Hands on hatching and help

[WVduckchick]

Baths for the chickens tomorrow!  I am going back to hatching ducks -still stressful and difficult but at least they bath themselves. 

If you don't want to wash them, as long as their face is clear, and it's not rock hard and hampering movement, they will usually rub it off themselves. May take a couple days, or sometimes I'll even give them a little dry massage, but it will eventually come off. For me, it depends on how bad it is.

 

[cheezenkwackers]

What WV meant was, before doing a zip you should open just the air cell, check the internal membrane in there for blood vessels, and then if it all looked good you can proceed to removing more shell from there. It's always important to do that first. Even if you open up the whole air cell, as long as you leave the internal membrane over the chick, they won't push out early.

Once you start the zip, you are committed to a totally assisted hatch. After you zip you need to pull the shell off and get the chick out. You don't want to leave it zipped but still in the shell with membrane intact or like she said, it can exhaust itself and die.

But it all turned out well and it looks like your chicks are doing good, so no worries

If you open from the pip hole, work your way toward removing the air cell end. Slowly. Watching for any active blood vessels or bleeding. Once you get the air cell end open enough for the chick to breathe comfortably, moisten any exposed membrane, and carefully run the qtip between the chick and the membrane. Avoid the eye! If positioned correctly, the eye should be at about 10oclock position, if looking straight at the fat end of the egg.

Don't pull them out of the shell. Once the entire end is gone, they will either push right out on their own, or if they dont, they need a little more time. Sit it back in the Bator and wait.

The damp paper towels seem logical, but I think most of us feel that it can cause a chill instead of helping the moisture.

The others may or may not have the same issue. It's a toss up.

But I do commend you for jumping in when you felt it was necessary! Glad it all turned out for the best.

Thank you for clarifying! I copied all of the instructions in case I need them again (hopefully not tomorrow). I also really appreciated all the replies when I needed them. I was trying not to stress out in front of several classes of high schoolers. Y'all were awesome!

 

[Erka97]

Hi, I'm pretty new to this site but not to hatching eggs. I'd like to share some of my most interesting recent hatching stories, as this seems to be the thread for that and my own thread got buried quickly. I've been hatching various eggs for about 10 years now, since I was a child. For the first maybe 8 years of that my best hatches were from broody ducks, whose babies I'd steal because the fish in my pond love to eat them. My first incubator, a styrofoam thing which my grandfather bought from the store and then gave to me when it disappointed him, was known as the "Incubator of Death" because everything I put into it either didn't hatch or died within a week of hatching. I later learned that the problem was likely humidity, I was following the incubator instructions and basically drowning the poor chicks. Since then, I incubate dry most of the time except for a little water sometimes at hatch time and my hatch rates have been so much better.. I also learned how to deal with unabsorbed yolks. Anyway, on to my more interesting chicks; [Sorry, the computer did something weird to the font and I can't seem to fix it.]
The Story of Ductor:
A few years ago, I was given a large group of ducks to add to my flock by a neighbor of mine. I believe they were Muscovies, as they had odd fleshy areas around their faces, and they were mostly black and white or brown and white. I referred to them as "Florida ducks" as they are the breed I had seen wandering wild in Florida on visits to that state. Besides them, I also had a few peking ducks that had managed to avoid being eaten. Breeding season arrived, and one of the ducks decided to build her nest in the chicken shed, where our chickens are locked in at night to avoid predators and let out again in the mornings. She gathered up her eggs, over a dozen including the ones I'd find and add, and sat on them dutifully for about 28 days without incident with the chickens. Over that time, I would check on the eggs while she was out feeding, numbering them and checking their growth.
One morning, though, I opened the door to find a single duckling laying on the floor, out of the nest, cold and bleeding, but alive. I can only assume that the chickens saw the egg and decided to eat it -Those ones did have a bad habit of eating many of the eggs- but then were surprised and stopped when they found a duck rather than tasty yolk inside. Anyway, the baby duck was rushed into the house to be warmed and cared for, as I had noticed in addition to a few wounds it also had not absorbed its yolk sac, which had then been punctured by the chickens. I clamped off the yolk sac remains -I have a surgical kit because I am the unofficial vet for the chickens and ducks and even sometimes other animals on my farm- and removed them, then stopped the bleeding and held a tiny portion of the duck's intestine that had failed to go into its body along with the yolk in until it stayed, then sat her [later discovered to be a hen] in the incubator to recover with the occasional offerings of food and water since she was deprived of the usual yolk nutrition. To my surprise, she lived and did fine, while the other ducklings from her nest hatched and were soon eaten by the local wildlife . She was known simply as "The Duck" for a while, which morphed into "The Ductor" or just Ductor as I had just gotten into watching Doctor Who, and she went with me everywhere as she loved to follow me and cried whenever I was out of sight. She grew well and soon became a beautiful white duck, apparently one of the peking's eggs that I had added to the nest, and with that she began spending her days outside with the other ducks, while I brought her in most nights.
Her next round of misfortune came one night when I came home and went to get her, I could not find her in the smaller pond where she usually liked to stay. Worried, I went up to the bigger pond to look and heard splashing; It was her, struggling against being dragged under by some pond creature [probably a snapping turtle]. I jumped in and saved her, leaving behind my shoe and a good size chunk of her upper leg/side area. Yet again she was brought inside to be patched up, this time disinfected and bandaged -It was scary, I could see her muscles and one of the larger blood vessels of her leg-, then kept inside to heal. Again, she made a full recovery [Although during this time I also tripped over her, as she didn't seem to get that following means one stays BEHIND the human; the vet I took her to was greatly amused by her name and declared she was just bruised and would be fine in a few days, which she was.] Eventually her bandages were removed and she went back to spending her days out on the pond, and nights in her lovely blue sleeping bin in the house, away from predators.
Over time, however, it got harder and harder to bring her in at night. It went from her waiting for us on the porch to go in, to us spending hours per night standing in the pond while trying to catch her. She had decided she would be staying outside with the big ducks now, and while it made me sad I allowed her to... She stayed around until winter, when all of my ducks slowly disappeared. I assume something ate them. Poor Ductor; she was easily the best, though not the most fortunate, duck I've had so far.

