from Hurricane Ike. Before I left, I checked on my "one" egg. I shined the light in the bator and she started peeping like crazy. No pip yet but peeping away. Great!!

On the way to the building, my wife calls. The power has gone out. As I'm looking around while driving, it looks like a war zone out here. Trees, limbs, telephone poles, etc. are down everywhere. The wind is blowing 50+ mph. I get close to the building and I'm detoured. Trees are down all through the neighborhood.

We end up having to cancel services. I get home at 8:30am and my incubator is at 80 degrees. No pips or peeping. What am I going to do? I'm racking my brain trying to figure out how to get this little guy some heat.

Since we have a gas water heater, I decide to get a wash rag and run it through nice warm water. Then wrap the egg in it. I'm alternating rags making sure the egg doesn't get too cold.

I have another idea. Why not put a small tea candle in the oven, then put the wrapped egg on an upper tray? It would hold the heat better and I would be checking on it to make sure it didn't get too hot or anything. So I do that. After a little bit, as I'm changing the rags out, I notice that he has piped the shell. Yeah!!

So I keep at it. Re-warming rags with warm water every 15 minutes. After a couple hours, he hasn't done anything else. I'm getting worried. He has broken through the shell a little bit. I decide to pull back a little of the opening. As I do so, his beak is right there at the opening. At this point I can clearly see his beak and he's not moving. I pull back a little more and it's clear that there is no movement at all.

The power finally came back on at 5:30pm last night.

It is such a helpless feeling. When an egg doesn't hatch, doesn't pip, stops developing, etc., you feel bad but you know it wasn't anything YOU did. Yet this was not that kind of situation. All things remaining the same, this little one would have very likely made it.

I really wish I would have had one of those hand warmer heat packs or something on hand.

I was also really getting concerning about my two hatchling Welsummers. They are in the brooder in the shed and weren't looking very happy yesterday with their heat lamp not working. I was going to bring them back in last night and use a hand warmer heat pack for them (that I picked up at the store yesterday afternoon). However, the power came back on and they are both doing fine.

Just so you know... the little chick was jet black, had feathers on his feet, and each foot had 4 toes. That made me wonder if the egg had come from the Black sex-link. I really don't know.

Anyway, I wanted to share the story with you.

Thanks for being here and listening.

Shane

 

[nhnanna]

I am so sorry for your loss. It is heartbreaking for them to make it all the way to the end and then not make it. I hope the others are still fine.

 

[SGM]

I'm so sorry that you had to go through that. I know how it feels too. Power outages always happen at the worse time too.

 

[MagsC]

Turtle. I am sorry that happened.

 

[LilRalphieRoosmama]

Oh I'm soooo sorry. You did all you could; don't know what more you could have done.

 

[sis]

Shane, you were very resoursefull, thinking of the oven and a candle. I dont' know if I would have thought of that. As I read your post, about the trees down and all and I thought, Ike claimed another life, your little hachling. Thank you for sharing your story.
Glad your other two are doing ok.