I'm just going through some bad hatching/chicken luck at the moment! They do say that bad luck comes in 3s!
Firstly, my broody who was due in 4 days was off her nest when I checked... she had escaped her cage and is roosting up in the roof with all the other birds!!
Her eggs were cold too. I candled them and 3 out of the 4 were no good! The one that was good... is probably dead as I can't see any movement. I will stick it in the incubator (which is on as I will be setting eggs tomorrow) and see what it looks like tomorrow.
Wonder why she hopped off the nest? Maybe she just knew that they had gone bad?
Second, I found ANOTHER one of my isa brown laying hens dead! They just keep dying but none of my other chooks die! (I think they are old hens... I got them as ex-layers from an egg farm).
so if you add those to the death of my chick.... I'd say I have had my three stroke of bad luck! .... but then there was my BAD hatch in general (started with 17 eggs..... 2 hatched, 1 had died since hatch - leaves me 1 out of 17!!!)
Oh well. Depending on how many eggs I set.... I could have another 85 chances in the incubator tomorrow!
plus the 17 or so under my other broody! Based on my strike rate so far... I need only 7 out of 106 chicks set to survive and then I'll be doing better than my last hatch!
and on a better note (one of my mottos is always end on a good note!!)...
my lonesome little chick is doing sooo great! Such a good little chick. Doesn't peep all day and night. It is doing so well considering it is all alone!
Hope everyone else is having better luck than me!