In addition I've hatched a goose egg with a dent in in [collision with another egg 1 week before hatch, while being taken from a broody goose nest to avoid having the babies eaten by predators], which was fine but had to be held in its egg because it wanted to escape before its yolk was fully inside. There was also a chicken egg I incubated that was discovered to have its brain growing on the outside of its skull -died around day 7-. I also had four hatch successfully out the wrong end of their eggs.

The story of Sponge:
I recently got a new, big incubator, so of course I put a bunch of chicken eggs into it to see how it'd do. Fast forward to day 21, and most of the chicks had already hatched, with just a few left. About two had drowned in the shell.. Another one seemed still alive but did not seem to have pipped internally. I made a small hole over the air cell to see how it was doing and immediately noticed that no beak was visible, and what's more the blood vessels looked darkened -a sign of low oxygen. It was rescue time.. I slowly chipped away at the shell and membrane, letting air in while avoiding as many of the blood vessels as possible. The chick, later named Sponge, was in a rather twisted position with her face against the lower side of the shell. I cleared the membrane from around her face and she started breathing, even giving a few weak peeps. I uncurled her from the egg to keep her from sticking while her yolk absorbed, setting her on the closest solid object -a clean sponge- so she wouldn't fall into the slats of the shelf of my incubator. For the next few hours I could only watch as she lay on her sponge, breathing but doing nothing else. Her eyes were closed and she looked so sad that my mother thought she was dead at first and my brother's friend suggested I put her out of her misery. Meanwhile, her yolk absorbed and she rested, and within the next few days she was able to move around. While she stayed in the incubator turned chicken NICU, the other chicks were moved to my fish tank brooder, besides one which had spraddle legs and had to have a brace made of twist-ties for a day before joining the other in the brooder -it had been put in the brooder, but then had to be cooled with water since it had nearly overheated because it could not walk away from the lamp. Sponge's eyes finally opened, though she seemed to prefer to keep them closed against the light at first, but one of her legs was very weak so she would flip over on her back anytime she tried to walk. She had to be watched closely when she was given water because she would fall in. She could also barely eat on her own. Over the next days she strengthened and became rather attached to me, eventually joining the others in the brooder when I wasn't around to hold her. She stayed with them until they moved up to the outside brooder, around which time an unknown disease somehow got in, killing several of the chicks, and the remaining chicks, including Sponge, found a small hole in the brooder and escaped into the cold. I found and returned as many as I could, but Sponge was very cold as she was always the smallest chick. She could barely move and acted sick, so I brought her in and fed her a scrambled egg to add to her strength. I kept her in the incubator again for a few days until she got back to normal. She was then placed in with my pet cockatiel, Shadow, who quite likes chicks and doesn't mind living with random other birds too much, though he does like to steal their food and shriek at them for no reason when I'm trying to sleep. That is where she still lived, while she grew into a big, beautiful young hen. She's still in the cockatiel cage now, though now that it's warm out I plan to put her outside to hunt for food with the other chickens soon.

