- Jun 12, 2017
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I've had chickens for a few years now and almost all of them has made an impact on me and I loved each one of them in different way, but there's some who are more special than others and got a special place in my heart.
This thread is for a Houdan named Fortuna (You'll see why soon) that I had bought as one of three "extra eggs" when ordering Araucana eggs. I will try to update this thread once in awhile with pictures and updates.
It started in early in April and I had finally got my incubator, turned it on and made sure it worked as it should. I had ordered my first batch of eggs: 4 Araucana (Or Easter egger, but they are rumpless and Easter eggers are pretty much non existant in my country) eggs and 3 Houdan eggs and they had arrived safely, had "rested" for 24 hours and were ready.
I had a pretty good hatch: only 2 of the eggs were infertile/didn't develop (1 Araucana and 1 Houdan) and the rest of the Araucanas hatched without any problems. The same could not be said about the Houdans...The first one pipped, but then stayed still for an awful long time. Having read that's normal, I didn't think much about it. When it had gone over 24 hours, I decided to intervene. It was already dead
The other Houdan had also pipped and I tried my hardest to think of what I had learnt from the internet and wait. 12-24 hours went and after already having lost one, I did a mistake...I helped it pre-maturely. (Please, remember to avoid helping a chick unless you're certain it actuall needs help, what I did was stupid and could've killed it, which I admit!)
I made sure to be as careful as I could, slowly removing parts of the shell and then leave it in the incubator. Soon, my paranoia and low patience got the best of me and I continued. It seemed to be fine and dandy, but then I noticed: The poor baby was bleeding like crazy!
I remembered what I had read and pressed paper against where it was bleeding, hoping for the best.
As paper after paper got filled with blood, I was losing hope, but soon the bleeding calmed down.
The poor thing was weak, if it was from bloodloss or from earlier, when it tried to hatch on it's own, I don't know.
I put it back into incubator, distraught over the fact that I may just have killed it.
Here's the inside of it's shell compared to one of the others:
Fortunately, it was fine and soon it turned out to be one of most active of the chicks, running, chirping and just being, well, a chick! I named it Fortuna, after the Roman godess of luck.
After a few week, it and it's Araucana "siblings" moved into a larger cage together with another group that was about a week or two older: a silkie (taken by the fox), a plymouth rock (Got really ill) and three Dark Cornish (All alive, happy and active
), which went great and they got along perfectly.
But then, at about 9 weeks old, another thing happened to it: We had a very small old cabinet as a "coop" for them (it was warm outside, so we didn't need anything more complex) and while it wasn't overly heavy or big, it was still large and heavy compared to the tiny chicks.
So it all seemed fine, until disaster struck: The cabinet fell over and landed on Fortuna and some of the others (Fortuna was struck the worst, though). Amazingly, they all made it out alive and relatively fine, but Fortuna seemed a bit weak and we were worried it would have internal injures
(Mom told me about it, as I weren't home and I've moved out, so I only see the chickens once in awhile, either way...)
Thankfully, all of them recovered and are all back to normal. So Fortuna may only be about 10 weeks old now (soon 11 weeks old), but already been through stuff! We've also made sure the cabinet wouldn't fall on them again, of course.
I always thought one of the the Araucanas (one of my favourite breeds) would
turn out to be a favourite and the Houdan would just be a bonus...Boy, was I wrong
...
Now, I just hope it's a pullet and not a cockerel, but according to some very helpful people on this site, it so far seems likely to be a pullet. So let's hope they're right!
Thank you for reading!
This thread is for a Houdan named Fortuna (You'll see why soon) that I had bought as one of three "extra eggs" when ordering Araucana eggs. I will try to update this thread once in awhile with pictures and updates.
It started in early in April and I had finally got my incubator, turned it on and made sure it worked as it should. I had ordered my first batch of eggs: 4 Araucana (Or Easter egger, but they are rumpless and Easter eggers are pretty much non existant in my country) eggs and 3 Houdan eggs and they had arrived safely, had "rested" for 24 hours and were ready.
I had a pretty good hatch: only 2 of the eggs were infertile/didn't develop (1 Araucana and 1 Houdan) and the rest of the Araucanas hatched without any problems. The same could not be said about the Houdans...The first one pipped, but then stayed still for an awful long time. Having read that's normal, I didn't think much about it. When it had gone over 24 hours, I decided to intervene. It was already dead
The other Houdan had also pipped and I tried my hardest to think of what I had learnt from the internet and wait. 12-24 hours went and after already having lost one, I did a mistake...I helped it pre-maturely. (Please, remember to avoid helping a chick unless you're certain it actuall needs help, what I did was stupid and could've killed it, which I admit!)
I made sure to be as careful as I could, slowly removing parts of the shell and then leave it in the incubator. Soon, my paranoia and low patience got the best of me and I continued. It seemed to be fine and dandy, but then I noticed: The poor baby was bleeding like crazy!
I remembered what I had read and pressed paper against where it was bleeding, hoping for the best.
As paper after paper got filled with blood, I was losing hope, but soon the bleeding calmed down.
The poor thing was weak, if it was from bloodloss or from earlier, when it tried to hatch on it's own, I don't know.
I put it back into incubator, distraught over the fact that I may just have killed it.
Here's the inside of it's shell compared to one of the others:
Fortunately, it was fine and soon it turned out to be one of most active of the chicks, running, chirping and just being, well, a chick! I named it Fortuna, after the Roman godess of luck.
After a few week, it and it's Araucana "siblings" moved into a larger cage together with another group that was about a week or two older: a silkie (taken by the fox
), a plymouth rock (Got really ill) and three Dark Cornish (All alive, happy and active), which went great and they got along perfectly.But then, at about 9 weeks old, another thing happened to it: We had a very small old cabinet as a "coop" for them (it was warm outside, so we didn't need anything more complex) and while it wasn't overly heavy or big, it was still large and heavy compared to the tiny chicks.
So it all seemed fine, until disaster struck: The cabinet fell over and landed on Fortuna and some of the others (Fortuna was struck the worst, though). Amazingly, they all made it out alive and relatively fine, but Fortuna seemed a bit weak and we were worried it would have internal injures
(Mom told me about it, as I weren't home and I've moved out, so I only see the chickens once in awhile, either way...)Thankfully, all of them recovered and are all back to normal. So Fortuna may only be about 10 weeks old now (soon 11 weeks old), but already been through stuff! We've also made sure the cabinet wouldn't fall on them again, of course.
I always thought one of the the Araucanas (one of my favourite breeds) would
turn out to be a favourite and the Houdan would just be a bonus...Boy, was I wrong
...Now, I just hope it's a pullet and not a cockerel, but according to some very helpful people on this site, it so far seems likely to be a pullet. So let's hope they're right!
Thank you for reading!
Her crest is quite rounded and there's no red in what litte you can see of her comb. There's still a risk that I'm wrong, but so far, so good!
