- Dec 18, 2014
- 3
- 1
- 9
I just experienced my first hatch...it was absolutely harrowing. I'm exhausted but I can't stop watching the keets and giving them the odd kiss. Being my first hatch, please excuse my terminology (since I'm v-new too all of this). I started with 25 eggs - I didn't expect them all to hatch since some of them were several weeks old because I had been working interstate. They started pipping at day 28 and I got a bit excited and opened the incubator to transfer the first four into the brooder. At this point I have to add that I bought the incubator online and the translation to English left a lot to be desired...so I was kinda flying by the seat of my pants!.
I regret moving the first four. One more egg hatched on its own but the remaining eggs that were pipping struggled to hatch for the next 36 hours. I spent a lot of time on line reading other peoples experiences until I finally gave in and intervened because the exposed membranes looked dried out and crinkled. I assisted seven more keets to hatch and then called it quits. Quite a few of the assisted hatches had curled toes but we left them in the incubator for about 24 hours before we made them little shoes out of bandaids to straighten their feet.
I left the unhatched eggs on the bench to dispose of...which I did about 10 hours later when I got home from work. But - when I was picking the eggs up to dispose of them, one started moving. It had a slight crack and was peeping. I helped the keet hatch and put it back into the incubator. It is now 36 hours later and it is in the brooder with the rest of the keets (sadly I lost 2 who drowned in their water dispenser..I think it was because they were unstable on their band-aid shoes so we have since replaced the dispenser with the kind that you would use in a bird cage).
I currently have 11 beautiful babies. If I hadn't intervened and chipped open the shells and peeled back the membranes they would have died because they were vacuum sealed inside their eggs. Next time I won't open the incubator until all the keets have hatched. I'm also so sad about the ones who drowned - if I hadn't opened the incubator in the first place to remove the first 4 then maybe they wouldn't have had curled toes and been unstable.
I know I'm learning and if I hadn't collected the eggs the crows would have taken them...but still I feel so sad for the babies that didn't make it.
But I have to ask...is it normal for a keet to hatch after being out of the incubator for 10 hours (at day 29-30ish)??
I regret moving the first four. One more egg hatched on its own but the remaining eggs that were pipping struggled to hatch for the next 36 hours. I spent a lot of time on line reading other peoples experiences until I finally gave in and intervened because the exposed membranes looked dried out and crinkled. I assisted seven more keets to hatch and then called it quits. Quite a few of the assisted hatches had curled toes but we left them in the incubator for about 24 hours before we made them little shoes out of bandaids to straighten their feet.
I left the unhatched eggs on the bench to dispose of...which I did about 10 hours later when I got home from work. But - when I was picking the eggs up to dispose of them, one started moving. It had a slight crack and was peeping. I helped the keet hatch and put it back into the incubator. It is now 36 hours later and it is in the brooder with the rest of the keets (sadly I lost 2 who drowned in their water dispenser..I think it was because they were unstable on their band-aid shoes so we have since replaced the dispenser with the kind that you would use in a bird cage).
I currently have 11 beautiful babies. If I hadn't intervened and chipped open the shells and peeled back the membranes they would have died because they were vacuum sealed inside their eggs. Next time I won't open the incubator until all the keets have hatched. I'm also so sad about the ones who drowned - if I hadn't opened the incubator in the first place to remove the first 4 then maybe they wouldn't have had curled toes and been unstable.
I know I'm learning and if I hadn't collected the eggs the crows would have taken them...but still I feel so sad for the babies that didn't make it.
But I have to ask...is it normal for a keet to hatch after being out of the incubator for 10 hours (at day 29-30ish)??
