French frogs

I skipped over all of Thursday...

Last night and today were rough. While I was hopping planes and running through airports, DH said he couldn't get the hatcher over 93 degrees, and it kept dropping. When I got home in the wee hours, the temp was down to 89. He had turned the thermostat all the way up, but it had given up the ghost. There were 7 poults hatched, all were wet, blue, curled up and shaking. He had moved the first three to the brooder when they were dry, but they were all on their backs with no motor control. I set the Eco 20 up fast and moved the rest of the eggs and wet poults there, but they were cold and since they were pipped and some partially zipped, they were compromised by the move as well as the cold.

The white poult died overnight, along with several of the unhatched. This morning the eggs were back up to temp and I let them try to hatch, but they were shrink wrapped so once their voices were strong and loud I broke them out. I still have a few with balance issues, one with hip issues, and one didn't make it (bleeder at the navel) but the others show great improvement.

I spent the afternoon refitting the old GQF proportional thermostat with an old fashioned wafer...but the first two wafers were bad, the first one went up to 133F and never expanded. No babies inside, fortunately. It looks like the third and final wafer is reasonably accurate.

I thought I was done hatching turkeys but I lost half of them already, so I set another 36.
 
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Yeah, especially for the babies.

I also am positive now that the feed from our local mill has sufficient nutrition for producing eggs, but not quality eggs for hatching. Next year I will be feeding my turkey flock better rations.
 

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