Five Tough Chicks and TWO Amazing Embryos!

[Wickedchicken6]

Update: Today is one month since the whole cleaning the coop, collecting and setting the cold eggs event happened. Time flies when your having fun...lol.

The 60 hour chick is doing really well. In fact too well. The 60 hour chick and the other chicks keep jumping in with the ducks.
(Which is a story in itself involving hatching cold eggs too.)

I came home Wednesday night and thought the 60 hour chick had herniated something. Then I realized it was just the pink band that had came off it's leg.

The 60 hour chick has a nice stance now...but the toe has curled slightly again. I intend to fix that tonight. I haven't decided but I may put the ducks and chicks out to the coop. The chicks are SO tiny...but they can definitely fly around.
It's probably time they get put out.

#Party with the ducks #Caught in the act #Oh! You're home already?

The 60 hour cold chick is the one standing in the lid eating the ducks food look'n all innocent. (What? Are they home? Is SOMEONE behind me????)

Even the one duckling's giving the "cute eye."

 

[Kiki]

 

[lastco]

I loooooove incubation experiments!! I'm not a mad scientist, but I won't hesitate to seize an opportunity to learn something.

I had a broody that gave up on her eggs this year and I figured the embryos were dead. They weren't! Glad I had the incubator running! Only 1 out of 4 was dead when I candled and the rest hatched successfully with no problems.

They were around day 17 and it was 24 hours max between the broody and incubator. I had wondered if they were just at a less delicate stage of development, but it seems you've cleared that up for me!

60 hours is CRAZY!!! I think you have every reason to be optimistic. Just out of curiosity, what temperatures were the eggs exposed to during the time before you put them in the incubator?

 

[DwayneNLiz]

i think that @casportpony was incubating eggs for a few days -changed her mind took them out, left them on the counter for a few days then changed her mind and put them back in and still had a good hatch rate

but i could be remembering it wrong too

 

[Wickedchicken6]

Waiting to see if the 60-hour babies make it.

Can I share some of your popcorn while we all sit here and wait?

 

[lastco]

I'm 100% worrying too much!! Bahahaha! The longer incubation has deterred me as well. Btw, those OEGBs are precious!

All these unlikely (or maybe not so unlikely!) survival stories are enlightening. I don't know a lot of poultry people in real life, so this method of sharing information is wonderful. How many people might double or triple check an egg that should be dead according to the standard "rules" of incubation after seeing a thread like this?

 

[BatChickCrazy]

Update: The remaining two eggs required a bit of help. The membrane dried during the pipping stage and the chicks were stuck. I needed to wet the membrane with a Q-tip to allow them to finish hatching.

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Both chicks are out now. The one chick appears weak...the other appears to be fine.
All five chicks survived 12 hours cold; first being left outside in the sun and wind for the afternoon and then in the house in pails for before adding them to the incubator.

I'm hope this can help other hatchers by showing how incredibly resilient embryos are, even at the point of hatching...if they happen to go cold for a length of time.

THANK YOU for posting this! Our hen passed away the night of day 16 of sitting on her eggs and they were without her heat for at least 12 hours. When I candled the next morning we saw some movement so we ran out and bought an emergency incubator and now we are on day 19... hopeful and trying to be optimistic. Losing our hen (my favorite) was a difficult loss... these babies would help with the grief a little.

 

[Wickedchicken6]

I haven't been able to update on the 60 hour egg. I was gone today...the clutch went out of the one tractor and we pulled it in for repairs....lol. Right now I'm just waiting to finish chores...a storm just went through, it's yellow outside so probably not safe yet.

I have pics, I have video and yes...

THE EGG THAT SAT COLD FOR 60 HOURS HATCHED!!!!

Info will be posted soon...

 

[WVduckchick]

You big tease!!

 

[Wickedchicken6]

THE UPDATE:

When I last wrote about the chick, it was zipped and dry looking. I stayed up with it. It was a strong chick and a loud one. It tried repeatedly to break out of the shell but after an hour, I cracked the shell just a bit for the one hatching when I candled the other 60 hour egg. It was enough to get the chick on its way.

Here's a short video showing how lively the chick is. This is right after he popped out of the shell.

The five Old English Game Bantams were listening intently to the new chick calling out. And then they fell asleep in a neat pattern. Above is a pic of all the chicks that hatched after being left out in the sun, wind and then cold for 12 hours before I candled and put them in the incubator. There is 5 OEGB chicks, 1 LF chick and two OEGB cross chicks.

None of these chicks show any signs of impairment; physical or mental. They've been 100% healthy so far.

To be continued as soon as I get in from chores...