My latest hatch was the "experiment chicks," a batch of seven which I was incubating in part to see how they handle various mistakes such as being overly turned or turned the same way for many turns.. I had one die early on.. And then I did an experiment to see how they handled cold. I had three eggs out for 3, 5, and 9 hours respectively on about day 9 or 10. All were fine and returned to the incubator, which I found impressive. I also accidentally dropped the incubator lid on one of the eggs on day 15, so I had to seal the hole with hot glue and plastic [apparently that works]. Yesterday was hatch day, and I had three successfully hatch out. "Crash" the egg with the hole in it got close, but he managed to get stuck while zipping in the middle of the night and by the time I woke up to free him he was too weak and died shortly after; looking back I should have freed him the previous night despite still having some blood in his vessels, as I've never lost any egg to blood loss but I've lost several now to getting stuck. I had another egg that was malpositioned, much like Sponge only this time I had a long day at school and did not get home in time to rescue it. The nine hour egg also died, however probably not from the cooling since it survived at least a week after that. It looked normal, at least, just dead.

Currently I am also incubating three emu eggs. They're driving me insane because there's absolutely no way to tell if they're alive at all... I'm the person who comes home and candles the eggs every night when it gets dark to see how they're doing, starting on day 4. Try to candle an emu egg? Nothing but darkness. Their shells are a very pretty green, but it's also the worst thing about them. Add to that the fact that they take nearly two months to hatch, my incubator got unplugged for six hours early in their development -hence the experiment with the chickens-, and my incubator had decided to go crazy with the temperatures [between 90 and 100 and I can't seem to get it to be constant for more than a day], and this is officially the most stress inducing hatch I've had so far -Including the ones where everything died. I've been listening to them with a stethescope for the past couple of days [today is day 21] and I think I might hear something, but I might also be going insane.. Only ten to twenty more days until they might start wiggling though, assuming they feel like doing so.

 

[newchickmama91]

Ok so it's day 16 for my coturnix quail eggs one has pipped but I can see this bloody liquid coming out. It looks like watery blood it's not like deep red. It's worrying me now anyone know what this is?

 

[WVduckchick]

Ok so it's day 16 for my coturnix quail eggs one has pipped but I can see this bloody liquid coming out. It looks like watery blood it's not like deep red. It's worrying me now anyone know what this is?

It may have pipped through a blood vessel.

 

[newchickmama91]

It may have pipped through a blood vessel.

Is that dangerous? It's looking like it's getting dry from what I can see but I don't wanna open the bator. It's still moving about no chirping though

 

[WVduckchick]

Is that dangerous? It's looking like it's getting dry from what I can see but I don't wanna open the bator. It's still moving about no chirping though

Hard to tell. Depends if it did hit one, if it's an active one, it could bleed out, but more than likely, it's just an inactive one, and no problem. How long ago did it pip?

And a pic may help, I could be guessing totally wrong.

But as long as it is reactive and moving, I wouldn't worry too much yet. Just keep an eye on it.

 

[newchickmama91]

Hard to tell. Depends if it did hit one, if it's an active one, it could bleed out, but more than likely, it's just an inactive one, and no problem. How long ago did it pip?

And a pic may help, I could be guessing totally wrong.

But as long as it is reactive and moving, I wouldn't worry too much yet. Just keep an eye on it.

I would say about 5 hours ago. I'll try and get a pic without opening the bator I've only just got the humidity to stay high so don't want to chance that. I don't want it hatching just yet as I'm sure it still has yolk to absorb

 

[newchickmama91]

Went up to try and take a photo and it had passed. Much more blood had came out so it must of pipped through a large vein and bled out. More to go hopefully these wait a day or two to be ready to hatch instead of rushing to get out!

 

[thendara]

Hello lovely egg hatchers,
Pardon my instruction in this stream, i was being assisted by /RavynFallen earlier today and she suggested i consult this thread for further help!
I have tried reading through everything but am in immediate need of a little guidance. Last night we had a pip at eleven pm (so 12 hours ago) this morning there was a lot of chirping this was a pip at the wrong end of the shell- breech and did manage to break through completely but the entry was flappy and drying.i was advised to open the hole up and check to see the bill wasn't being obstructed. I moistened the area with coconut oil (on tannish membrane directly around hole) so its been about a hour and a half since we last hassled the shell- i was concerned a flap of membrane was obstructing the nares. So breathing chirping when spoken to -
I read on a post about using the coconut oil on the inside of the shell- should i do this? My humidity is about 78-84 percent should i give the little guy many hours to make his own move (8-?) the membrane looks very leathery but I don't want to press the issue please any simple step by step to get this lil lady or lad our would be appreciated !!!
Thank you in advance this is a truely helpful forum!
Kindest,
Thendara