Well frack...
That's about all that comes to mind at the moment.
My girlfriend and I decided to incubate our first batch of chicks, and 8 days ago(on day 18), most of them hatched. Then on day 19 and 20, a few stragglers hatched. Day 21 nothing, and day 22 I saw a pip. Because it was the last egg that seemed to be pipping for a day or 2, I decided to help it, so I could get in a new batch of chicks. We had a hatch rate of 26/30, so I figured that wasn't that bad.
The chick seemed fine at first, but after a while, we noticed it wasn't growing very good, always under the hotplate, we never really saw it out with the others. After a few days, the growth difference was very significant(he was 1/4th the size of the other chicks) and we noticed he had a pasty butt, we had to clean it off every 3 hours from that moment on, it wasn't getting any better.
My girlfriend really hates the idea of killing animals so, we decided to try and help it for a few days, see if it could recover. We put it in a nursery box with a hot lamp instead of a hotplate so we could monitor it better. It didn't get worse, it was slowly growing(the other chicks were growing a lot faster though).
This morning, I decided to cull it. We did our research and as far as we could tell, we already stretched it too long, this chick could have made it, but it would probably have needed our intensive care for the rest of its life(we noticed it had a pretty obvious malfunction in its vent, it didn't form properly)
Well, I had to vent this story. I didn't think culling a chick would be this much harder for me than a mature rooster is...
That's about all that comes to mind at the moment.
My girlfriend and I decided to incubate our first batch of chicks, and 8 days ago(on day 18), most of them hatched. Then on day 19 and 20, a few stragglers hatched. Day 21 nothing, and day 22 I saw a pip. Because it was the last egg that seemed to be pipping for a day or 2, I decided to help it, so I could get in a new batch of chicks. We had a hatch rate of 26/30, so I figured that wasn't that bad.
The chick seemed fine at first, but after a while, we noticed it wasn't growing very good, always under the hotplate, we never really saw it out with the others. After a few days, the growth difference was very significant(he was 1/4th the size of the other chicks) and we noticed he had a pasty butt, we had to clean it off every 3 hours from that moment on, it wasn't getting any better.
My girlfriend really hates the idea of killing animals so, we decided to try and help it for a few days, see if it could recover. We put it in a nursery box with a hot lamp instead of a hotplate so we could monitor it better. It didn't get worse, it was slowly growing(the other chicks were growing a lot faster though).
This morning, I decided to cull it. We did our research and as far as we could tell, we already stretched it too long, this chick could have made it, but it would probably have needed our intensive care for the rest of its life(we noticed it had a pretty obvious malfunction in its vent, it didn't form properly)
Well, I had to vent this story. I didn't think culling a chick would be this much harder for me than a mature rooster is...
Glad you are able to vent to peeps who truly understand, thank you for sharing. 
